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Microsoft was just handed -- and has accepted -- a fine by the European Union for failing to offer users a choice of browsers on its Windows 7 operating system, despite a legally binding commitment. The European Commission's top antitrust regulator, Joaquin Almunia, announced the decision on Wednesday.

Microsoft issued a brief statement accepting full responsibility.

As part of a 2009 settlement with the EU following a competition investigation, Microsoft introduced a Browser Choice Screen option in March 2010, but then it dropped that feature in an update to Windows 7 in February 2011. Microsoft has maintained the omission was a technical error.

The European Commission nevertheless slapped the tech giant with a giant-sized fine -- 561 million euros, or about US$732 million. This marks the first time European regulators have punished a company for breaking its antitrust commitment agreement.

"Microsoft and the EU have been negotiating this settlement for months, and the announcement included a fulsome apology by the company," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "The responsibility to offer users alternatives to Explorer was Microsoft's, and since they essentially broke a promise made in the EU antitrust settlement, you could argue that the fine could or even should have been larger."

Avoiding Larger Fines

While Microsoft admitted its mistake and has accepted its fine, it could be argued that it got off lightly in this case. For violating the past agreement, the European Commission could have fined Microsoft as much as 10 percent of its global annual revenue, or about $7.9 billion.

To date, the largest fine imposed by European authorities in an antitrust case was the 1.1 billion euros, or US$1.4 billion, levied in 2009 against Intel for reportedly abusing its dominance in the high-tech microprocessor market. Intel is appealing that ruling.

In this case, the European Commission noted that Microsoft took into account the gravity of the infringement and provided cooperation in determining the fine.

"The amount of this fine means the EU believes that Microsoft's excuse is viable but that the firm was still responsible for compliance," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "The amount is to assure they don't make the mistake again but reflects that they believe Microsoft didn't intentionally do this."

The EU apparently also recognizes that the feature is rarely used and that not having it hasn't had much impact on browser market share, he added.

Read More: Microsoft Picks Up Tab for $732M Mistake

Google is cutting back at Motorola Mobility again, with plans to layoff 1,200 employees, about 10 percent of the division's work force.

Employees were notified of the cuts this week via an e-mail that said "while we're very optimistic about the new products in our pipeline, we still face challenges," according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the cuts.

Focusing on costs, the email added "we're operating in markets where we're not competitive and we're losing money." The cuts are expected to workers in the U.S., China and India.

Motorola confirmed the jobs cuts in a statement this evening.

"These cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer," the company said. "It's obviously very hard for the employees concerned, and we are committed to helping them through this difficult transition."

Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.4 billion last May, motivated largely by having access to Motorola's valuable patent portfolio, which it has employed in its legal defense of the Android operating system. Google freely admitted paying a premium for such access, but since then, the company has been looking to cut costs.

Google sold the Motorola Home set-top business -- which it inherited as part of its acquisition -- to the Arris Group last December for $2.35 billion in cash and stock. The Web giant had apparently been shopping the business for several months.

Read More: Google begins another round of layoffs at Motorola Mobility

The social-networking app Path, debuted a major upgrade today, adding on private messages, stickers, and the "Shop." The company says the goal is to boost personalized communication between users, but it looks like Path is also working to monetize the app.

The company describes its objective with private messaging in a blog post today -- the messages are not supposed to be like text messages or Facebook or Twitter posts, but rather aim to make users feel like they're truly interacting with friends.

"When we speak with friends, share a joke, a quiet word, or a conversation over drinks, there is so much more than words that pass between us," the blog post says. "How can a technology hope to recreate our unspoken language?"

What Path has done to try to achieve this goal is make the messages available in several forms, including text, voice, location, stickers, songs, books, movies, photos, and videos.

"There's utility and context," Path wrote. "For example, if you're running late, you can tap the location button to let a friend know where you are. Or if you don't have free hands to type, you can record a voice message."

Users can also send stickers to their friends, which like emoticons, can visually show how one feels. This is where Path gets into monetizing its app. Each user gets two free sticker packs designed by artists David Lanham, Hugh MacLeod, and Richard Perez. If users want more stickers, they can buy them in the "Shop." According to The Next Web, packs of around a dozen stickers go for $1.99 a pop.

Before today, Path's most recent update was in December. Path 3 is available for both iOS and Android devices and comes in 19 languages.

Read More: Path rolls out 3.0 with private messaging and a sticker shop

For Google Chrome fans, the new logo shouldn't be much of a surprise, but Google is now touting the redesigned one and explaining a bit about the decision to revamp the logo and the process to arrive at the design that has already landed in developer version of Google Chrome.

"Some of you on Chrome’s early release channels may have noticed our latest tweak to Chrome’s icon," Steve Rura, a designer at Google, wrote.

"Since Chrome is all about making your web experience as easy and clutter-free as possible, we refreshed the Chrome icon to better represent these sentiments. A simpler icon embodies the Chrome spirit — to make the web quicker, lighter, and easier for all," he explained.

YouTube has added an interesting new capability to its not very well known YouTube Video Editor, image stabilization. The timing of the new feature launch is also interesting, since just last week Google bought an Irish video processing company that, among other tools, offers a video stabilization technology. The new feature, however, is based on technology developed by Google in house.

The YouTube Video Editor was introduced last summer. It began as a simple "20 percent time" project, but has gained new features and capabilities along the way. With the new image stabilization tool, most of the needs of the average YouTube uploader should be met.

PayPal has now rolled out its micropayments solution for all developers and websites. PayPal for digital goods is designed for small transactions, mainly for virtual goods or services. It is meant to tackle the growing market for virtual goods where PayPal's existing fees system and interface didn't fit in well.

"PayPal for digital goods comes out of Beta and is widely available to game developers, media publishers, or anyone interested in selling digital content on a global scale," Carey Kolaja from PayPal Digital Goods announced.

"When consumers pay for online content, PayPal for digital goods allows them to pay in as little as two clicks without ever leaving a publisher’s game, news, music, video or media site. It’s the online equivalent to dropping a quarter in the slot to buy a gumball," she explained.

Google, or rather YouTube, is reportedly close to buying Next New Networks, a company producing original web video content as well as distributing videos created by others. NNN is responsible for some of the most popular regular series in YouTube and some of the more popular individual videos.

YouTube wants to encourage more and more people to create video content for the web, especially in a steady, serialized fashion and NNN has the experience in doing just that.

Talks are in the late-stage, according to the Wall Street Journal, but there are no financial details. Despite having more than one billion views on YouTube, the company hasn't been a great success financially, so Google could snatch it up on the cheap.

Here's one thing that Google hadn't dabbled with, until now, weddings. In case the big day has you overwhelmed, Google is here to help, proposing several of its products as the perfect tools to help you plan and announce your wedding.

There's no new product, Google is simply showcasing how Picasa, Docs and some of its other products could be used for the happy occasion.

"For many, your wedding day is one of the biggest, most momentous days of your life," Lisa Conquergood, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google, writes.