Apple began selling a new iPad Mini on Tuesday without the usual fanfare.

Apple usually announces the availability date in advance, allowing loyal customers to line up at stores overnight to be among the first to buy one. This time, Apple quietly issued a news release on its immediate availability.

The latest round in Apple and Samsung's bitter global battle for supremacy in the more than $300 billion smartphone market begins Tuesday in a courtroom a few miles from Apple's Silicon Valley headquarters.

In courts, government tribunals and regulatory agencies around the world, Apple Inc. has argued that Samsung's Android-based phones copy vital iPhone features. Samsung Electronics Co. is fighting back with its own complaints that some key Apple patents are invalid and Apple has also copied Samsung's technology.

You may never need to memorize another password. That's the goal of researchers at Purdue University's International Center for Biometrics Research.

Stephen Elliott is the director of international biometric research at Purdue University in Indiana. He says iris and fingerprint scans as well as facial and voice recognition are just a few of the tools that improve security while making lives easier. His basement lab is a place where emerging biometric technologies are tested for weaknesses before they can go mainstream.

Most mobile phone users have never heard of Tizen. Neither have car owners or anyone with a fridge.

Samsung Electronics Co. wants to change that.

The number of smartphones is forecast to triple to 5.6 billion globally by 2019, accounting for more than 60 percent of cellphones.

Sweden's Ericsson AB, the world's largest maker of telecommunications networks, says in a report Monday it expects smartphone traffic to grow tenfold in the next six years, with service providers increasing high-speed networks to deal with the surge. Total mobile subscriptions are predicted to reach 9.3 billion by 2019.

Like a stubborn family member or insubordinate employee, Xbox One owners might need to tell their fancy new console what to do more than once.

In flashy commercials that began airing last week to promote Microsoft's upcoming video game system, an array of users verbally command their Xbox Ones to do stuff like answer a Skype call, fire up a "Titanfall" match or play the latest "Star Trek" film. The ads leave out one detail: They probably had to repeat themselves a couple of times for it to work.

Nissan said Friday it would unveil a sporty concept electric vehicle at the Tokyo Motor Show as Japan's number-two automaker presses on with its bid to tap the burgeoning green-car market.

The company, which has been selling its Leaf electric vehicle since late 2010, said it hoped its Nissan BladeGlider would help it reach a market of male drivers who still want performance and styling in an environmentally friendly car - a major hurdle to widespread commercial sales.

Singapore will "spare no effort" to hunt down hackers from activist group Anonymous who last week threatened to wage a cyber war against the government, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Wednesday.

Lee told reporters the city-state had also strengthened its defenses against such attacks.

Pneumatic muscle suits and a walking stick that behaves like a guide dog competed for attention with an industrial robot that can paint fingernails at a huge expo in Tokyo Thursday.

In a country where a quarter of the 128-million population is aged over 65, innovations that can make life easier for the elderly or their caregivers are potentially big business and the subject of a lot of research.

Google ended nearly two weeks of speculation about an enormous floating barge in San Francisco Bay, saying it would be "an interactive space" for learning about technology.

A Google spokesperson dismissed wild conjecture about the barge, which was spotted last month by the technology news blog CNET, which spurred rumors by calling it a "secret project."