CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - Wrinkled and skinny at first, the translucent, jellyfish-shaped balloons that Google released this week from a frozen field in the heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins as they rose into the blue winter skies above Lake Tekapo, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online.

Some two-thirds of American parents monitor their children's Facebook activities, but a large percentage say they trust their youngsters to manage on their own, a study showed Thursday. The survey by the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California found 70 percent of parents keep tabs on their kids' Facebook accounts. Some 46 percent had passwords.

STOCKHOLM - Facebook on Wednesday started processing data through its first server farm outside the United States, on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Sweden. The company inaugurated servers in about half of its new, 300,000-square foot (28,000-square meter) facility outside the city Lulea Wednesday, saying it should improve the social network's performance in Europe. Facebook director of site operations Tom Furlong told the Associated Press the company will expand capacity at the site gradually to serve a large chunk of Facebook's European users.

SAN FRANCISCO - Google is buying online mapping service Waze in a $1.03 billion deal that keeps a potentially valuable tool away from its rivals while allowing it to gain technology that could improve the accuracy and usefulness of its own popular navigation system. The acquisition announced Tuesday ends several months of speculation as Waze flirted with potential buyers interested in its rapidly growing service. Waze blends elements of a social network into its maps to produce more precise directions and more reliable information about local traffic conditions.