The skinny man in the black mock turtleneck, and the company he created, have had arguably more impact than anybody on how we consume content in the digital age.

“Steve Jobs is one of the great innovators in the history of modern capitalism,” New York Times columnist Joe Nocera told CNN’s Piers Morgan Wednesday night. “His intuition has been phenomenal over the years.”

But four decades ago, you might have been hard-pressed to spot clues to Jobs’ future success.

He dropped out of Oregon’s Reed College after one semester, although he returned to audit a class in calligraphy. He quit one of his first jobs, designing video games for Atari, to backpack around India and take psychedelic drugs.

But those early experiences, Jobs would say later, shaped his creative vision. The graceful brush strokes of the calligraphy class influenced his elegant Apple aesthetic. His LSD trips as a young man expanded his mind and helped breed Apple’s counterculture, “think different” spirit.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future,” he told Stanford University graduates during a commencement speech in 2005. “You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Born February 24, 1955, to adoptive parents, Jobs grew up in Cupertino, California — Apple’s longtime home — and showed an early interest in electronics. As a teenager, he phoned William Hewlett, president of Hewlett-Packard, to request parts for a school project. He got them, along with a summer job offer at HP.

While at HP, Jobs befriended Steve Wozniak, who impressed him with his skill at assembling electronic components. The two joined a Silicon Valley computer hobbyists club, and Jobs soon teamed with Wozniak and two other men to launch Apple Computer Inc.

It’s now the stuff of Silicon Valley lore: Jobs and Wozniak built their first commercial product, the Apple 1, in the garage of Jobs’ parents in 1976 (the same year Microsoft began developing software). Jobs sold his Volkswagen van to help finance the venture. The primitive computer, priced at $666.66, had no keyboard or display, and customers had to assemble it themselves.

The following year, Apple unveiled the Apple II computer at the inaugural West Coast Computer Faire. The machine was a hit, and the personal computing revolution was under way. Jobs was among the first computer engineers to recognize the appeal of the mouse and the graphical interface, which let users operate computers by clicking on images instead of writing text.

“When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there,” he told Newsweek in 2006. “But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.”

For Jobs, that solution was Apple’s pioneering Macintosh computer, which launched in early 1984 with a now-iconic, Orwellian-themed Super Bowl ad. Jobs has long had a reputation as a demanding taskmaster, and the mustachioed computer whiz — a multimillionaire by age 30 — drove his Macintosh engineers hard to produce the machine he wanted.

The boxy beige Macintosh was a success, but Jobs clashed frequently with colleagues, and in 1986, he was ousted from Apple after a power struggle. Then came an 10-year hiatus during which he had high-profile successes (buying Pixar Animation Studios from George Lucas before they made it big with “Toy Story”) and failures (founding NeXT Computer, whose pricey, cube-shaped computer workstations never caught on).

In 1996 Apple bought NeXT, returning Jobs to the then-struggling company he had co-founded. Within a year, he was running Apple again — older and perhaps wiser but no less of a perfectionist. And four years after that, he took the stage to introduce the original iPod, the little white device that revolutionized portable music and kick-started Apple’s furious comeback.

“I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple,” he said at Stanford in 2005. “It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.”

When it comes to Apple, you pretty much know the rest. Over the next decade, Jobs wowed launch-event audiences, and consumers, with one game-changing hit after another: iTunes (2003). The MacBook (2006). The iPhone (2007). The iPad (2010).

Observers marveled at his skills as a pitchman, his ability to inspire God-like devotion among Apple “fanboys” (and scorn from PC fans) and his “one more thing” surprise announcements. Time after time, he sold people on a product they didn’t know they needed until he invented it. And all this on an official annual salary of $1.

By the mid-2000s, however, Jobs was having serious health problems. In 2004, he announced to his employees that he was being treated for pancreatic cancer. He lost weight and appeared unusually gaunt at keynote speeches to Apple developers, spurring concerns about his health and fluctuations in Apple’s stock price. One wire service even accidentally published Jobs’ obituary.

Jobs, 56, who is married with four children, had a liver transplant in 2009 during a six-month medical leave of absence from Apple. He took another medical leave in January this year. Because of this, some observers said they weren’t surprised by Wednesday’s news that Jobs was stepping down as Apple’s CEO.

“There is a certain sort of sad inevitability to this moment,” the Times’ Nocera told CNN, adding that Jobs wouldn’t give up control of his company easily. “Apple is his life. He cares about it almost as much as he cares about his wife and children.”

Jobs doesn’t give many interviews, especially about his personal life, and Apple has been tight-lipped about his health. But perhaps mindful of his legacy, he has cooperated on his first authorized biography, scheduled to be published by Simon & Schuster in November.

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that,” Jobs is quoted as saying in the promotional material for the book by Walter Isaacson. “But I don’t have any skeletons in my closet that can’t be allowed out.”

By contrast, Jobs has always spoken with immense pride about what he and his engineers have accomplished at Apple.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do,” he told the Stanford grads.

“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”

Motorola Mobility has been in the communications business for more than 80 years, and it invented the cell phone 30 years ago — back when it was still just called “Motorola.” Earlier this year, Motorola’s consumer products business split from its public safety business, Motorola Solutions (MSI, Fortune 500).

Motorola Mobility, the part of the business most consumers are familiar with, held on to the 17,000 patents the company has been issued worldwide. It also has 7,500 patents pending approval.
As Android has grown to become the world’s most used smartphone operating system, Google has faced an increasing number of patent lawsuits, most recently from Microsoft and Apple.

“We’ve been saying for some time that we intend to protect the Android ecosystem,” David Drummond, chief counsel for Google, said Monday on a conference call with analysts. “We think that having this kind of patent portfolio to protect the ecosystem is a good thing.”
Google recently tried to buy a portfolio of key telecommunications patents from bankrupt Nortel for $1 billion. But the winning bid — of a whopping $4.5 billion — was submitted by Google’s rivals, including Microsoft and Apple.

Acquiring patents is often used as a defense tactic to stave off lawsuits from competitors. Whether the claims are legitimate or not, rivals often sue one another for patent violations to scare away potential partners or take some of the revenue off the top of their competitors’ sales. America’s patent system is so complex that such claims can take years — and cost millions — to litigate.

In one recent settlement deal, for instance, Apple agreed to pay Nokia (NOK) royalties for patents that Nokia claimed the iPhone had infringed. The deal ended nearly two years of legal wrangling between the companies.
Google is also mired in a patent battle royale with Oracle, which claims that Google’s Android infringes some of the Java patents Oracle holds.

Is Google your next wireless company?
On the call with analysts, Google CEO Larry Page acknowledged that Motorola is outside the search giant’s core competency. Google plans to run it as a separate company. Motorola will continue to license Android from Google and pay Google for the core applications that come with the operating system.
In fact, Motorola will be so separate from Google that it will have to bid to become the maker of the Nexus device, the flagship Android smartphone that comes out annually during the winter holiday season. Google receives bids and proposals from various handset manufacturers to make the device, and the company said Motorola will not automatically win the rights to make the next Nexus phone.

Analysts expressed concern that buying Motorola Mobility will anger Google’s other handset manufacturing partners.
But several of those partners spoke out in defense of the move, mostly citing the patent war as the reason for their support. Many of those handset makers, including Motorola, have been sued for patent infringement after debuting their Android devices.

“We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem,” said J.K. Shin, president of Samsung’s mobile division.
Google is paying $40 a share for Motorola Mobility Holdings (MMI), a premium of 63% over the closing price on Friday. The $12.5 billion price tag — all cash — is by far the largest that Google ever paid for an acquisition.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval, which Google said it expects to pass. Google has come under heavy scrutiny lately in both the U.S. and Europe from regulators concerned about its growing industry dominence, especially in the search field. The Motorola bid would expand Google into a wholly new market area — one in which it doesn’t currently compete.

Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) stock fell about 1% in early trading while Motorola’s rose 57%.
Motorola has struggled in recent quarters, citing delays in getting some of its key products, like the eagerly anticipated Droid Bionic, onto store shelves. Other promising devices have failed to meet expectations, like the smartphone-that-becomes-a-laptop Atrix 4G.
Last quarter, Motorola lost $56 million and disappointed Wall Street analysts by saying results for its current quarter would be weaker than expected.

Its tablet business has also been far less profitable and successful than it expected. Motorola sold just 440,000 Xoom tablets in the quarter. The Xoom, which was the first of Google’s first Android Honeycomb tablet, was expected by many analysts to be the first true test for the iPad. It hasn’t been: Apple sold 9.25 million iPads last quarter.
But Google’s Page said he is excited about the growth opportunity that the deal presents.
“We believe Motorola Mobility is poised for tremendous growth,” he said. “The deal allows us to supercharge the whole Android system. There’s tremendous opportunity here.”
Page also mentioned that Google is intrigued by Motorola’s set-top box business. Though Motorola’s cable box unit is stumbling, the link-up with Google’s also not-ready-for-primetime Google TV business could help jump-start both.

The operation, which targeted agencies and groups in 14 countries, bears the hallmarks of state-sponsored espionage, according to the report by security company McAfee. Other cybersecurity experts downplayed the report’s findings, however.

McAfee said the attacks, which it calls Operation Shady RAT, have allowed hackers potentially to gain access to military and industrial secrets from 72 targets, most of them in the United States, over a five-year period.

McAfee did not name all the targets but said the sheer scope of victims, including 14 U.S. government bodies; the governments of Canada, India, South Korea and Taiwan; defense contractors; the International Olympic Committee; and even a cybersecurity company, indicates no one is safe.

Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee’s vice president of threat research, said attacks on political nonprofit groups indicated a “state actor” could be behind the operation. He declined to name a specific country, but media reports have pointed a finger at China.

Others have cast doubt on Alperovitch’s claim, saying the report sheds no new light on the world of cybersecurity and makes sweeping assumptions about the impact of the hacking operations.

In his 14-page report on McAfee’s findings, Alperovitch asserts that Operation Shady RAT may have cost its victims billions in terms of lost revenues and stolen secrets.

“What we have witnessed over the past five to six years has been nothing short of a historically unprecedented transfer of wealth,” he said.

“Close guarded national secrets, source code, bug databases, e-mail archives, negotiation plans … and much more has fallen off the truck of numerous, mostly Western companies and disappeared in the ever-growing electronic archives of dogged adversaries.”

He said the hackers used sophisticated “spear phishing” techniques, targeting individuals within organizations with high-security clearance and harvesting their details and passwords to gain a foothold inside computer networks.

Once inside, they installed so-called remote access tools — the RATs that give Shady RAT its name — to infiltrate more computers and steal data.

McAfee said it discovered the breaches in March after gaining access to a “command and control” computer server that contained hacking records. These dated to 2006, but McAfee said activity probably went back even further.

“After painstaking analysis of the logs, even we were surprised by the enormous diversity of the victim organizations and were taken aback by the audacity of the perpetrators,” Alperovitch said.

He added the range of victims suggests “virtually everyone is falling prey to these intrusions, regardless of whether they are the United Nations, a multinational Fortune 100 company, a small nonprofit think tank, a national Olympic team or even an unfortunate computer security firm.”

While McAfee declines to name the country it suspects is behind Shady RAT, some observers have reportedly identified China as a likely candidate, partly because the targets include Taiwan and Olympic organizations in the months before the Beijing Games in 2008.

Some security experts said they believe China is increasingly involved in computer espionage against the U.S. government and American corporations such as Google. China has repeatedly and vehemently denied any connection to such breaches.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at cybersecurity company Sophos, cautioned against blaming China. He also questioned the significance of the McAfee report, saying it offered few fresh facts about the world of cyber-espionage.

“We haven’t learned anything new,” Cluley said. “We already know that companies get targeted by hackers, and they gain access and we know that the motivations extend beyond the purely financial. But there’s no smoking gun telling us this is definitely China.

“Every country in the world, let’s not be naïve, is using the Internet to spy, so it could just as easily be Cameroon or some guy in his back bedroom. There’s no indication that this is state-sponsored — that’s a big leap to make.”

Cluley suggested the timing of the McAfee report was largely aimed at grabbing headlines ahead of the Black Hat conference, a major meeting of cybersecurity experts that gets under way Wednesday in Las Vegas.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at technology security firm F-secure, said the attacks are nothing new. But they need highlighting since most affected parties refuse to talk about them, he said.

The McAfee allegations also follow a series of major computer breaches in which sensitive data was stolen from companies such as Google, defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin and data security firm RSA.

Alperovitch, however, said he believes there are no links between Shady RAT and so-called “hacktivist” groups such as LulzSec and Anonymous, which are said to be behind “relatively unsophisticated” attacks on Nintendo, Sony, the CIA and PBS.

But McAfee’s report said that every government agency, security firm and major corporation faces constant cyberthreats.

“This is a problem of massive scale that affects nearly every industry and sector of the economies of numerous countries, and the only organizations that are exempt from this threat are those that don’t have anything valuable or interesting worth stealing,” the report said.

When I wrote this article for TechRepublic in September 2005, we were living in the era of Windows XP. Much has changed since then, but the general idea that users should take steps to protect a new PC BEFORE connecting it to the Internet is still sound advice. Feel free to add and subtract from the 10 items on this list to make it more applicable to current technology.

It is only natural: when you get a brand-new PC, especially one with broadband capabilities built in, you want to connect to the Internet and see it in action. For many, the browser and the World Wide Web are the “killer-apps” of the modern PC — the Internet is what you have a PC for, everything else is just extra fluff.

However, connecting to the Internet with a new unprotected and unpatched PC is practically inviting the nefarious and malicious to infect your PC. According to research published by Sophos in July 2005, there is about a 50% chance that an unpatched PC will be infected with malicious software within 12 minutes of connecting to the Internet. Once infected, it is almost impossible to get a PC clean again without completely reinstalling the operating system. (I wonder if there is still a 12-minute window.)

To prevent the frustration that comes with reinstalling Windows, you should take the necessary steps to update, configure, and patch your new PC. Keep in mind that no matter how new your PC is, it will most likely need patching and it will definitely need to be properly configured. Here are 10 basic things you should do before attaching the Internet to a new PC.

1. Make a starter CD-ROM

Before you disconnect your old computer, take a few minutes to burn a starter CD-ROM that contains the latest version of your favorite antivirus software. I prefer to keep this simple and inexpensive by using AVG from Grisoft, but if you like Norton or McAfee those will work just as well.(I prefer to use Microsoft Security Essentials now — AVG’s nagging became distracting.)

To save time later, you should put other security applications on this disk like Spybot Search & Destroy, AdAware, etc. It would also be a good idea to include any updated drivers you might need — drivers for your video card for example. Just like Windows, your video card drivers are likely to be a little old also. You should also put drivers on this disk for peripherals that you will be connecting to your new PC, like cameras, scanners, printers, and game interface devices. Having all these device drivers residing on a single CD-ROM means you will not have to go to the Internet to retrieve them as you set up your new PC.

2. Remove the promotional apps

After going through the initial setup process where Windows identifies devices, you may be asked to register and/or activate your copy of the Windows operating system — hold off on that for now, you can always do that later. The first thing to do is to clean up the mess that shipped with your PC. You should remove all the promotional and trial software that you do not intend to use from your new PC. This is usually the first thing I do, because invariably one of those apps will ask if I want to activate it or register it — a process that usually involves accessing the Internet. (Sometimes they don’t ask–they just assume I want them on my pristine PC). At this point you should have no connection to the Internet at all, wireless or not.

The applications to be deleted are usually ISPs advertisements like AOL and Earthlink, an antivirus app from a competitor of your current application (something you should already have ready on your CD-ROM), trial versions of Money or Quickbooks, etc. If you are not going to use these, go to the Add/Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel and remove them completely.(I had a Toshiba notebook that had an unseemly amount of unnecessary Toshiba toolbars and an application from Best Buy that started every time the notebook booted. It all had to go.)

3. Install antivirus software

Install the antivirus software that you burned onto a CD-ROM in step 1. The assumption is that any PC purchased after this document is published will have Windows XP SP2 installed, but if SP2 is not installed, you could have that update ready on your disk too. In fact, if you know how, you could have some of the more important Windows patches and updates on your disk also. This would be a good time to install anti-spyware software too. (Windows 7 will most likely be the installed OS today.)

4. Turn on a software firewall

Windows XP SP2 comes with a modest but still useful software firewall. Before you start surfing the Internet you should turn it on, or you can install an alternative third-party software firewall like Zone Alarm. Any alternative firewalls should have been included on the startup CD-ROM you made in Step 1. (Windows 7 has a much better installed firewall than XP. The Windows 7 firewall should be on by default, but it never hurts to check.)

5. Install printers and other peripherals

Before you connect to the Internet it is a good idea to install your other peripherals to your new PC. Performing this step means that when you do connect to the Windows update page, it will see your devices and make suggestions for new Microsoft-tested (WHQL) drivers if they are available.

6. Establish a password for the administrator account

One of the most glaring security vulnerabilities in any new Windows-based PC is that it ships with a wide open administrator access to the root directory. You never want anyone but you to have unfettered access to the admin settings on your PC. And while a password could easily be bypassed by a skilled cracker, it will deter the less determined intruder.

7. Create a new user account with a password

This is almost as equally important as password protecting your administrator account. For general day-to-day activities, you do not want to be using your admin account. Instead, you should be using a user account that is also password protected (a password that is different from the one you are using for the admin account, please). This adds another layer of protection for your new PC because a user account does not have the same all-access permissions as an admin account. In some cases, malicious software will be thwarted by this level of permissions restriction alone.(Steps 6 and 7 could be combined for Windows 7. For notebooks especially, you should always have to log in with a password. Sure it can be slightly inconvenient, but it is absolutely necessary.)

8. Turn off unnecessary Windows services

Microsoft has been doing a better job of this with the release of SP2, but there are still numerous unnecessary Windows services and processes running by default on most PCs. If you’d like to see how many there are just perform the three finger salute (CTRL-ALT-Delete), click Task Manager, and then select the Processes tab. All those applications, services, processes, etc. are operating in the background on your PC. The problem is that many can actually open access to your PC to the outside world without your knowledge or active consent. That access is usually justified for what the process is supposed to be doing, it is just that many times your PC doesn’t need that process at all. Web servers, network messengers, debuggers are all processes you probably don’t need on your personal PC. (This is a power user tip and was very important in XP, but with Windows 7 there are less unnecessary services to worry about. You could skip this step and not be too concerned.)

9. Establish a system restore point

Now that you have performed the first eight steps you should take a moment to establish a system restore point. To manually create a Restore Point, you launch the System Restore utility by clicking Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools |System Restore and then follow the steps in the wizard. This step will establish a fall-back point if something happens to go haywire later.

10. Install and configure a router

This last step may seem like an unnecessary added expense to some, but in this age of viruses, worms, and other nasty Internet infections, a router standing between you and the outside world coming at you at broadband speeds offers another significant layer of protection. Connecting a PC directly to the Internet means that the PC gets its own IP address, which means it can be seen by every sleazebag with malicious intent. By adding a router to your broadband setup, the router gets the visible IP address and gives your new PC an internal address. In addition, routers have hardware firewalls and other features that help block the bad guys before they get to your new PC.(This step is really a given now. I don’t think anyone would connect directly to the Internet today. In 2005 it was more common than you might remember, and routers were a bit of a mystery to consumers.)

At the same time, beta versions of the iWork suite for iOS and iPhoto have also been made available. And inevitably, many details have already leaked to the web.

iCloud is Apple’s new “sync” service. When you create or edit a photo or document on your iPhone, iPad, Mac or Windows PC, it is automatically pushed to any other device you have chosen.

Thus, you can snap photos on your iPhone and have them ready to edit on your iPad in seconds, along with a safe backup on your home Mac.

The iCloud.com site is the online home for your data. There’s a calendar, an address book, a mail web app, access to the Find My iPhone service and a new section called “iWork.” These all look a lot like their iOS counterparts, right down to the icons.

WIRED: Apple announces iCloud, Steve Jobs WWDC keynote

This is no surprise, as even the awful MobileMe used a very iPad-like interface for its Mail web app.

Most interesting are the online versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Posted screenshots show that there is no editing or even viewing functionality yet. Visitors are told instead to launch the apps on their iOS device and switch on iCloud.

Perhaps there will never be a way to view your documents on the web, or maybe it will be added before the official launch.

Right now there doesn’t seem to be any way to view your photos at iCloud.com.

WIRED: iCloud — data in forefront, devices in background

Windows users needn’t feel left out, either. Also available is the iCloud Control Panel for Windows (beta 3), which lets you configure iCloud on the PC. Photo Stream, contacts and calendars are supported, and presumably iWork documents might somehow be wrangled to open on the PC, too.

Cloud backup is also working in devices running the latest iOS 5 beta. You can choose to back up your camera roll (photos actually taken with the device), accounts, documents and settings to iCloud automatically whenever the iDevice is plugged in to power.

This is essential for anyone using an iPad as their main machine, and not tied to a computer with iTunes.

iCloud is free, and comes with 5GB storage. You can also pay for more. $20 per year will buy you 10GB storage, $40 will get you 50GB and for $100 you will get 50GB.

WIRED: iCloud’s the limit — how iOS 5, Lion push Apple’s strategy

But before you rush out and spend the extra, remember that iCloud’s storage quota doesn’t include your photos, your iTunes music, you apps or your purchased books. In fact, 5GB looks like more than enough for most people. Extra storage can be purchased from within the iCloud settings app on your iOS device.

The iCloud service will launch to the public along with iOS 5, some time in September.

When an iPhone receives a message that contains a phone number or an address — e-mail, Web or street — those bits of data are automatically highlighted, underlined and turned into clickable links.

Click on the phone number, and the iPhone asks if you want to dial it. Click on the Web address, and it opens in Safari. Click on the street address, and Maps will display it.

Any Android phone will do the same.

Unfortunately for the three dozen companies that make Android devices, Apple (AAPL) filed for a patent on the underlying system and method that performs these actions in 1996. The patent, U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647, was one of 20 that in March 2010 Apple accused HTC, a leading maker of Android phones, of violating.

Competition is “healthy,” Steve Jobs said at the time. But competitors should not “steal.”

On Friday, a judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that HTC had indeed violated two of those Apple patents, including ’647.

This could be a big one.

HTC has appealed the decision, which could be overruled by a six-member panel. Or Apple might be willing to cross-license the technology to HTC, assuming HTC has any patented technology to trade. Or HTC could find a way around the patent, although with a technique this basic, that might not be so easy.

As FOSS Patents‘ Florian Mueller puts it:

“Standing in front of the Great Wall of China, you can also vow to walk around it. That doesn’t mean it’s a viable option.”

In the worst-case scenario, assuming the decision prevails, the ITC could ban the import of HTC’s Android devices before the end of the year. The company’s 2012 U.S. market share, as Mueller puts it, could shrink to 0.0%.

And if HTC violated Apple’s patent ’647, so probably have all the other Android manufacturers.

By Mueller’s count, this case is only one of 49 that have been filed against the Android operating system, which Google (GOOG) created and distributed for free to those three dozen manufacturers without, it would seem, bothering to license all the underlying technology.

Google has been complaining lately that the U.S. patent system is broken — a problem it might have considered addressing before it launched Android. When CEO Larry Page was asked about the issue during the company’s quarterly earnings call last week, he was defiant. “Android is on a tear,” he said, according to TechCrunch. “Despite the efforts of some of our competitors.”

FOSS Patents’ Mueller, as usual, has the most detailed analysis of the HTC case, included a breakdown of the key “claim charts” that Apple filed with the ITC.

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That’s only a bit more than 1% of Facebook’s 750 million global users, but it still represents staggering growth for Google’s infant social network, which isn’t yet open to the public. The site remains in a “limited” trial phase.

“Growth on Google+ has been great,” Google CEO Larry Page said on a conference call with analysts. “Over 10 million have joined. That’s a great achievement for the team. There has been a ton of activity.”

Page said more than 1 billion items are being shared on the networkevery day. The “+1″ button, which populates search results with friends’ recommendations, has been clicked 2.3 billion times a day.

Google+ represents a part of the new CEO’s grand vision for the 13-year old company. Despite Google’s position as the worldwide leader in search, Page has opted to treat the company as a startup, increasing hiring and starting several new initiatives.

“Today, I see more opportunities for Google than ever before; we’re just at the beginning of what we want to do,” Page said. “We’re only at 1% of what’s possible. Google’s just getting started.”

Accordingly, Google continued its hiring spree in the second quarter, upping its headcount by nearly 9%, or 2,500 employees — including 450 from the acquisition of flight data company ITA .

The company also has spent freely, putting more than $900 million into its infrastructure during the quarter, including expanding its massive data centers. The company says it expects to continue to make “significant” capital expenditures going forward.

Google says all that spending will keep the company ahead of its rivals.

The past quarter has been a busy one. In addition to Google+, the company started selling its Chromebook line of laptops aimed at current Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) corporate clients and launched its Music application to compete with Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) iTunes and Amazon’s (AMZN, Fortune 500) Cloud Drive.

The company also unveiled Google Wallet, which will allow customers to pay for items using their smartphones, and it launched Google Offers, a Groupon competitor.

But Google also shut down several products that weren’t working, such as Google Health and PowerMeter.

“Our focus is more wood behind fewer arrows,” said Page. “I’m very happy with our progress.”

Still, the free spending has made some stock analysts cautious. Page lashed back at that criticism, noting that when Google started its search engine, no one believed the company could monetize that besides the occasional banner ad.

“Fast forward to today, it seems like we’re playing the same movie all over again,” he said. “We’re optimizing our products for long-term success. Well-run technology businesses … make a lot of money over time.”

Google also reported its sales and earnings Thursday.

The search giant said its net income in the second quarter rose to $2.5 billion, up 36% from a year earlier.

Results included one-time charges totaling $1.06 per share. Without the charges, Google said it earned $8.74 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who typically exclude one-time items from their estimates, had forecast earnings of $7.85 per share.

Profit rose as both the number of clicks on Google’s ads and the amount that advertising partners pay per click increased substantially: Paid clicks surged 18% and cost per click grew 12% compared to last year.

Sales for the Mountain View, Calif., company rose 32% to $9 billion. Excluding advertising sales that Google shares with partners, a figure also known as traffic acquisition costs, the company reported revenue of $6.9 billion, which topped analysts’ forecasts of $6.6 billion.

Shares of Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) jumped 12% after hours.

Still, not all the news has been positive for Google, which has recentlylanded in antitrust crosshairs.

The Federal Trade Commission began investigating the company for evidence of abusive practices, and a federal judge rejected Google’s planned settlement deal in its attempt to create a universal online book library.

The Department of Justice also heavily scrutinized the company’s recent purchase of flight data software company ITA, and Google set aside $500 million for a potential settlement with the DOJ regarding the company’s advertising practices. The DOJ is currently studying Google’s proposed $400 million purchase of digital advertising toolmaker Admeld.

Late last month, French search company 1plusV said it would seek $423 million in damages from the American search giant over alleged anticompetitive practices.