Shanghai will require microblog users to register under their real names from Monday, state media said, the latest local government in China to implement the rule after a spate of violent protests.

Beijing and the southern province of Guangdong have also ordered users of weibos -- microblogs similar to Twitter -- to register using their real names, as authorities tighten their grip on the Internet.

Japan's Sony and South Korean rival Samsung are dissolving their joint venture in liquid crystal display panels.

Sony Corp. said Monday that Samsung Electronics Co. will buy all of Sony's shares in the joint venture.

The loose-knit hacking movement "Anonymous" claimed to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor. One hacker said the goal was to pilfer funds from individuals' accounts to give away as Christmas donations, and some victims confirmed unauthorized transactions linked to their credit cards.

Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor's confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple Inc. to the U.S. Air Force to the Miami Police Department, and mining it for more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses.

India's telecom operators on Saturday won a reprieve from a government order that they end "illegal" mutual roaming agreements to provide seamless nationwide 3G services, a report said.

The country's telecom tribunal called for a stay on the order until a hearing on January 3, amid an ongoing battle pitting Delhi against the nation's biggest mobile operators.

Pope Benedict XVI's popemobile may be getting an ecological upgrade.

Young car designers participating in an annual auto style competition are being asked to design a low-emission popemobile that meets the Vatican's high security standards.

Nevada gambling regulators on Thursday unanimously approved rules that allow companies in the state apply for licenses to operate poker websites, a move that puts Nevada in a position to capitalize if Congress reverses its ban on Internet gambling.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the regulations would let casino companies operate Internet poker sites in the state, and some sites could begin operating by the end of 2012.

The start of this year was marked by a tech industry obsession with where to put growing mountains of information gathered online and by sensors increasingly woven into modern lifestyles.

External drives boasted seemingly unfillable capacities and companies touted services for storing bits and bytes at massive data centers in the Internet "cloud."

Southeast Asia is closer to the equator than the North Pole, but an electronics store in Vietnam is ringing in the holidays with a 15-foot Christmas tree made from more than 2500 unusable cellular phones.

Nguyen Trai, a store manager at Westcom Electronics in the southern city of My Tho, says 10 workers spent two weeks building the cellular Christmas tree that he hopes will raise awareness about hazardous waste and promote environmental responsibility.

Eastman Kodak Co. said Thursday it has agreed to sell its gelatin business as the struggling photography pioneer looks to boost its dwindling cash reserves.

Kodak is selling the Eastman Gelatine business to Rousselot, a division of the Vion Food Group. Terms were not disclosed. Eastman Gelatine produces gelatin used in photographic and printing processes as well as in food, pharmaceuticals.

India's telecom ministry told mobile phone operators on Thursday that they must scrap "illegal" mutual roaming agreements allowing them to provide seamless nationwide 3G services.

The pacts that let the operators offer 3G services outside their licensed zones are "in violation of terms and conditions of their licenses," the top bureaucrat in the telecom ministry said.