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.

Google apologized after an identification program in its new photo app put a "gorillas" label on a picture of a black couple.

"We're appalled and genuinely sorry that this happened," a Google representative said late Wednesday in an email to Agence France Presse.

An Austrian court has rejected a class action case against Facebook for alleged privacy breaches, saying it lacks jurisdiction to decide the matter, court officials said on Wednesday.

Law graduate Max Schrems and 25,000 other users are suing Facebook for various rights violations, including what they call its "illegal" tracking of their data and its involvement in the U.S. National Security Agency's PRISM surveillance program.

Apple's new streaming service went live Tuesday with a flashy radio station and artist exclusives, as the company that dominated digital music through iTunes looks to the future.

Apple Music got started with the tech giant in the unusual position of being on the back foot, as Spotify leads the fast-growing market for streaming which offers on-demand, unlimited music.