The University of California at Berkeley is creating an interdisciplinary center for advanced search technologies and is in talks with search giants including Google to join the project. The project is one of many efforts at U.S. universities designed to address the explosive growth of Internet search and the complex issues that have arisen in the field.

Internet users are taking back control of their computers, and online marketers and publishers are not pleased with the results. But they don't quite know what to do about their conundrum - if it is a conundrum, since they can't even agree on that.

A fan-targeted magazine for the University of Texas football team is being held up as a groundbreaking way to market to a niche audience on the Web. The university, with the help of Host Communications, Lexington, Ky., has produced what is believed to be the first Internet-based video magazine. The Texas V-Mag will chronicle the 2005 Longhorns season.

America Online will try to heighten its appeal to users of mobile devices with its planned launch today of a Web storefront for mobile wares and of a revamped mobile version of the AOL.com portal. AOLMobile.com, which is meant to be accessed from a regular PC-based browser and not from a mobile device, will feature promotions and discounts as well as showcasing the latest mobile wares.

With more advertisers looking to enhance their online ads and Web sites with video, more agencies are looking both inside and out to find talent to bridge the gap between offline video and online rich media. The trick for agencies is finding creative people with both offline video and online media production experience, who also have the necessary skills to tell a story. Those skills are hard to find in any medium, which can make finding a candidate with the full set of skills for online video even more difficult.

Google will temporarily stop scanning copyright-protected books from libraries into its database, the company said late Thursday. The company's library project, launched in December, involves the scanning of out-of-print and copyright works so that their text can be found through the search engine's database. Google is working on the project with libraries at Stanford University, Harvard University and other schools.

The News Corp., parent of Fox Broadcasting, Fox News Channel, and the Twentieth Century Fox film studio, yesterday during its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts said it has set aside $1 billion for Internet-related acquisitions.

Procter & Gamble Co. is using its 6-million-circulation e-mail newsletter and Web site, Home Made Simple, to collect accolades that have come from thousands of Magic Eraser fans. Handled by Barefoot Advertising, Cincinnati, the plan is to develop an interactive house to suggest uses for the product P&G never even envisioned.

Premium cable network Showtime is making the first episode of its new comedy strip, Barbershop: The Series, available on MSN Video as a free online offering simultaneous with the show's linear debut.

Co-founder Jerry Yang explains the company's decision to partner with a local outfit and cede control of its own operation there .