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YouTube reportedly could launch its paid subscription service for some of its specialist video channels as early as this week.

The a la carte service, which could involve as many as 50 video channels, would allow single channel subscriptions for as little as $1.99 a month, people familiar with the plan tell The Financial Times. YouTube confirmed to CNET in February that it was developing such a service but did not indicate when it would be ready for subscribers.

A paid content platform could give the Google-owned video site another revenue stream while allowing channel operators to finance different content production, such as TV shows and movies, a source said.

YouTube declined to comment on a target launch date for the service, reiterating earlier statements on the topic that it had "nothing to announce," but that it was "looking into creating a subscription platform that could bring even more great content to YouTube for our users to enjoy and provide our creators with another vehicle to generate revenue from their content, beyond the rental and ad-supported models we offer."

Read More: YouTube reportedly near launch of paid channel subscriptions

Google has swapped in the word "Palestine" for "Palestinian Territories" on its search site for the area, prompting comments from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The word appears directly beneath the Google logo and above the search field on the site's home page, www.google.ps, and the change follows a vote by the United Nations' General Assembly late last year to grant Palestine the status of "non-member observer state."

"We're changing the name 'Palestinian Territories' to 'Palestine' across our products," Google spokesman Nathan Tyler told the BBC on Friday, in a statement. "We consult a number of sources and authorities when naming countries.

"In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, Icann [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], ISO [International Organization for Standardization], and other international organizations."

The move was received favorably by the Palestinian Authority, according to the BBC, which quoted Sabri Saidam, an advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as saying that Google's decision would prompt others to "join in and give the right definition and name for Palestine."

Read More: 'Google Palestine' label stirs both sides of Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The technorati is consumed with Google Glass. For some it's Google's way of maintaining a hold on our data for at least another decade. For most geeks it's the coolest new technology since the Macintosh, which launched nearly 30 years ago. For others, Glass is a harbinger of a world deprived of privacy or it's a way to feed the insatiable Internet with live video and audio. Or it's like the Segway, an interesting and innovative technology that will become more of a curiosity over time.

Glass could be all or some of the above. But at this point, it's a technology demo that costs $1,500. The current iteration is aptly called the Explorer edition because that's what Google is doing with the fancy eyewear -- going where others have not gone before commercially.

I say commercially because many companies and academics have been working on similar kinds of ideas, but they haven't had the money, infrastructure, legion of PhDs or scale to fund such a grand and public experiment.

Steve Mann, of the University of Toronto, and author of "Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer," has been working on wearable computers for nearly two decades.

Google has a lot of self-interest in developing and evangelizing the Glass platform -- more data, more ads -- but that's the way new innovations come to market. A person or company is willing to make the investment in a vision for whatever reasons, and engages the public to see what inspired or dead-end paths the technology takes.

Read More: Give Google Glass some breathing room

LinkedIn earned 45 cents per share on revenue of $324.7 million in the first quarter, up 72 percent from the year-ago quarter. Though the results were good enough to handily beat analyst estimates, LinkedIn's shares are down around 10 percent in after-hours trading.

The professional social network, which now counts 225 million members, posted net income of $22.6 million.

"Q1 was a strong quarter for LinkedIn with member engagement and financial results reaching record levels," CEO Jeff Weiner said in a statement. "We remained focused on delivering great products that increasingly make LinkedIn the essential daily resource for global professionals."

Wall Street, which has been totally enamored with LinkedIn since its last earnings report, was anticipating adjusted earnings per share of 31 cents and revenue of more than $317 million.

LinkedIn Talent Solutions, or the suite of tools it sells to recruiters, was once again the company's major money-maker. Revenue from Talent Solutions grew 80 percent year over year to $184.3 million, and represented 57 percent of total revenue for the first quarter. LinkedIn made $74.8 million from its marketing products and $65.6 million from paid subscriptions, up 56 percent and 73 percent respectively from the year-ago quarter.

Read More: LinkedIn beats Street, but stock takes a dive

Yahoo's app spending spree continued Thursday with the acquisition of to-do app Astrid.

The to-do-list and task management app "will continue to work as is" for the next 90 days but will not accept new premium subscriptions, Astrid CEO Jon Paris said in a company blog post announcing the acquisition. Terms of the acquisition were not revealed.

"To make future changes as easy as possible, we'll be in touch with users shortly to share how to download data," Paris wrote in the blog, adding that Yahoo would issue refunds to eligible users who have paid for annual subscriptions, Power-Pack, and Locale Plugins.

Yahoo confirmed the acquisition in a statement to CNET.

"We're excited to welcome Astrid to Yahoo!'s mobile team," the statement said. "Their background in personalized mobile experiences is impressive, and we know they will be a huge asset to as we continue to re-imagine our products."

Read More: Yahoo acquires to-do app Astrid

Google is facing a fresh round of antitrust scrutiny from the European Union, this time for Android.

The revelation emerges as the Web giant tries to resolve EU charges related to how it displays search results, which critics say favor the company's own services over those of its competitors.

European officials have been examining Google's mobile operating system independently of its search results probe, EU competition chief Joaquin Almunia told The New York Times today, declining to comment further on the new investigation.

The new complaint was filed by Fairsearch Europe, a group of companies that includes Microsoft, Nokia, and Oracle. The group accuses Google of using Android "as a deceptive way to build advantages for key Google apps in 70 percent of the smartphones shipped today," Thomas Vinje, the lead lawyer for Fairsearch Europe, told the Times.

Google's share of the smartphone OS market grew to 70.1 percent by units shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012 compared with 52.9 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to recent data from market researcher IDC.

Read More: Google now facing antitrust scrutiny in Europe over Android

Mozilla announced Wednesday that it's teaming up with Samsung to create Servo, which the companies claim will be an advanced, secure mobile Web browser that will draw its power from multicore processors.

Servo will be written in the Rust programming language that Mozilla has been working on for the last two years. It will run in devices featuring Google's Android operating system powered by ARM processors.

"Google can think of this as a shot across its bow, and it now has to think of how it can work more closely with Mozilla and other organizations that are working to advance with Web technologies and moving beyond Webkit," Jeff Orr, a senior practice director at ABI Research, told TechNewsWorld.

"I think it's great to see experimentation with browser engines," added Al Hilwa, a research director at IDC.

"Mozilla is committed to bringing users the best possible Web experience by promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Web," Brendan Eich, Mozilla's CTO and inventor of JavaScript, told TechNewsWorld. "As Samsung investigates various new technologies to innovate legacy products, this collaboration will bring an opportunity to open a new era of future Web experiences."

Read More: Samsung, Mozilla to Build Browser Worthy of Android

Google developer advocate Timothy Jordan envisions Google Glass, pardon the pun, as a way for people to distance themselves from technology. This seems a bit oxymoronic, however, considering it's a device people would wear on their face.

Jordan expounds on this idea and explains more about Google's wearable augmented reality project in a new video released today (see below). The video is a recording of Jordan's presentation at last month's South by Southwest Interactive conference.

"Project glass is about our relationship to technology. It's about technology that's there when you want it but out of the way when you don't," Jordan said in the video. "It feels like technology is getting in the way more than it needs to. And, that's what we are addressing with project glass. It's so that you can still have access to the technology that you love but it doesn't take you out of the moment."

The nearly hour-long video goes through what Google Glass can do, such as record videos, take photos, chat, get directions, look up facts on the Web, and more. Jordan gives viewers a preview of the project's Mirror API, explains how the device works, and plays a video of what it looks like through the lens of Google Glass.

Read More: Google releases full Google Glass explainer video