Some believe Siri is a driving force behind Apple’s record-breaking iPhone 4S sales, but not everyone is impressed with the Cupertino, California-based company’s virtual assistant. Apple’s TV ads depict Siri as an impressive, fast-acting feature that intelligently offers help or information in responds to a wide range of and commands. A number of users have found that Siri is not as helpful as Apple leads consumers to believe, however, and the company has been hit with a number of lawsuits as a result. Apple was sued in March by a New York man, Frank Fazio, who alleges that Apple’s Siri commercials are misleading and deceptive. “On many of Apple’s television advertisements, individuals are shown using Siri to make appointments, find restaurants,

Japanese online giant Rakuten announced Thursday it was leading a $100 million investment in Pinterest, a fast-growing US bulletin-board style social media website.

What do you get when you cross a struggling vendor’s debut tablet with a mobile operating system that has spent the past 18 months running into the brick wall that is Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS? One Dutch developer seemingly needed to find out, so he ported Microsoft’s perpetually-emerging Windows Phone OS onto RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook. The result is a somewhat responsive slate that gives us a look at what will never be; Microsoft is on record in stating that it has no interest in bringing Windows Phone — emphasis on “Phone” — to tablets. Of course, with the software giant’s next-generation Windows 8 platform on the horizon there is no reason to put Windows Phone on a

(Reuters) - Social networking site Pinterest has raised $100 million from a group of investors led by Japanese online retailing giant Rakuten Inc in a deal that reportedly values the three-year-old U.S. company at $1.5 billion. Rakuten said it was joined in the capital-raising by existing shareholders Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital and a number of angel investors. The new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said. ...

According to a new report from Forrester Research, Microsoft is leading both Apple and Google in the TV and home entertainment sector, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. While Apple and Google may control mobile, Microsoft’s Xbox entertainment system tops both Apple TV and Google TV according to the report. With the Xbox, Forrester analyst James McQuivey believes Microsoft is the farthest along when it comes to delivering users content through their television sets. “Using those metrics, Microsoft is in the lead, offering everything that matters: a growing content library, a convenient engagement path for millions of existing Xbox 360 owners, and a growing ecosystem of partners and developers eager to exploit the platform for their own purposes,” McQuivey wrote

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Even as Facebook fever grips investors ahead of the social networking giant's potential $100 billion-plus initial public offering, its breakneck growth in Asia may be slowing as it moves beyond desktop users to those who access the Internet largely or solely from a mobile phone. In March, Facebook revised its own SEC filings to scale back its scope for further growth in India - its third-biggest user base and the largest population it currently has access to - China remains off-limits to Facebook. ...

Don't try to friend MaLi Arwood on Facebook. You won't find her there.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp said on Thursday it aims to more than double its annual operating profit in three years to $5.6 billion, by expanding its social infrastructure business and boosting sales of electronics devices. The electronics conglomerate, whose television sales have been sliding along with those of rivals Sony Corp, Panasonic Corp and Sharp Corp, has been buoyed by strong sales of Apple Inc's iPhones, which use Toshiba's NAND flash chips. The world's No. ...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans to use a larger screen on the next-generation iPhone and has begun to place orders for the new displays from suppliers in South Korea and Japan, people familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. The new iPhone screens will measure 4 inches from corner to corner, one source said. That would represent a roughly 30 percent increase in viewing area, assuming Apple keeps other dimensions proportional. Apple has used a 3.5-inch screen since introducing the iPhone in 2007. ...

SEOUL (Reuters) - Shares in South Korea's Samsung Electronics recovered from a more than two percent loss on Thursday morning and were trading flat at on the day by 00:26 a.m. EDT. The world's largest electronics company by revenue had been hit by a newspaper report that Apple Inc had given a large chip order to a rival, losing 6.2 percent on Wednesday. (Reporting by David Chance; Editing by Joseph Radford)

Australian police warned Thursday that paedophiles were using Internet live-streaming sites to order "bespoke" child sex crimes for real-time viewing, from countries including the Philippines.

LG on Wednesday announced a new user-interface skin for its Android-powered devices running Ice Cream Sandwich. The South Korean company’s Optimus UI 3.0 is said to be designed with convenience and speed in mind, and is being labeled as both unobtrusive and simple. “With smartphone hardware becoming more and more similar, it’s important for manufacturers to differentiate their products from the competition through the user interface,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Both carriers and customers tell us that they want LG phones to look and feel unique and the UI plays a big part in that. LG is really going to push the boundaries of what is possible in user interfaces starting with

Similar to Apple’s iTunes program, Google Music only allows a certain number of devices to be connected to the service at one time. Google allows users to upload up to 20,000 song for free, which can then be accessed by up to 10 “authorized” devices. Once the limit is reached, a user can “deauthorize” a device to allow another a different phone or tablet to take its place. The problem, however, is that Google has limited device deauthorizations to just four per year. While Google’s limit may not affect the average Joe, rooters, ROMers, enthusiasts and even bloggers may run into some trouble. Custom ROM users in particular may run into trouble — Google Music often has difficulties handling custom

(Reuters) - Activision Blizzard Inc and arch rival video game company Electronic Arts Inc have settled a lawsuit in which Activision accused two former executives of breaking their employment agreements to develop games for EA. "Activision and EA have agreed to put this matter behind them," the companies said on Wednesday in a joint statement. Neither company disclosed details of the settlement. Two former Activision executives, Jason West and Vincent Zampella, developed the original "Call of Duty" game and several others in the series. ...

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - General Motors Inc's decision to stop advertising on Facebook may be a wake-up call for the No. 1 social network, but Top advertising executives say it's far too early to know if the site will take off as an advertising platform. "There's a lot of potential but it's not a slam-dunk," said Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Plc, the world's largest advertising agency. "Showing the impact of branding on Facebook is going to take a long time," he added. Facebook is due to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday in an initial public offering that will raise about $15. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors who want Facebook Inc shares when the No. 1 online social network goes public later this week may have lost the opportunity. TD Ameritrade and Fidelity's brokerage arm both stopped accepting orders of Facebook shares as of Tuesday evening, according to representatives for each of the companies. Morgan Stanley & Co did the same, according to three advisers at the firm who declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the press. E*Trade Financial also stopped accepting orders as of 4 p.m. ...

The legal battle between gaming giants Activision Blizzard Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. is over, with the companies announcing they have settled a case that accused EA of improperly recruiting two executives who oversaw the creation of the smash videogame "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2."

Responding to extraordinary demand, Facebook said Wednesday that it would sell more stock in the company's initial public offering. But ahead of the IPO, a debate emerged between two of the nation's largest automakers: Does it pay to advertise on the social network?

Despite the explosive innovation around digital picture-taking, the end result has actually changed very little. A photo is still a photo. And a poorly focused photo is still as bad as ever. Ren Ng aims to fix that.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google is revamping the way it handles searches in the United States to give users quick access to answers without leaving the page, the company said. The new search process is based on what Google calls the "knowledge graph" -- meaning that it tries to pinpoint faster the context surrounding its users' keyword searches. "Over the years, as search has improved, people expect more," said Amit Singhal, vice president of engineering at Google and the head of search, in an interview. "We see this as the next big improvement in search relevance. ...

(Reuters) - Social networking site Pinterest has raised $100 million from a group of investors led by Japanese online retailing giant Rakuten Inc in a deal that reportedly values the three-year-old U.S. company at $1.5 billion. Rakuten said it was joined in the capital-raising by existing shareholders Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital and a number of angel investors. The new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said. ...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Even as Facebook fever grips investors ahead of the social networking giant's potential $100 billion-plus initial public offering, its breakneck growth in Asia may be slowing as it moves beyond desktop users to those who access the Internet largely or solely from a mobile phone. In March, Facebook revised its own SEC filings to scale back its scope for further growth in India - its third-biggest user base and the largest population it currently has access to - China remains off-limits to Facebook. ...

Australian police warned Thursday that paedophiles were using Internet live-streaming sites to order "bespoke" child sex crimes for real-time viewing, from countries including the Philippines.

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - General Motors Inc's decision to stop advertising on Facebook may be a wake-up call for the No. 1 social network, but Top advertising executives say it's far too early to know if the site will take off as an advertising platform. "There's a lot of potential but it's not a slam-dunk," said Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Plc, the world's largest advertising agency. "Showing the impact of branding on Facebook is going to take a long time," he added. Facebook is due to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday in an initial public offering that will raise about $15. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors who want Facebook Inc shares when the No. 1 online social network goes public later this week may have lost the opportunity. TD Ameritrade and Fidelity's brokerage arm both stopped accepting orders of Facebook shares as of Tuesday evening, according to representatives for each of the companies. Morgan Stanley & Co did the same, according to three advisers at the firm who declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the press. E*Trade Financial also stopped accepting orders as of 4 p.m. ...

Google on Wednesday began making its search engine smarter, in what the Internet giant called a major upgrade that looks beyond query words to figure out what people are actually seeking online.

The Big Apple may not have California's weather, but tech fans at New York Internet Week say that in every other way the city is on course to become Silicon Valley 2.0.

A document by a conservative super PAC refers to the president as "metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln."

The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank's initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.

Greece's caretaker Cabinet was sworn in and will lead the country into next month's election, after a deadlocked vote sparked more political turmoil and brought the country's use of the euro currency into question.

A new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said.

Dog bites man does not get a lot of attention in the news, but it costs insurance companies hundreds of millions in claims every year.

Police and FBI officials were poring over more than 100 tips as they hunted for a man accused of stabbing his new wife to death and leaving her body in her bathtub, still clad in her silver-sequined wedding dress.

Don't try to friend MaLi Arwood on Facebook. You won't find her there.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes. ...

Romney nearly matched the $44 million that President Obama raised during the same period.

The presiding judge in the U.N. trial of Gen. Ratko Mladic has delayed indefinitely the presentation of evidence that had been scheduled to start later this month due to "errors" by prosecutors in disclosing evidence to defense lawyers.

Chuck Brown, who styled a unique mix of funk, soul and Latin party sounds to create go-go music in the nation's capital, has died after suffering from pneumonia. He was 75.

With only two hours each to make their closing arguments, prosecutors and defense lawyers neared the end of a month-long trial into whether former presidential hopeful John Edwards violated campaign finance laws.

For Senate Republicans, 2012 is starting a lot like 2010. They have a shot at taking control from Democrats as long as insurgent conservatives don't frighten independent voters like they did two years ago.

For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing.

National foreclosure trends took a positive turn in April, as the number of homes seized by banks declined and fewer properties entered into the foreclosure process.

A Georgia graduate student fighting a rare flesh-eating infection has been looking at her ravaged hands and asking about the damage, all without tears, her father said.

At a campaign stop in Youngstown, Ohio, Vice President Joe Biden lit into Republicans and their presumed  presidential nominee for what he described as a failure to understand the plight of the middle class.

The Death of RFK Jr.'s wife is the Latest Tragedy for the Kennedy Family.

What do you get when you cross a struggling vendor’s debut tablet with a mobile operating system that has spent the past 18 months running into the brick wall that is Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS? One Dutch developer seemingly needed to find out, so he ported Microsoft’s perpetually-emerging Windows Phone OS onto RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook. The result is a somewhat responsive slate that gives us a look at what will never be; Microsoft is on record in stating that it has no interest in bringing Windows Phone — emphasis on “Phone” — to tablets. Of course, with the software giant’s next-generation Windows 8 platform on the horizon there is no reason to put Windows Phone on a

(Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd said the UK agency responsible for setting standards for computer security has approved the BlackBerry 7 operating system for government use. This will allow the government employees to use six models of the smart phone including BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Torch 9810 and BlackBerry Torch 9860, RIM said. Ministry of defence, central government employees and more than half of the country's police force use BlackBerry smart phones, the company said. (Reporting by Aftab Ahmed in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

LG on Wednesday announced a new user-interface skin for its Android-powered devices running Ice Cream Sandwich. The South Korean company’s Optimus UI 3.0 is said to be designed with convenience and speed in mind, and is being labeled as both unobtrusive and simple. “With smartphone hardware becoming more and more similar, it’s important for manufacturers to differentiate their products from the competition through the user interface,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Both carriers and customers tell us that they want LG phones to look and feel unique and the UI plays a big part in that. LG is really going to push the boundaries of what is possible in user interfaces starting with

Despite some vendors seeing record smartphone sales, worldwide sales of mobile phones declined 2% year-over-year to 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, according to research firm Gartner. The decline represents the first of its kind since the second quarter of 2009. “Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia – which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.” In the smartphone market, Android accounted for more

One year ago, less than 40% of mobile subscribers in the United States had a smartphone. That number has increased dramatically, however; according to Nielsen, one in two mobile subscribers now owns a smartphone. Driven mostly by the rise of Android and iOS, which account for more than 80% of the U.S. smartphone market, 2012 has turned into the year of the app. The average number of apps installed on each smartphone has jumped 28% in 2012, an increase from 32 apps to 41. Smartphone owners are also spending increasingly more time using apps than using the mobile web, roughly 10% more than last year. Nielsen notes that the top five most active apps continue to be Facebook, YouTube, Android

Mobile phone sales worldwide suffered a rare dip in the first three months of this year on softened demand in Asian markets, industry tracker Gartner reported Wednesday.

Successfully launching an iconic smartphone is a daunting task, and following up a blockbuster flagship phone launch is even more difficult. Apple and Samsung might make it look easy, but companies like Motorola, Nokia and RIM have shown us that the success of one phone is anything but a guarantee that sequels will be met with the same fanfare. Perhaps no recent smartphone launch better embodies that notion than the HTC EVO 4G, a smartphone that gave Sprint a much-needed smash hit when it launched in 2010, and its successor the EVO 3D, which is now all but forgotten less than a year after its debut. Now, Sprint and HTC are back again with the HTC EVO 4G LTE, a

US mobile carrier Sprint said Wednesday it was delaying the introduction of an Android smartphone from Taiwan's HTC after the devices were blocked by US customs.

Android’s rise to the top of the mobile operating system food chain as measured by device proliferation has been remarkably swift, but not without its drawbacks. Due to the nature of Google’s open source OS and its aggressive strategy, smartphone vendors that make use of the platform have each gone their own way with software development, hardware design and other key elements. As a result, Android fragmentation, which might be defined as the spread of diverging versions of the Android OS across devices with varying core characteristics, was born. Whether or not fragmentation is a problem in the Android ecosystem is a topic that is intensely debated by enthusiasts. Some claim the problem will eventually lead to Android’s downfall while others

As Android widens its lead in the smartphone and tablet marketplace, Apple is starting to look a little frightened. The company that once answered to nobody (but Steve Jobs) seems to be cowering in the shadows of folks like Samsung and HTC. Instead of doing its normal trick of breaking conventions, Apple actually looks like it's going on the defensive with the latest designs for the iPhone and iPad and changing the specs of their flagship devices to match those of its competitors' gadgets. It's beyond mere imitation, though. ...

The launch of Sprint’s flagship EVO 4G LTE has been delayed indefinitely and supply of AT&T’s flagship HTC One X will be constrained as a result of ongoing patent disputes between HTC and Apple. HTC confirmed in a statement emailed to BGR on Tuesday evening that shipments of its new EVO 4G LTE and One X smartphones have been held up by United States Customs as part of an International Trade Commission investigation. Before the phones can clear Customs, the ITC will need to determine that HTC’s new handsets are in compliance with an earlier ruling. “The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of

High-tech product releases announced the week ending May 16 include the world’s first 55” OLED Smart TV, an updated Google TV with a magic remote, LG’s first quad-core smartphone, the world’s lightest 14” ultrabook and an affordable Android smartphone for music lovers.

A document by a conservative super PAC refers to the president as "metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln."

The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank's initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.

Greece's caretaker Cabinet was sworn in and will lead the country into next month's election, after a deadlocked vote sparked more political turmoil and brought the country's use of the euro currency into question.

A new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said.

Dog bites man does not get a lot of attention in the news, but it costs insurance companies hundreds of millions in claims every year.

Police and FBI officials were poring over more than 100 tips as they hunted for a man accused of stabbing his new wife to death and leaving her body in her bathtub, still clad in her silver-sequined wedding dress.

Don't try to friend MaLi Arwood on Facebook. You won't find her there.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes. ...

Romney nearly matched the $44 million that President Obama raised during the same period.

The presiding judge in the U.N. trial of Gen. Ratko Mladic has delayed indefinitely the presentation of evidence that had been scheduled to start later this month due to "errors" by prosecutors in disclosing evidence to defense lawyers.

Chuck Brown, who styled a unique mix of funk, soul and Latin party sounds to create go-go music in the nation's capital, has died after suffering from pneumonia. He was 75.

With only two hours each to make their closing arguments, prosecutors and defense lawyers neared the end of a month-long trial into whether former presidential hopeful John Edwards violated campaign finance laws.

For Senate Republicans, 2012 is starting a lot like 2010. They have a shot at taking control from Democrats as long as insurgent conservatives don't frighten independent voters like they did two years ago.

For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing.

National foreclosure trends took a positive turn in April, as the number of homes seized by banks declined and fewer properties entered into the foreclosure process.

A Georgia graduate student fighting a rare flesh-eating infection has been looking at her ravaged hands and asking about the damage, all without tears, her father said.

At a campaign stop in Youngstown, Ohio, Vice President Joe Biden lit into Republicans and their presumed  presidential nominee for what he described as a failure to understand the plight of the middle class.

The Death of RFK Jr.'s wife is the Latest Tragedy for the Kennedy Family.

A document by a conservative super PAC refers to the president as "metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln."

The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank's initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.

Greece's caretaker Cabinet was sworn in and will lead the country into next month's election, after a deadlocked vote sparked more political turmoil and brought the country's use of the euro currency into question.

A new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said.

Dog bites man does not get a lot of attention in the news, but it costs insurance companies hundreds of millions in claims every year.

Police and FBI officials were poring over more than 100 tips as they hunted for a man accused of stabbing his new wife to death and leaving her body in her bathtub, still clad in her silver-sequined wedding dress.

Don't try to friend MaLi Arwood on Facebook. You won't find her there.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes. ...

Romney nearly matched the $44 million that President Obama raised during the same period.

The presiding judge in the U.N. trial of Gen. Ratko Mladic has delayed indefinitely the presentation of evidence that had been scheduled to start later this month due to "errors" by prosecutors in disclosing evidence to defense lawyers.

Chuck Brown, who styled a unique mix of funk, soul and Latin party sounds to create go-go music in the nation's capital, has died after suffering from pneumonia. He was 75.

With only two hours each to make their closing arguments, prosecutors and defense lawyers neared the end of a month-long trial into whether former presidential hopeful John Edwards violated campaign finance laws.

For Senate Republicans, 2012 is starting a lot like 2010. They have a shot at taking control from Democrats as long as insurgent conservatives don't frighten independent voters like they did two years ago.

For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing.

National foreclosure trends took a positive turn in April, as the number of homes seized by banks declined and fewer properties entered into the foreclosure process.

A Georgia graduate student fighting a rare flesh-eating infection has been looking at her ravaged hands and asking about the damage, all without tears, her father said.

At a campaign stop in Youngstown, Ohio, Vice President Joe Biden lit into Republicans and their presumed  presidential nominee for what he described as a failure to understand the plight of the middle class.

The Death of RFK Jr.'s wife is the Latest Tragedy for the Kennedy Family.

(Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd said the UK agency responsible for setting standards for computer security has approved the BlackBerry 7 operating system for government use. This will allow the government employees to use six models of the smart phone including BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Torch 9810 and BlackBerry Torch 9860, RIM said. Ministry of defence, central government employees and more than half of the country's police force use BlackBerry smart phones, the company said. (Reporting by Aftab Ahmed in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

Internet security researchers warned that foreign policy and human rights websites are being booby-trapped by hackers in what appears to be cyber espionage.

Interpol president Khoo Boon Hui said on Tuesday that organised international gangs are behind most internet scams and that cyber crime's estimated cost is more than that of cocaine, heroin and marijuana trafficking put together.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp on Thursday said it had won a contract worth up to $454 million to support the Pentagon's Cyber Crime Center, a government facility that investigates the growing number of attacks on U.S. government networks. Lockheed beat out General Dynamics Corp, which previously ran the center, to win the contract in January, but the award was held up by a protest filed with the General Accountability Office. ...

The website of Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has been taken offline after an attack by hackers, the agency said on Thursday.

Web wanderers are more likely to get a computer virus by visiting a religious website than by peering at porn, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Philippine government websites are under heavy attack from hackers, apparently from China, amid a tense territorial dispute between the two countries in the South China Sea, officials said Thursday.

Google on Monday raised to $20,000 its bounty on software bugs that hackers could exploit for cyber attacks on the Internet giant's online services.

A document by a conservative super PAC refers to the president as "metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln."

The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank's initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.

Greece's caretaker Cabinet was sworn in and will lead the country into next month's election, after a deadlocked vote sparked more political turmoil and brought the country's use of the euro currency into question.

A new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said.

Dog bites man does not get a lot of attention in the news, but it costs insurance companies hundreds of millions in claims every year.

Police and FBI officials were poring over more than 100 tips as they hunted for a man accused of stabbing his new wife to death and leaving her body in her bathtub, still clad in her silver-sequined wedding dress.

Don't try to friend MaLi Arwood on Facebook. You won't find her there.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes. ...

Romney nearly matched the $44 million that President Obama raised during the same period.

The presiding judge in the U.N. trial of Gen. Ratko Mladic has delayed indefinitely the presentation of evidence that had been scheduled to start later this month due to "errors" by prosecutors in disclosing evidence to defense lawyers.

Chuck Brown, who styled a unique mix of funk, soul and Latin party sounds to create go-go music in the nation's capital, has died after suffering from pneumonia. He was 75.

With only two hours each to make their closing arguments, prosecutors and defense lawyers neared the end of a month-long trial into whether former presidential hopeful John Edwards violated campaign finance laws.

For Senate Republicans, 2012 is starting a lot like 2010. They have a shot at taking control from Democrats as long as insurgent conservatives don't frighten independent voters like they did two years ago.

For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing.

National foreclosure trends took a positive turn in April, as the number of homes seized by banks declined and fewer properties entered into the foreclosure process.

A Georgia graduate student fighting a rare flesh-eating infection has been looking at her ravaged hands and asking about the damage, all without tears, her father said.

At a campaign stop in Youngstown, Ohio, Vice President Joe Biden lit into Republicans and their presumed  presidential nominee for what he described as a failure to understand the plight of the middle class.

The Death of RFK Jr.'s wife is the Latest Tragedy for the Kennedy Family.

LONDON (Reuters) - Biotech companies are fighting back in an unequal battle with Big Pharma, helped by a small but powerful cohort of investors who dominate the companies' share registers. A Reuters analysis of 10 likely biotech takeover targets shows the extent to which a few large investors, including Fidelity Investments, Capital Research Global Investors, Wellington Management and T. Rowe Price Associates hold the keys to the kingdom when it comes to negotiating a deal. From Amylin Pharmaceuticals to Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Human Genome Sciences , these U.S. ...

Researchers in Argentina have isolated a drought-resistant sunflower gene and spliced it into soy, bolstering hopes for improved yields as the South American agricultural powerhouse grapples with global warming.

LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca is to buy U.S. company Ardea Biosciences for $1.26 billion, giving it a new gout drug to bolster a weak pipeline in a deal that feeds a wave of M&A in the biotechnology sector. The $32 per share acquisition - a 54 percent premium to Ardea's closing price on Friday - is worth $1 billion after deducting cash held by Ardea, the companies said on Monday. The planned purchase shows Britain's second-biggest drug maker delivering on a promise to step up deal-making to fix its drug pipeline. ...

Asian outbreaks of a notorious antibiotic-resistant super-germ are being driven by a gene that helps the bug colonise the nostrils, lungs and skin and evade the immune defences, scientists said on Sunday.

Montana officials said Wednesday they are investigating several sites with suspected oil left over from an Exxon Mobil pipeline break last year, but recent tests showed at least one such site downstream of the spill is oil-free.

The Asian Development Bank said Wednesday it had sold $339 million worth of bonds to help fund investment in more environmentally-friendly power projects in the region.

HOUSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - IBM thinks it can make geologists and engineers more effective at mining the fast-growing wealth of data on everything from oil reservoirs to refineries to help them find, extract and process oil. The computer services company has spent the past three years building a team of 5,000 consultants, scattered around major oil basins worldwide, to help companies tackle the data explosion. ...

Motorists across most of the country have been getting a break on the price of gas, but not on the West Coast.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Monday as investors dealt with the one-two punch of worsening political upheaval in the euro zone and the possibility that China's economy may be softening more than previously thought. The S&P 500 finished lower for the fourth day of five to close at its lowest level since February, adding fuel to worries of a coming market correction. Economically sensitive shares, including banks and energy companies, paced the decline. Exxon Mobil Corp lost 1.2 percent to $82.12. The NYSEArca oil index fell 1.8 percent. ...

A document by a conservative super PAC refers to the president as "metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln."

The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank's initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.

Greece's caretaker Cabinet was sworn in and will lead the country into next month's election, after a deadlocked vote sparked more political turmoil and brought the country's use of the euro currency into question.

A new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said.

Dog bites man does not get a lot of attention in the news, but it costs insurance companies hundreds of millions in claims every year.

Police and FBI officials were poring over more than 100 tips as they hunted for a man accused of stabbing his new wife to death and leaving her body in her bathtub, still clad in her silver-sequined wedding dress.

Don't try to friend MaLi Arwood on Facebook. You won't find her there.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes. ...

Romney nearly matched the $44 million that President Obama raised during the same period.

The presiding judge in the U.N. trial of Gen. Ratko Mladic has delayed indefinitely the presentation of evidence that had been scheduled to start later this month due to "errors" by prosecutors in disclosing evidence to defense lawyers.

Chuck Brown, who styled a unique mix of funk, soul and Latin party sounds to create go-go music in the nation's capital, has died after suffering from pneumonia. He was 75.

With only two hours each to make their closing arguments, prosecutors and defense lawyers neared the end of a month-long trial into whether former presidential hopeful John Edwards violated campaign finance laws.

For Senate Republicans, 2012 is starting a lot like 2010. They have a shot at taking control from Democrats as long as insurgent conservatives don't frighten independent voters like they did two years ago.

For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing.

National foreclosure trends took a positive turn in April, as the number of homes seized by banks declined and fewer properties entered into the foreclosure process.

A Georgia graduate student fighting a rare flesh-eating infection has been looking at her ravaged hands and asking about the damage, all without tears, her father said.

At a campaign stop in Youngstown, Ohio, Vice President Joe Biden lit into Republicans and their presumed  presidential nominee for what he described as a failure to understand the plight of the middle class.

The Death of RFK Jr.'s wife is the Latest Tragedy for the Kennedy Family.

Some believe Siri is a driving force behind Apple’s record-breaking iPhone 4S sales, but not everyone is impressed with the Cupertino, California-based company’s virtual assistant. Apple’s TV ads depict Siri as an impressive, fast-acting feature that intelligently offers help or information in responds to a wide range of and commands. A number of users have found that Siri is not as helpful as Apple leads consumers to believe, however, and the company has been hit with a number of lawsuits as a result. Apple was sued in March by a New York man, Frank Fazio, who alleges that Apple’s Siri commercials are misleading and deceptive. “On many of Apple’s television advertisements, individuals are shown using Siri to make appointments, find restaurants,

Japanese online giant Rakuten announced Thursday it was leading a $100 million investment in Pinterest, a fast-growing US bulletin-board style social media website.

What do you get when you cross a struggling vendor’s debut tablet with a mobile operating system that has spent the past 18 months running into the brick wall that is Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS? One Dutch developer seemingly needed to find out, so he ported Microsoft’s perpetually-emerging Windows Phone OS onto RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook. The result is a somewhat responsive slate that gives us a look at what will never be; Microsoft is on record in stating that it has no interest in bringing Windows Phone — emphasis on “Phone” — to tablets. Of course, with the software giant’s next-generation Windows 8 platform on the horizon there is no reason to put Windows Phone on a

(Reuters) - Social networking site Pinterest has raised $100 million from a group of investors led by Japanese online retailing giant Rakuten Inc in a deal that reportedly values the three-year-old U.S. company at $1.5 billion. Rakuten said it was joined in the capital-raising by existing shareholders Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital and a number of angel investors. The new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said. ...

According to a new report from Forrester Research, Microsoft is leading both Apple and Google in the TV and home entertainment sector, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. While Apple and Google may control mobile, Microsoft’s Xbox entertainment system tops both Apple TV and Google TV according to the report. With the Xbox, Forrester analyst James McQuivey believes Microsoft is the farthest along when it comes to delivering users content through their television sets. “Using those metrics, Microsoft is in the lead, offering everything that matters: a growing content library, a convenient engagement path for millions of existing Xbox 360 owners, and a growing ecosystem of partners and developers eager to exploit the platform for their own purposes,” McQuivey wrote

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Even as Facebook fever grips investors ahead of the social networking giant's potential $100 billion-plus initial public offering, its breakneck growth in Asia may be slowing as it moves beyond desktop users to those who access the Internet largely or solely from a mobile phone. In March, Facebook revised its own SEC filings to scale back its scope for further growth in India - its third-biggest user base and the largest population it currently has access to - China remains off-limits to Facebook. ...

Don't try to friend MaLi Arwood on Facebook. You won't find her there.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp said on Thursday it aims to more than double its annual operating profit in three years to $5.6 billion, by expanding its social infrastructure business and boosting sales of electronics devices. The electronics conglomerate, whose television sales have been sliding along with those of rivals Sony Corp, Panasonic Corp and Sharp Corp, has been buoyed by strong sales of Apple Inc's iPhones, which use Toshiba's NAND flash chips. The world's No. ...

Despite the explosive innovation around digital picture-taking, the end result has actually changed very little. A photo is still a photo. And a poorly focused photo is still as bad as ever. Ren Ng aims to fix that.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google is revamping the way it handles searches in the United States to give users quick access to answers without leaving the page, the company said. The new search process is based on what Google calls the "knowledge graph" -- meaning that it tries to pinpoint faster the context surrounding its users' keyword searches. "Over the years, as search has improved, people expect more," said Amit Singhal, vice president of engineering at Google and the head of search, in an interview. "We see this as the next big improvement in search relevance. ...

(Reuters) - Social networking site Pinterest has raised $100 million from a group of investors led by Japanese online retailing giant Rakuten Inc in a deal that reportedly values the three-year-old U.S. company at $1.5 billion. Rakuten said it was joined in the capital-raising by existing shareholders Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital and a number of angel investors. The new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said. ...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Even as Facebook fever grips investors ahead of the social networking giant's potential $100 billion-plus initial public offering, its breakneck growth in Asia may be slowing as it moves beyond desktop users to those who access the Internet largely or solely from a mobile phone. In March, Facebook revised its own SEC filings to scale back its scope for further growth in India - its third-biggest user base and the largest population it currently has access to - China remains off-limits to Facebook. ...

Australian police warned Thursday that paedophiles were using Internet live-streaming sites to order "bespoke" child sex crimes for real-time viewing, from countries including the Philippines.

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - General Motors Inc's decision to stop advertising on Facebook may be a wake-up call for the No. 1 social network, but Top advertising executives say it's far too early to know if the site will take off as an advertising platform. "There's a lot of potential but it's not a slam-dunk," said Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Plc, the world's largest advertising agency. "Showing the impact of branding on Facebook is going to take a long time," he added. Facebook is due to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday in an initial public offering that will raise about $15. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors who want Facebook Inc shares when the No. 1 online social network goes public later this week may have lost the opportunity. TD Ameritrade and Fidelity's brokerage arm both stopped accepting orders of Facebook shares as of Tuesday evening, according to representatives for each of the companies. Morgan Stanley & Co did the same, according to three advisers at the firm who declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the press. E*Trade Financial also stopped accepting orders as of 4 p.m. ...

Google on Wednesday began making its search engine smarter, in what the Internet giant called a major upgrade that looks beyond query words to figure out what people are actually seeking online.

The Big Apple may not have California's weather, but tech fans at New York Internet Week say that in every other way the city is on course to become Silicon Valley 2.0.

LG is exhibiting its second generation Google TV at Internet Week New York, a city-wide event showcasing the best of the web which runs from May 14-21 in the Big Apple.

What do you get when you cross a struggling vendor’s debut tablet with a mobile operating system that has spent the past 18 months running into the brick wall that is Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS? One Dutch developer seemingly needed to find out, so he ported Microsoft’s perpetually-emerging Windows Phone OS onto RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook. The result is a somewhat responsive slate that gives us a look at what will never be; Microsoft is on record in stating that it has no interest in bringing Windows Phone — emphasis on “Phone” — to tablets. Of course, with the software giant’s next-generation Windows 8 platform on the horizon there is no reason to put Windows Phone on a

(Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd said the UK agency responsible for setting standards for computer security has approved the BlackBerry 7 operating system for government use. This will allow the government employees to use six models of the smart phone including BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Torch 9810 and BlackBerry Torch 9860, RIM said. Ministry of defence, central government employees and more than half of the country's police force use BlackBerry smart phones, the company said. (Reporting by Aftab Ahmed in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

LG on Wednesday announced a new user-interface skin for its Android-powered devices running Ice Cream Sandwich. The South Korean company’s Optimus UI 3.0 is said to be designed with convenience and speed in mind, and is being labeled as both unobtrusive and simple. “With smartphone hardware becoming more and more similar, it’s important for manufacturers to differentiate their products from the competition through the user interface,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Both carriers and customers tell us that they want LG phones to look and feel unique and the UI plays a big part in that. LG is really going to push the boundaries of what is possible in user interfaces starting with

Despite some vendors seeing record smartphone sales, worldwide sales of mobile phones declined 2% year-over-year to 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, according to research firm Gartner. The decline represents the first of its kind since the second quarter of 2009. “Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia – which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.” In the smartphone market, Android accounted for more

One year ago, less than 40% of mobile subscribers in the United States had a smartphone. That number has increased dramatically, however; according to Nielsen, one in two mobile subscribers now owns a smartphone. Driven mostly by the rise of Android and iOS, which account for more than 80% of the U.S. smartphone market, 2012 has turned into the year of the app. The average number of apps installed on each smartphone has jumped 28% in 2012, an increase from 32 apps to 41. Smartphone owners are also spending increasingly more time using apps than using the mobile web, roughly 10% more than last year. Nielsen notes that the top five most active apps continue to be Facebook, YouTube, Android

Mobile phone sales worldwide suffered a rare dip in the first three months of this year on softened demand in Asian markets, industry tracker Gartner reported Wednesday.

Successfully launching an iconic smartphone is a daunting task, and following up a blockbuster flagship phone launch is even more difficult. Apple and Samsung might make it look easy, but companies like Motorola, Nokia and RIM have shown us that the success of one phone is anything but a guarantee that sequels will be met with the same fanfare. Perhaps no recent smartphone launch better embodies that notion than the HTC EVO 4G, a smartphone that gave Sprint a much-needed smash hit when it launched in 2010, and its successor the EVO 3D, which is now all but forgotten less than a year after its debut. Now, Sprint and HTC are back again with the HTC EVO 4G LTE, a

US mobile carrier Sprint said Wednesday it was delaying the introduction of an Android smartphone from Taiwan's HTC after the devices were blocked by US customs.

Android’s rise to the top of the mobile operating system food chain as measured by device proliferation has been remarkably swift, but not without its drawbacks. Due to the nature of Google’s open source OS and its aggressive strategy, smartphone vendors that make use of the platform have each gone their own way with software development, hardware design and other key elements. As a result, Android fragmentation, which might be defined as the spread of diverging versions of the Android OS across devices with varying core characteristics, was born. Whether or not fragmentation is a problem in the Android ecosystem is a topic that is intensely debated by enthusiasts. Some claim the problem will eventually lead to Android’s downfall while others

A document by a conservative super PAC refers to the president as "metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln."

The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank's initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.

Greece's caretaker Cabinet was sworn in and will lead the country into next month's election, after a deadlocked vote sparked more political turmoil and brought the country's use of the euro currency into question.

A new round of financing values Pinterest — one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing startups — at $1.5 billion, up sharply from $200 million late last year, Wall Street Journal said.