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Survey: Smartphones among Top Gadgets for Americans

Smartphones are now used in 72 percent of U.S. homes and have become the third most owned electronics item for Americans, a survey showed Monday.

The annual survey by the Consumer Electronics Association found that smartphones trail only televisions, which are in 97 percent of U.S. households, and DVD players, in 78 percent.

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Apple Steps up Efforts to Go Green in China

Apple says it's boosting efforts to go green in China by partnering with conservationists to promote sustainable forestry for paper production.

CEO Tim Cook also said in a statement Sunday that he will try to get Apple's Chinese suppliers and contract manufacturers to use renewable energy to power their factories.

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IBM's Watson Strives to be Jack of all Trades

Watson already has won a major TV game show, is looking for a cure for cancer and has ambitious gastronomy ambitions including devising a recipe for chocolate-beef burritos.

The IBM supercomputer is becoming a jack of all trades for the U.S. tech giant -- including in its new role as a business consultant and analyst for various industries by using massive Internet databases.

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Iran Admits Technology Makes Media Control Impossible

The Internet and the proliferation of satellite technology mean Iran can no longer control foreign news and television broadcasts, the country's culture minister said on Sunday, urging a new approach.

In remarks that signal the government's intention to open Iran up to the world, Ali Jannati told police commanders that new delivery systems ignore borders, making censorship measures redundant.

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In Tech: Mobile App, Mobile Phone, Online TV

The iconic designer behind the simulation video games "Sim City" and "The Sims" wants people to tell stories visually on their mobile phones.

Will Wright has created a mobile app called Thred. The idea is to "explore and share visual ideas with friends" — through "threds" of images and links. For some, this can mean a collection of Internet jokes; for others, travel photos and articles. If you give Thred permission, it will access your phone's photos and track your location so that you can post a thread of the day's meals, or the snapshots of flowers you shot on a Sunday trip to the botanical gardens.

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Google Adds Food-Ordering Feature to Mobile Search

Google on Friday added a feature that lets people in the U.S. order food directly from mobile searches for local restaurants.

The move came as the Internet titan maneuvers to stay in tune with the trend of smartphones being used to seek out local venues and weave itself into online commerce.

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App Gives Fans another Shot at Sold-Out Events

During more than a decade as a ticketing agent, Jean-Sebastien Gosuin over and again saw empty seats at sold-out events from FIFA soccer matches to the Olympics.

This inspired him to team up with two other Belgian entrepreneurs to create Seaters, a ticket-fielding platform and app designed to give fans second shots at seats that become available at events that are technically sold-out.

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Ericsson Moves to Take a Bigger Bite out of Apple for Patent Violations

Swedish telecoms group Ericsson announced Friday it was stepping up its pursuit of Apple for alleged unlicensed use of its technology in iPhones and other wireless devices by filing lawsuits in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.

"Apple continues to profit from Ericsson's technology without having a valid license in place," Kasim Alfalahi, Ericsson's chief intellectual property officer, said in a statement.

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Researchers: Facebook not an Information Bubble

Social media networks like Facebook are not putting users in an ideological information bubble, despite fears to the contrary, a new research report said Thursday.

The study published in the journal Science, based on an analysis of 10 million Facebook users and seven million web links, found many of the shared stories allowed people to get viewpoints different from their own.

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Wearable-Device Maker Fitbit to Go Public

Fitbit on Thursday filed paperwork with U.S. regulators to go public with a stock offering on the New York Stock Exchange.

The San Francisco-based company known for wearable devices designed to promote healthy lifestyles by tracking activity gave a preliminary target of about $100 million for the initial public offering, but the figure will likely change by the time shares are released.

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