'Search Engine for Fun' Delivers Mixed Results

Natalie Portman steals top spot from Johnny Depp this year

(NEWSER) - When you want to ogle an actor, the Internet Movie Database is a reasonable destination. So which 10 celebs racked up the most IMDb profile page views in 2011? The top spot now belongs to Natalie Portman , who snagged the crown from Johnny Depp (now No. 3, he's been No. 1 for six out of the last seven years). IMDb's managing editor certainly isn't shocked at the new queen bee: Natalie "won a Best Actress Oscar for Black Swan, was in the news welcoming a son into the world in June, and appeared in three films." Mashable reports on the rest of the top 10:

2. Mila Kunis : another Black Swan star

'Red Social' launches a year after Cuban Wikipedia clone

(NEWSER) - Cuba has introduced its very own Facebook-style social network called Red Social. The website appears to be sponsored by the communist nation's Ministry of Education, reports USA Today . Red Social imitates both the look and feel of Facebook, and its homepage features the slogan "A virtual meeting point for Cuban universities." The new social network arrives a year after Cuba launched its own Wikipedia, EcuRed, but it is only available from within the country. The domain name is facebook.ismm.edu.cu. More»

Move likely to cost firm more than $1B

(NEWSER) - Google has given all its employees a little holiday surprise: a $1,000 bonus and a 10% raise starting next year, reports Henry Blodget at Business Insider . And, citing employee feedback, Google will convert a portion of their bonuses to their salary—though merit-based bonuses will still be awarded separately. And just to be swell, Google’s paying the taxes on the $1,000. More»

Pushes against distribution of war material

(AP) - The Defense Department is asking media organizations not to publish or post on websites classified US war files released by WikiLeaks. The department has been bracing for a possible leak of as many as many as 400,000 documents from a military database on the Iraq war. The documents are mostly field reports, summarizing actions taken by troops and intelligence gathered. Click here for more what might be in the files. More»

Google will give users a choice in hopes to appease Beijing

(AP) - Google will stop automatically rerouting users of its China search site to its Hong Kong site, the company said today, after Beijing threatened the company with the loss of its Internet license. Instead of automatically being switched to Hong Kong, visitors to Google.cn now see a tab that says in Chinese "We have moved to google.com.hk." "They made it clear to us that they did not think the redirect was acceptable," said a Google spokeswoman. She declined to say what reasons the government gave for its objections. More»