Yahoo said Friday it had named a committee to study the company's "strategic alternatives," moving a step closer toward a breakup or sale of the troubled Internet pioneer.

The California tech group had already said it was reviewing other options even as it carries out a major restructuring, but the formation of an independent panel moves that process forward.

The tech industry is starting to line up with Apple in its fight against the federal government over the encryption it uses to keep iPhones secure.

Earlier this week, a U.S. magistrate ordered Apple to help investigators break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino mass shooters. Apple has until next Tuesday to challenge that ruling, setting the stage for a legal clash that could determine whether tech companies or government authorities get the final say on just how secure devices like smartphones can be.

A Google balloon, part of the company's high-speed Internet service known as "Project Loon", crashed in a Sri Lankan tea plantation during its maiden test flight, local police said Thursday.

Villages found the deflated balloon with its electronic equipment in the island's central tea-growing region of Gampola on Wednesday night, an officer told Agence France Presse.

Apple on Thursday launched its mobile payment service Apple Pay in China, pitting the U.S. technology giant against strong domestic rivals in a large but already crowded market.

Success in the world's second-largest economy is crucial for the California-based firm. Apple Pay is available in only a few other countries including the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia.

Video streaming delays generate as much stress as watching a horror film, the Swedish telecom company Ericsson said Wednesday. 

Ericsson, which sells equipment to mobile telephone companies to accelerate download speeds and prevent delays or buffering, said its study measured the heart rate, brain activity and eye movements of people watching videos on a mobile phone.

An American judge ordered Apple on Tuesday to help the FBI break into an iPhone belonging to one of the attackers in the San Bernardino shooting that killed 14 people.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym ordered Apple to provide "reasonable technical assistance" to the FBI, including by disabling an auto-erase feature after too many unsuccessful attempts are made to unlock the iPhone 5C.

Internet censorship in Russia soared last year as the government stepped up efforts to filter content online, a report by a rights group said Tuesday.

Titled "The Triumph of Censorship," the report by Agora, a respected group of human rights lawyers, counted media reports and government statements about blocked web pages as well as prosecutions of people for what they posted online.

Dreams and nightmares that could shape the future took center stage Monday at the TED gathering known for brilliant minds exploring potentially world-changing ideas.

Astro Teller of the boundary-pushing X lab run by Google parent company Alphabet, and television producer and writer Shonda Rhimes were among those who took to the intimate stage during the opening session of the five-day event in Vancouver, Canada.

The Paris appeal court on Friday upheld a ruling that Facebook can be sued under French and not Californian law.

The ruling applies to a case in which a French teacher wants to sue the U.S. social media giant over his claims that his page was censored when he posted a graphic painting of a woman's nude lower half by Gustave Courbet.

Uber says that it will pay $28.5 million to settle two lawsuits that said the ride-hailing firm misled customers about its safety procedures and fees.

The company told a federal judge in San Francisco that it wants to settle the class-action lawsuits by paying about 25 million riders who made U.S. trips between January 1, 2013, and January 31, 2016.