Long-term trends at work in the oil market mean it could stay depressed.
Mr Brin has signed up with the space tourism company Space Adventures for priority seating on a mission that would orbit the earth.
Facebook plans to launch a new service that will enable the social network website's 60m users to chat with each other online. The service, which is expected to roll out sometime in the next few weeks, represents Facebook's latest challege to AOL, Microsoft and other makers of popular instant messaging programmes. It is likely to come as a blow to software developers who have been working on chat services designed to run on Facebook's popular application platform.
Yahoo on Tuesday attempted to bolster its case for an improved offer from Microsoft, releasing stronger-than-expected financial projections to support its decision that the proposed deal had seriously undervalued it. Microsoft made a cash-and-shares offer that was worth $44.6bn, or $31 a share, when it was announced on February 1. The financial plan was first presented to Yahoo's board in December.
Google on Thursday will launch a new advertising technology that will allow publishers to incorporate text ads into online videos in a move long awaited by the industry.
Cisco Systems, the world's biggest maker of data networking equipment, plans to launch a business group, based in Bangalore, India, that will wire new buildings and even entirely new cities with state-of-the-art networking technology.
Bebo, founded by Michael and Xochi Birch, said it had made its platform compatible with Facebook's. This will allow developers to make applications, such as movie ratings and photo-sharing tools, work on both sites with the minimum of alterations.