Hacking Team, a controversial Italian firm which sells surveillance ware to governments and agencies with dodgy rights records, has had more than 400 gigabytes of data breached and leaked, media reports said on Monday.

The attack is a huge loss of face for the Milan-based firm which was set up in 2003. 

Move over selfie, India is embracing the "velfie" with Bollywood stars, sporting heroes and even politicians taking and posting videos of themselves online using a range of new mobile apps.

From lip-synching famous movie scenes and quizzing political leaders to interviewing job candidates, Indian tech firms are betting on the latest craze to grip social media -- the video selfie.

Watching a flying demonstration on Maryland's Eastern Shore, the Missouri farmer envisions using an unmanned aerial vehicle to monitor the irrigation pipes on his farm - a job he now pays three men to do.

"The savings on labor and fuel would just be phenomenal," Geske says, watching as a small white drone hovers over a nearby corn field and transmits detailed pictures of the growing stalks to an iPad.

Fluffy clouds waft across a blue sky as you log in and while you chat with friends, Gospel music rings out: welcome to Facegloria, the social network for Brazilian Evangelicals.

The new website's homepage bears a passing resemblance to the global phenomenon Facebook.

Seattle, notorious for boom-and-bust cycles stretching back to the 19th century Alaska gold rush, is booming once again.

Thickets of yellow cranes have crowded the skyline, where new glass-sided office buildings, hotels and apartment towers blot out views of the mountains and the Space Needle. Food trucks dot the streets and young software engineers with disposable income fill the bars.

A wave of Silicon Valley-style disruption is hitting the food industry.

Lab-grown meat, vegan cheese and "animal free" milk and eggs are headed for consumers, often with backing from the tech sector and its financial allies.

In a nod to its humble beginning in the garage of a Silicon Valley house, Google is building "campuses" around the world intended as fertile ground where entrepreneurs can flourish.

A campus that opened last month in Madrid was the fourth such start-up nurturing facility opened by a Google for Entrepreneurs team at the California-based Internet titan.

Near the popular Hotel Habana Libre in Cuba's capital, a gaggle of young people on cellphones, tablets and laptops log onto the new wifi hotspot -- a small milestone in one of the least connected countries.

Sitting on the sidewalks, low-rise walls, or makeshift seats, several dozen people sign in at the public access wifi zone, part of the government's plan to roll out Internet access across the Communist island nation.

Turkey has restricted students from posting pictures and opinions about school life on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, local media said Thursday. 

The changes, put forward by the Education Ministry, took effect after being published in the Official Gazette on July 1, Dogan news agency said. 

Five hikers, all blind or partially-sighted, crossed a mountain range in eastern France last week thanks to an innovative GPS system that developers hope can help millions of people with vision problems.

Armed only with their white canes and the experimental smartphone app -- unaccompanied by sighted guides -- the group trekked 80 kilometres (50 miles) in six days through fields and forests in the Vosges range near the German border.