Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been given a patent for their driverless car technology. The patent covers a method for cars to go into autonomous mode and for finding parking spots. The patent was approved on December 13th. Google has first disclosed their self-driving car in October 2010, which was in an advanced stage of development at the time.

FreedomPop is an upcoming startup that was founded by Niklas Zennstrom. Zennstrom is best known for co-founding services like KaZaa, Skype, and Rdio. FreedomPop i sa company that plans to offer free basic wireless services for laptops and smartphones. FreedomPop is testing their service with a selected group of U.S. users and they plan to launch next year.

Salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) has acquired social performance company Rypple. Rypple has raised a total of $13 million in funding. The financial details of this acquisition was undisclosed.

Walter Isaacson was at an event hosted by the Commonwealth Cub of California and he shared some additional information about the Steve Jobs biography. The 630-page biography may be expanded in a special edition. It may be in the form of an extensively annotated version or putting in an addendum that addresses the period during Steve Jobs’ death.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has dropped the price of the Verizon Galaxy Nexus to $149 when signing up for a new plan. When updating a current plan, the phone will cost $199. This is about $100-$150 off of what Verizon is charging for the phone. This is why Amazon rules the Internet, folks. [Galaxy Nexus on Amazon]

[image credit: CSmonitor]

A U.S. stealth drone was captured by the Iranians by using software that spoofed GPS coordinates. The drone was told to land at those coordinates. The Iranian engineer that spoofed the drone is currently studying what is inside the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel.

As keeping up with an 11-year tradition, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has released the top searches for the year on their 2011 Zeitgeist website. Last year they made an awesome video of the top searches with OneRepublic’s “Good Life” as the background music. This year they have made the video even better and Mat Kearney’s “Sooner or Later” is the background music. In the video, you will notice that some of the top searches include Rebecca Black, Ryan Dunn, Battlefield 3, Casey Anthony, Adele, iPhone 5, iPad 2, Fukushima I Plant, and Steve Jobs. Check out the video below:

Research In Motion Limited (TSE:RIM) has announced their third quarter earnings earlier today. RIM reported $265 million in earnings, which is 51 cents per share for the quarter. This is down 71% from $911 million during the same quarter a year ago. The reason for the drop is because of the $485 million hit RIM took due to unsold PlayBook tablets.