Tagged on Wednesday bought fellow online community hi5 in a move aimed at creating a Facebook rival.

The two San Francisco-based startups will continue to operate as independent brands but Tagged plans to build bridges between its more that 100 million users and the 230 million people signed up at hi5.

Google on Wednesday targeted slavery and women's education in holiday season donations tallying $40 million.

The charity came in the form of grants to nonprofit groups or academic institutions supporting education, technology, or the fight against slavery, according to Shona Brown, a senior vice president at the Internet titan's Google.org philanthropic arm.

Intel on Wednesday formed a new unit devoted to making chips for smartphones and tablets that have become must-have gadgets in a post personal computer age.

Four units were combined into a Mobile and Communications Group headed by Hermann Eul and Mike Bell, whose background includes having worked on the iPhone at Apple, according to Intel spokesman Robert Manetta.

Reporters can now use Twitter, text messages and email in courtrooms in England and Wales without needing to ask permission, the head of the judiciary said Wednesday.

"Twitter as much as you like from today," Lord Chief Justice Igor Judge told journalists as he handed down new guidelines on using laptops and hand-held devices.

Ren Bishop is one of many American drivers who texts, tweets and talks on her cellphone while she's behind the wheel — and thinks it should be up to drivers to use their discretion when it comes to safety.

Though she admits thumbing her phone while driving is a bad habit, the University of Missouri student says drivers "are mature enough to understand when it is appropriate and when it is not."

Apple has launched its iTunes store in Brazil and 15 other Latin American countries, the company said Tuesday, making available for sale more than 20 million songs in a region where music piracy is rampant.

One top Brazilian music industry official said he thinks the launch of the online iTunes store, along with expectations that Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn will soon produce iPods, iPads and iPhones in Brazil, will put a dent in piracy in Brazil.

A robotic cook, a coloring book that comes to virtual life and movies that read your mind are some of the innovations on show at a cutting-edge computer technology exhibition in Hong Kong this week.

The first Asian edition of the SIGGRAPH expo of computer graphics, interactive technology and digital media brings together developers, distributors and resellers from around the world.

A giant airplane that can in mid-flight launch a rocket carrying cargo and humans into orbit is the future of space travel, billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen said.

The first test flight of the ambitious venture by Allen's new company Strato launch Systems is not scheduled until 2015, but partners in the project vowed it would revolutionize orbital travel in the post-space shuttle era.

Colleges, museums and well known groups have rushed to grab online addresses in the ".xxx" domain to prevent porn purveyors from using their names in the Internet's new red light district.

Public sales of .xxx addresses began last week after ICM Registry gave companies, groups, actors, porn stars and other well-known people or groups opportunities to secure websites related to their names.

A 24-year-old man allegedly linked to the Anonymous "hacktivist" group was arrested Tuesday over a cyber attack on a website run by the front man of heavy rock group Kiss, the FBI said.

Kevin George Poe, from the northeastern U.S. state of Connecticut, is charged with waging a denial of service attack on GeneSimmons.com, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Los Angeles, where he is wanted.