Amazon unveiled its first smartphone ever on Wednesday, a device that assists shoppers by using six cameras that can make sense of its user's face and the world around it.

The phone's most significant feature, called "Firefly," employs audio and object recognition technology to identify products and present the user with ways to purchase the items through Amazon. Users can simply snap a photo of a book, for instance, and Firefly will offer up its title and author, give more information about it and provide ways to buy it.

Global automakers are locked in a showdown evoking the video format wars of the 1980s, as they bet on what eco-friendly vehicles will prevail in the battle for dominance of the burgeoning low-emissions sector. 

In a contest reminiscent of the scrap for pre-eminence in the home video market, which pitched Betamax against VHS, huge auto firms are going all out for very different technologies.

A Japanese robot-maker on Wednesday showed off suits that the wearer can control just by thinking, as it said it was linking up with an industrial city promoting innovation.

Cyberdyne founder Yoshiyuki Sankai said he was allying with Kawasaki, a city south of Tokyo, to explore ways to expand real-life applications for his robo-suits, which are often used for physical therapy.

Facebook released Tuesday a new instant messaging app that enables users to send photos or video to selected friends who can only see them if they send an image back.

Slingshot, available for Apple and Android devices, is the second product to come out of the social networking website's Creative Labs ideas laboratory.

Judges around the country are grappling with the ripple effects of a 2-year-old Supreme Court ruling on GPS tracking, reaching conflicting conclusions on the case's broader meaning and tackling unresolved questions that flare in a world where privacy and technology increasingly collide.

The January 2012 opinion in United States v. Jones set constitutional boundaries for law enforcement's use of GPS devices to track the whereabouts of criminal suspects. But the different legal rationales offered by the justices have left a muddled legal landscape for police and lower-court judges, who have struggled in the last two years with how and when to apply the decision — especially at a time when new technologies are developed at a faster rate than judicial opinions are issued.

Apple has reached an out of court settlement with plaintiffs that accused it of price-fixing on e-books, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Apple and the plaintiffs -- consumers and some U.S. states -- have reached an agreement in principle that must be approved by the U.S. District Court in New York, said Steve Berman, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, the Journal reported.

Amazon's mystery unveiling Wednesday is widely expected to be a smartphone, which if managed well could shake up the market and boost the U.S. online giant as a device maker.

The company has given few hints, inviting a small group of media to the event to be hosted by Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos.

Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry announced  Monday the release of new "enhanced security" for its popular BBM messaging, aiming to win back corporate users with high security needs such as banks.

The BBM Protected application for messaging between the company's lines of smartphones uses the FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic library -- the U.S. government computer security standard.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it would rule on whether violent threats posted on social media could merit criminal charges, or whether they are protected as free speech.

The nine justices of the nation's top court said they would take on the case of Anthony Elonis, a Pennsylvania resident sentenced to four years in jail and three years supervised release over threatening messages he posted on Facebook.

A device that uses a modified iPhone to help regulate the blood sugar of people with type 1 diabetes appears to work better than an insulin pump, researchers say.

The so-called "bionic pancreas" is the latest in the search to improve the lives of people who have type 1 diabetes, which means their bodies do not produce insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar.