Are you tired of seeing that big fundraising banner ad at the top of every Wikipedia page? Then you have some good news coming your way.

The Wikimedia Foundation is approaching their goal, and when the ads finally do stop running you will have Sergey Brin to thank for it. The Google co-founder and his wife Anne Wojiciki have pledged $500,000 to help keep Wikipedia alive.

The donation is being made by the Brin-Wojiciki Foundation, a charitable organisation the couple founded. The grant will go to fund Wikipedia as well as other WikiMedia sites, the organisation said in a statement.

"This grant is an important endorsement of the Wikimedia Foundation and its work, and I hope it will send a signal as we kick off our annual fundraising campaign this week," Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner said.

"This is how Wikipedia works: people use it, they like it, and so they help pay for it, to keep it freely available for themselves and for everyone around the world."

The donation could also help save Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales from incurring further embarassment. As web comic The Oatmeal points out, the foundation's banner ad uses the rather unfortunate placement of Wales' face directly above the page's subject line. Depending on the subject being viewed, this can be a bit bad for Jimmy.

Jokes aside, the money is going to a very worthy cause. Wikipedia has grown into an incredibly useful source for informal research, and as a non-profit project it relies entirely on donations from its user community. Sergey Brin might have gotten the fundraiser to its goal, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't donate a few pounds if you are able to.

Google's latest transparency report included some interesting notes on the company's YouTube video policy.

Google complied with more than 100 content removal requests from law enforcement groups, but also denied several requests, including a number of videos that allegedly exposed police brutality and defamed the police.

Conflict between police and the public is nothing new, but the issue could become a hot topic as the Occupy protests drag on and police around the country commence crackdown efforts.

Encounters between law enforcement and protesters are all but inevitible and, with video recording now a common feature on mobile handsets, much of the crackdown will find its way onto YouTube.

This could raise an interesting conflict between Google, YouTube and law enforcement groups. Police will be in no mood to have video of officers clashing with citizens circling the web, particularly with tension between protestors and police already high.

Google, meanwhile, could have a delicate balancing act to perform. The company doesn't want to be seen as party to incitement to violence against police, but has a core set of principles to uphold, particularly empowering free speech and the rights of individuals.

If YouTube is going to pride itself on helping citizens spread word of protests and police actions in other parts of the world, Google is obliged to allow the same freedom here.

Google's recent $12.5bn deal to acquire Motorola Mobility will bring the Android maker a number of new properties, most notably an in-house handset and tablet maker with an extensive history in the hardware market.

But the acquisition may also yield valuable intellectual property which some believe will play a pivotal role in Google's legal feud over patents related to Android.

Patent lawyer David Mixon suggested in an interview with Bloomberg that the star of the Google/Motorola deal may be a collection of 18 Motorola patents which could put Google in a stronger position in its legal dealings with the likes of Apple and Microsoft.

Mixon suggested that the patents are of particular value because they cover core components such as touch-screen hardware and wireless antennas.

Google cited Motorola's patent holdings as a motivating factor in the deal. In an era when every major vendor seems to be taking the other to court, patent portfolios are considered as good as currency in helping to negotiate licensing settlements.

According to some in the industry, however, Motorola's patent holdings may be overstated. Intellectual property expert Florian Mueller has previously noted that Apple and Microsoft have filed their own patent suits against Motorola.

HP grabbed the headlines on Thursday when it announced a major corporate redesign which will include a spinoff of its PC division and the end of its smartphone and tablet lines.

The company admitted that a large factor in the decision was the failure of the TouchPad tablet, which has been a dud in the market. Reports indicate that retailers can't get their TouchPads back to HP fast enough.

But there might be a bit more at work here. And it may have to do with Google.

When HP announced that it was killing its webOS hardware division, the company also went out of its way to point out that the software itself is still alive, at least for the time being. Some industry watchers believe that HP could be looking to poach a few Android vendors.

Shortly after HP announced its new business plan, V3 spoke with analyst Rob Enderle who had an interesting take on the decision. Enderle suggested that the move may not be a death sentence for webOS, but rather a power play.

Enderle explained that, with Google getting its own hardware outfit in Motorola Mobility, Android handset makers suddenly find themselves with a new competitor that enjoys a significant advantage in developing the operating system as well.

With handset makers potentially souring on what they see as a stacked deck for Google, Enderle thinks HP could try to entice companies to webOS.

"They will also offer indemnification, something most of these vendors couldn't get from Google and desperately wanted thanks to the Apple litigation and Microsoft royalties," Enderle said.

"Suddenly we have a new major operating system player, and it couldn't have happened without Google buying Motorola."

There are other indications that HP could look to license webOS as well. Enderle noted that HP chief executive Léo Apotheker made his name in the software market, and HP made its software operations a big part of its planned rebuild.

So if HP is indeed planning to pitch webOS to third-party vendors, the big question may be just how solid is the platform? With the backing of companies experienced in building cutting-edge handsets and tablets, could webOS take off and perhaps even pose a threat to Android down the road?

Eric Schmidt has agreed to testify in front of a US Senate subcommittee investigation into whether Google distorts the market and engages in anti-competitive behaviour.

The executive chairman of Google, who handed over the chief executive role to co-founder Larry Page in January, will testify in front of the committee after repeated requests from senators Herb Kohl and Michael Lee that Page or Schmidt testify.

"A top Google executive will finally face serious questioning about the company's behaviour," said John M. Simpson, director of Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project.

"Schmidt was CEO for the past decade, so it's appropriate he be called. Now that Larry Page has taken over that position, he should also be held accountable and be required to testify as well.

"Given Google's inconsistencies between actions and statements in the past, we trust Schmidt's testimony will be given under oath."

The investigation follows similar probes by the Federal Trade Commission, the state of Texas, the European Commission and competition authorities in France and Italy.

The 2011 Google I/O developer's conference may be over, but here are some of the highlights in picture form.

Crowds started gathering quickly for the opening keynote at the Moscone West Center in San Francisco

Google kept the crowds waiting with a colourful countdown before the opening event

Over 600,000 people a day tuned in online from outside the venue to watch the keynotes

Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president of social, explained Android's plans for Apple with a simple graphic image.

Google also showed off its new Music cloud stroage system. The web site allows up to 20,000 songs to be recorded and played back to any compatible computer

The company will ensure that Google Music has the same look and feel on smartphones

The logo for the new Ice Cream Sandwich build of Android, due out by the end of the year. The new code will unify tablet and smartphone operating systems back into one 

Google showed the first pictures of a 12in laptop Samsung will release next month for use with Chrome OS

Acer too had hardware ready for next month's launch, with this 11in unit.

Sergey Brin was in a pensive mood at one of the breakout sessions

Among the systems on display was a walk-in viewing room where delegates could 'fly' around Google Earth

One of the more out-there ideas was an Android-enabled exercise machine that allows you to monitor progress and calories burned, and to play games while sweating off the pounds

The final thing every conference attendee needed was power, and thankfully there were sockets (and seating) to be had.

After much competition Kansas City has been chosen as the first US location for Google's foray into building networks.

Last year the search giant announced it would build 1Gbit/s fibre optic broadband networks in US metropolitan areas. A test network was set up in Stanford, conveniently down the road from Google's headquarters, and today the company announced that Kansas would be the first test-bed for a major network rollout next year.

"Over the past decade, the jump from dial-up to broadband has led to streaming online video, digital music sales, videoconferencing over the web and countless other innovations that have transformed communication and commerce," Google blogged.

"We can't wait to see what new products and services will emerge as Kansas City moves from traditional broadband to ultra high-speed fibre optic connections."

The choice is a good one. Kansas City is a split city, as it's sited on the border between Missouri and the state which bears its name. Google can see how the two states react to the new network on a user basis and from a legal perspective.

The decision will go hard for a community not too far from the city, however. Topeka, a few hundred miles down the flat roads of the state, actually changed its name for a day to Google in order to get the search firm's attention. A cute PR move, but ultimately fruitless.

Sleuth thinks Google's reasoning on this move is clear but slightly muddled. The more people use the internet the more revenue will come to Google is the thinking, but the company isn't really a network operator.

That said, having this kind of fibre network that's open is a positive step. Too much of the US broadband infrastructure is with uncompetitive little cartels, and an open network could spawn real innovation.

It's one of the perks of working at Google that the company stages occasional talks by notable celebrities.

Past appearances have included the US president (when he was still a candidate), academics like Noam Chomsky and, on a lighter note, the creator of XKCD Randall Munroe. Yesterday the guest speaker was Lady Gaga.

Google sourced 54,000 questions for the pop diva from all over the world and she generally wowed the audience, and in particular her host Marissa Mayer who spent most of the session looking star-struck.

One person in the audience told Sleuth he came out of the session with a lot more respect for the artiste than he had going in. You can see the whole video of her performance here.

Lady Gaga is no stranger to the technology world. She has signed deals with Monster cables and Polaroid to promote and develop products, one of an increasing number of celebrities to court, and be courted by, Silicon Valley.

She is certainly outpaced by will.i.am, who has presented at three tech conferences in the past year and has got himself appointed creative director at Intel.

The granddaddy of them all, however, is Bill Clinton, who has been giving pretty much the same speech at technology conferences for the past year, with payments rumoured to be as high as $50,000 a time. Nice work if you can get it.