India has built a global reputation as a major player in information technology, but lack of Internet access among its own citizens is posing a threat to long-term growth.

One typical young Indian frustrated by the country's poor Internet facilities is Srishti Sharma, 18, a student at the elite Lady Shri Ram College in the capital New Delhi.

Used to the good life, France has lagged behind many other countries in using the marketing muscle of the Internet to spur interest in second-hand goods.

But today, belts are tightening as spending power declines and unemployment rises -- and more seems likely next week when President Nicolas Sarkozy unveils plans to narrow the country's budget deficit.

A media watchdog voiced concern Saturday at the cooperation between British authorities and the Canadian maker of BlackBerry smartphones to identify rioters in London and other cities.

"What consequences will this cooperation have on respect for the privacy of BlackBerry users?" the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

Five book publishers and computer manufacturer Apple have been sued for allegedly colluding to drive up the price of e-books, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.

The class-action suit, filed in the U.S. District Court here, claims HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster had worked with Apple to break Internet retailer Amazon.com’s discount pricing strategy and help Apple’s iPad compete with the Kindle marketed by Amazon.

Japan's Honda is hoping to retool its humanoid robot ASIMO for a nuclear mission so it can join emergency work inside the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, a press report said Friday.

The company aims to upgrade the robot's upper body functions so that it can move its arms as smoothly as a human being, with motorized shoulders, elbows and wrists, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.

U.S. technology giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) on Thursday cut the price of its freshly-launched TouchPad tablet computers in a bid to gain traction in a market dominated by Apple's iPad.

TouchPads with 16 gigabytes of memory were offered on the HP website for $400 and models with 32 gigabytes were available for $500 in what amounted to lopping $100 off the original prices.

The weak economy is hitting Americans where they spend a lot of their free time: at the TV set.

They're canceling or forgoing cable and satellite TV subscriptions in record numbers, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of the companies' quarterly earnings reports.

Internet search leader Google Inc. is bringing a little more gamesmanship to its duel with Facebook.

Just like they have been doing for years on Facebook's website, Web surfers will now be able to play games with their friends and family on Google's blossoming social networking service.

German police officers in the northern city of Hanover are using Facebook to catch criminals in an experiment that might be expanded to other forces in the country.

Six months' ago the Hanover police force set up a Facebook account with appeals to the public to come forward to help solve cases.

Taiwan's leading smartphone maker HTC said Thursday it plans to pay about $309 million for a 51 percent stake in a firm run by U.S. star producer Dr Dre that produces high-end headphones.

HTC and Beats Electronics LLC are working together to create a line of HTC headsets offering "high performance sound" to be available this fall, a company statement said.