MICROSOFT

One value of going public for any company is to raise cash as well as mint new shares for acquisitions. Facebook (Nasdaq: FB)?s $16 billion initial public offering was no exception.

It?s not just Mark Zuckerberg whose shares of Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social network, became more valuable on Friday. U2's Bono is also smiling.

It took Facebook a little over eight years to go from fledgling Internet startup to a $114 billion company. Here's a timeline of the social network and how it got to where it is right now:

Investors in Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social network, got their first chance on Friday to gauge reaction to its $38-a-share public offering price that initially had valued the company at $104 billion.

The moment is finally here: Facebook, the world's most dominant social network with 900 million-plus users, is finally ready to make its Wall Street debut. Zuckerberg will ring the opening bell at 9:30 a.m. ET, but since he will be broadcasting from Facebook remotely, NASDAQ has provided a way to watch all the proceedings occur live.

?Halo 4? is slated for a release date of Nov. 6th, and multiplayer information is beginning to emerge. Known collectively as ?Infinity Multiplayer,? the game will introduce a brand new mode called ?Spartan Ops.? This will act as an episode-based continuation the ?Halo 4? campaign mode, and tells the story of the UNSC Infinity.

A day before Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social network holds its initial public offering, its 33 underwriters boosted the number of shares for sale by 25 percent, potentially valuing the deal as high as $19 billion.

Google will reportedly work with up to five different manufacturers at once to offer a wide variety of Android devices, including both smartphones and tablets. The move is a big power play from Google in its efforts to surpass Apple, and it could absolutely work, mainly because it's worked before with Microsoft.

Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social network, said it?s acquiring the staff and technology of startup Lightbox.com, developer of a photo app for mobile surfaces.

Facebook, the world's biggest social network with 900 million-plus users, is finally ready to make its Wall Street debut on Friday, May 18, 2012. Facebook is clearly dominant in its industry, but buying stock so quickly might be unwise. Here are five reasons why you shouldn't go buy Facebook stock right away.

Google is getting serious about its self-driving car technology campaign. In an effort to make the driverless car legal on U.S. roads, the Mountain View, Calif. based company was spotted showing off the robo-prius on the streets of Washington, D.C. - just one day after Nevada became the first state to legalize autonomous vehicles.

In 1999, Andrew Grove, then Chairman of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), the No. 1 chipmaker, published a bestseller, ?Only the Paranoid Survive.?

French iOS hacker Pod2g has always been keen to keep his followers updated on the happenings in the world of jailbreaking. He came up with the answers of a few critical questions on the 5.1.1 untethered jailbreak, which, he said, he had received either by email or Twitter.

Little by little, we are slowly putting the pieces of the iPhone 5 puzzle together. On Saturday, Hong Kong-based components supplier SW-Box claimed to have come into possession of a group of new components, including a headphone jack, ear speaker, and a Wi-Fi cable part, which are all allegedly being built for Apple's sixth-generation iPhone. What else does Apple have in store for the iPhone 5?

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned 28 on Monday, and his true birthday present will arrive on Friday when the social networking site sells stock and begins trading on Nasdaq. But he's not the only young gun out there.

Congratulations, the good guys finally won. You and your team, with help from other institutions, have ousted CEO Scott Thompson, elected three Third Point nominees to the board, removed another handful of management nominees and effectively control the company. Now what?

New toys based on the ?Halo? franchise have given some insight as to which enemies will be included in ?Halo 4.? No information has been officially revealed, but leaked images of action figures show that a Crawler and Watcher toy are to come soon.

Shares of Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), the No. 3 search engine, rose nearly 3 percent in Monday trading after dissident shareholder Daniel Loeb knocked out the CEO and took control of the company.

For months, Yahoo has been in crisis. Market share fell. CEO Carol Bartz was fired. A Chinese tycoon said he?d buy the company.

Microsoft unofficially announced that Minecraft: Xbox 360 has broken all previous digital sales records, selling more digital copies in its first 24 hours available than any other title in Xbox LIVE arcade history. No official number has been disclosed, but an employee has revealed that over 400,000 copies were sold.

Bing, the third most popular search engine in America, has been drastically redesigned. Even more shocking than the site's fresh new look is the new social media integration.