Textbook rental site Chegg.com just announced the acquisition of online homework helper Cramster.com. Cramster presently claims about a million members, the majority of which Vator News assumes don't pay anything for the service. "The default for registering users, a free account on Cramster lets one look up solutions to odd-numbered questions in textbooks," the news source writes. "Free users that want an answer to a specific question quickly must either pay a one-time fee of $4.99 for a response in less than eight hours or $1.99 for a response in less than 24 hours." If users choose to pay …

Be they successful efforts or not, why does Google devote so much energy to acquisitions? Speed and efficiency, says Susan Wojcicki, SVP of product development at the search giant. Naturally. "It's hard to assemble a team and organize as quickly as you want in these situations," Wojcicki tells The New York Times. "Finding the right people, interviewing them and hiring them takes time. Companies [and by that we assume she means Google] are willing to pay a premium to be in the market right now." Regarding Google's bid to buy mobile ad firm AdMob -- rather than build a …

By all appearances, TechCrunch has posted a screenshot of Google's highly-anticipated, top-secret social project, which, last time we checked, was being called "Google +1." "It's a toolbar that exists along the top of Google's properties -- in this case, Google News," TechCrunch explains. "There's a Share button, a place for a Google account icon, and a Google username." And? "Next to it is a numerical count -- it's not clear what this is for just yet. (Maybe a share count?)" And?! "And next to that is an options menu." That's it?! A toolbar with a share button?! Well, "One …

How is Google planning to reshape the tablet market? Like its broader mobile play, with a liberal partnership policy, openness, and agility, according to Andy Rubin, VP of engineering at Google and the chief architect behind Android. Put another way, the secret to Android's success is its "newness," Rubin told attendees of the D: Dive Into Mobile conference on Monday, according to The New York Times. "We can adapt and be more agile," Rubin said. "It's a clean slate." During a keynote discussion, Rubin showed off a Motorola prototype running Android …

Alan Eustace, Google's SVP of engineering and research, calls China the "heart" of the Internet's future, reports Bloomberg. And while political scientists and economists have been saying as much for years, the sentiment is striking coming from Google, considering its rocky relationship with the Asian nation. Because of China's great promise, Google has every intention of invading the country. "Maps and display advertising are areas where Google can expand and innovate in China, even without a search page in the world's largest Internet market," writes Bloomberg, citing comments by Eustace. In March, Google shut its Chinese search service and …

Though the deal appears dead, that Google was reportedly willing to drop $6 billion on Groupon is reason enough for some to cry "bubble!" If Google had acquired Groupon, the deal would have been the largest for a venture-backed company since 1999 and the third largest acquisition on record, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. "For anyone on the fence about whether today's sky-high valuations of tech companies are more than a little reminiscent of the excesses of the dot-com era, this might tip you over," writes The Wall Street Journal. According to VentureSource, the only two acquisitions larger than …

Topping off a series of recent outages, hot blogging platform Tumblr went down for nearly 24 hours this weekend. As VentureBeat notes, and the startup admits, Tumblr has been experiencing growing pains for some time as it tries to keep up with rapid traffic growth. "While you might feel like you've gotten used to seeing errors on Tumblr recently, know that this is absolutely unacceptable to our team, and unacceptable for a platform determined to be the best place in the world for your creative expression," the company said in a statement. "Frankly, keeping up with growth has presented …

Likely making some new enemies in high places, Facebook on Monday said it would not block WikiLeaks from publishing updates on its platform. "The WikiLeaks Facebook Page does not violate our content standards nor have we encountered any material posted on the page that violates our policies," Andrew Noyes, Facebook's D.C. based Manager of Public Policy Communications, said in a statement to ReadWriteWeb. Under pressure from US government officials, top tech companies like Amazon and Paypal have ceased supporting the rogue Web site. In particular, Senator Joe Lieberman has explicitly asked all US corporations to stop doing business …

Hoping to improve user experience both on- and off-line, Google is about to relaunch it Google Maps for Mobile product. The new Google Maps will include offline map support for users who are out of cell phone range, which, according to GigaOm is "a blessing for subway riders and cell phone subscribers in sketchy coverage areas." Google Maps will also do more rendering on the phone itself - as apposed to in "the cloud" -- which is expected to dramatically improve the zooming, presentation and reorienting of maps on devices. More broadly, "The improvements suggest Google understands …

Rumors of an AOL/Yahoo tie-up have recently quieted, but that doesn't mean a deal of immense proportions isn't on the way. Citing sources, Reuters reports that AOL is "actively exploring" a Yahoo merger, which would first require a broad company restructuring. Yahoo, according to sources, isn't even aware of AOL's plans. "In many respects," Reuters explains, "the latest discussions are derivative of plans contemplated in 2008 and 2009 before Time Warner spun off AOL to Time Warner shareholders." At the time, in essence, AOL's display ad business would have been merged with Yahoo's.