By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc's revenue grew 15 percent in the fourth quarter but fell short of Wall Street's target on declining online ad prices and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. Shares of Google edged up 0.1 percent to $510.66 in extended trading after an initial dip on the news. Google's advertising revenue has come under pressure as more consumers access its online services on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, where ad rates are typically lower. The growing popularity of mobile devices has made No. 1 social network Facebook Inc a greater threat in the battle for advertisers.

After years of giving investors the cold shoulder, Amazon.com Inc is starting to warm up to Wall Street. The No. 1 U.S. online retailer was unusually forthcoming during its fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday, saying it will break out results this year, for the first time, for its fast-growing cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services. This was a shift in tone for Amazon, which typically refuses to disclose more than the most basic details, including how many members belong to its $99-a-year Prime program or if its wide-ranging investments are paying off. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos has deflected criticism of his spending by emphasizing that he takes a much longer view than most investors.

By Paul Carsten and John Ruwitch BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's shares fell more than 10 percent early on Thursday, wiping more than $25 billion of market value after third quarter revenue at the Chinese internet giant fell short of analysts' expectations. Revenue at the world's largest e-commerce company rose 40 percent to $4.22 billion in the December quarter, short of the average analyst estimate of $4.45 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Earnings per share (EPS), calculated to exclude one-off and extraordinary items, beat estimates of $0.75, coming in at $0.81.

By Deepa Seetharaman SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc reported stronger than expected earnings on Thursday as North American sales surged during the crucial holiday quarter, sending its shares up 9 percent. The online commerce giant, which gets about a third of its revenue from October to December, reported earnings of 45 cents a share, trouncing Wall Street's average prediction for 17 cents. The sharply higher profit was a welcome surprise for Wall Street, which has clamored for Amazon to come to grips with its growing investments in everything from Hollywood-style television productions, and cloud computing and consumer devices with mixed success. In a conference call with reporters, Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said Amazon is putting "a lot more energy around making sure we get great productivity around our various fixed and variable assets." Even so, few analysts expect Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos will rein in his spending significantly this year, especially as Amazon beefs up its $99-a-year Prime membership program, which offers standard two-day shipping, streaming video and unlimited photo storage among other perks.

Jolla is taking a second crack at its Indiegogo campaign that crowdfunded its first tablet into existence.

Jay Z is making a play in the music streaming business. The 45-year-old rapper and entrepeneur is buying Swedish tech company Aspiro for 464 million Swedish crowns ($56 million) in cash. Aspiro currently runs a pair of music streaming services: the ad-free WiMP and the high-definition add-on Tidal.

Finnish tech company Jolla has re-opened funding for its first ever tablet on Indiegogo with an improved 64GB device. As well as improved storage, the updated tablet has been given a slight battery bump (4300mAh to 4450mAh), a fully laminated display, gyroscope and compass sensors. The new tablet also offers support for microSD cards up to 128GB in size, but that comes with a catch. "Due to Microsoft’s licensing limitations," says Jolla, "cards over 32GB that are formatted in Jolla Tablet will not be readable with Windows computers or devices that advertise microSDXC support (cameras/phones/tablets)." This is because Jolla hasn't licensed Microsoft exFAT for its Sailfish OS.

Plug-and-play machine learning data models that can instantly analyze information and provide intelligent insights? Yep, Microsoft has 'em, it says.

The Super Bowl is still two days away, but between Budweiser's attempts to tug on your heartstrings to sell beer, and Kim Kardashian's selfie-centrc self-parody for T-Mobile, we've already seen a number of the big budget ads that will air during the big game's commercial breaks. But it's not just the biggest brands that get to show off their most creative ads during the biggest game, as phone case maker Mophie shows.

To celebrate the upcoming Super Bowl, coupon site RetailMeNot is offering up a free Samsung HDTV. Because deflated balls always look better in high definition.>

Philipp Mattheis knew his gaming app was addictive when he realised he kept checking his phone -- hooked by the brightly-coloured reminders telling him to play again or risk falling from the triple-figure level he had reached. Yet gripping the German journalist's attention was not Candy Crush, but one of a new generation of Chinese language apps that are using tricks traditionally employed by online games to get users hooked on learning. For years the thrill of studying a new language has been tempered by the tedium of rote learning and repetition required to be truly accomplished -- particularly the case for memorising a character-based system -- but now language apps are increasingly turning to the same praise, reward and challenge format that games such as Candy Crush use to such devastating success. Shanghai-based Mattheis is an avid user of the app Memrise, which offers courses in standard Mandarin Chinese and several dialects, and has 25 million users.