Just weeks after Amazon and Google unveiled their music offerings, Apple appears set to raise the bar.

The Cupertino, California-based gadget-maker is expected to launch a new Web-hosted music service next month, according to multiple reports, after negotiating deals with at least three of the four major record labels.

Google on Friday had stopped digitizing old newspapers as publishers sought to make money off story archives instead of having them hosted free online.

People will still be able to find newspapers already converted to digital format in the Google News Archives at news.google.com/archivesearch but the collection won't grow.

Internet users in China are hailing a student who claims to have thrown a shoe at the architect of the country's so-called "Great Firewall" of Internet controls during a university appearance.

Police in central China on Friday refused to comment on the alleged attack on Fang Binxing at Wuhan University by a student who identified himself online only as "hanunyi".

Online retail giant Amazon said Thursday that sales of digital books for the Kindle electronic reader have surpassed sales of print books.

"Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books," Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said in a statement.

Microsoft on Wednesday warned that hackers use mind tricks more often than software skills to get viruses into computers.

Feedback from globally popular Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser indicated that one of every 14 programs downloaded turned out to be malicious code, according to the U.S. software titan.

The tablet computers that compete with the iPad have mostly been uninspiring. The Eee Pad Transformer stands out with a design that isn't just copied from the iPad: It's a tablet that turns into a laptop.

For $399, $100 less than the cheapest iPad, you get a tablet computer with a 10-inch screen and hardware that doesn't cut corners. It's fully usable on its own. For another $149, you can buy a keyboard that connects to the tablet. Together, they look and open like a small laptop.

Times have changed in Bollywood from the days when all that was required to promote a film was a giant, hand-painted poster, a television or cinema trailer and the pulling power of a star actor.

Now, the popular Hindi-language film industry is harnessing the latest technology, hoping that the explosive increase in mobile phones and rapid take-up of the Internet will draw in much-needed audiences.

Microsoft on Monday began letting Bing search results reflect "likes" of people's friends at Facebook as the social networking star and the software colossus grew closer.

"The best decisions are not just fueled by facts, they require the opinions and emotions of your friends," Bing senior vice president Youssef Mehdi said in a release.

Two leading makers of lighting products are showcasing LED bulbs that are bright enough to replace energy-guzzling 100-watt light bulbs set to disappear from stores in January.

Their demonstrations at the LightFair trade show in Philadelphia this week mean that brighter LED bulbs will likely go on sale next year, but after a government ban takes effect.

Just a fifth of Iraqis have bank accounts, but 70 percent have mobile phones, so Baghdad is hoping to close the gap by getting people to open accounts, make payments and transfer cash -- all via mobile.

In a country that is one of the most corrupt and violent in the world, the initiative is aimed at securing Iraqis' funds, and strengthening the banking sector as higher revenues resulting from a greater number of transactions boost profits.