Twitter on Wednesday began to allow ads to be targeted at users based on the words written in 'tweets' and messages forwarded to followers at the popular social network.

Previously, contents of Twitter messages relied on algorithms that pool the interests of users to send them potentially relevant ads in the form of tweets "promoted" at the top of feeds.

Cyber activists hacked into Kuwait's information ministry website and posted a speech that earned an opposition leader a five-year prison term, the ministry said on Wednesday.

"The ministry's electronic website has been penetrated by hackers," a source at the ministry said in a brief statement carried by the official KUNA news agency.

A new way for families to stay close to independent elders that blends modern technology with old fashioned parcel post debuted on crowd-funding website Kickstarter Tuesday.

The system -- the brainchild of a startup called Lively -- uses sensors and an online service to keep tabs on seniors without intruding on their lives. "There is some technology here, but the root of what we are doing is building stronger connections between elders living independently and their family members," said Lively's chief operating officer, David Glickman.

Facebook said Tuesday that features from its new Home software for Android-powered smartphones will begin spreading this week to Apple's popular iPhones.

"Home was about our ability to demonstrate what you can do when you own the whole experience," Facebook's chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, said during an on-stage chat at the All Things D conference devoted to mobile technology.

Marissa Mayer's quest to revive Yahoo! stumbled on Tuesday with word that revenue from display ads at the heart of its business shrank in the first three months of this year.

Yahoo! profit soared to $390.9 million, a 36 percent rise from the same period last year on the back of returns from stakes in Chinese Internet giant Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan. But money from its own online ads sagged.

Taiwan technology giant Foxconn has been increasing its assembly-line workforce in central China in preparation for the manufacture of a new iPhone, the company and media said Tuesday.

Foxconn has been hiring workers in its Zhengzhou plant and will continue to do so to "meet operational demands", spokesman Simon Hsing said, without elaborating.

Electronic Arts on Monday announced that it will "retire" some Facebook games that seem to have fallen out of favor with players at the leading social network.

EA said that 'The Sims Social, 'SimCity Social' and 'Pet Society' will be taken offline on June 14.

A court in Japan has told Google it must de-link words in its autocomplete function to prevent the search engine suggesting criminal acts when users type one man's name.

The Monday ruling by Tokyo District Court was the first time a court in Japan has ordered the search giant to alter this aspect of its algorithm, said Hiroyuki Tomita, a lawyer representing the plaintiff.

A spokesman for the European Union's antitrust body says Google has submitted proposals to address concerns that it is dominating the online search and advertising markets.

The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc's executive arm, is investigating whether Google Inc. unfairly favors its own services in its Internet search results.

The Twitter accounts of Venezuela's acting president Nicolas Maduro and the ruling socialist party were hacked Sunday as the country went to the polls to pick a new president, officials said.

Maduro campaign chief Jorge Rodriguez said the accounts @NicolasMaduro, @PartidoPSUV and @tmaniglia -- all belonging to the president's office's press secretary -- were hacked.