Online video-streaming service Hulu has announced plans to being streaming television shows and films in Japan later this year in the firm's first move into a market outside the United States.

"Since the very beginning of Hulu, we have had our aspirations firmly set on serving audiences around the globe," California-based Hulu said in a blog post.

Culture-changing technology outshined crude oil on Wednesday with iPhone and iPad maker Apple eclipsing ExxonMobil as the most valuable company in the world based on the value of its stock.

Despite an overall dismal day on the stock exchange, Apple ended trading with its stock priced at $363.69 per share for a total "market capitalization" of $337.2 billion.

American retail giant Walmart will close its online digital music store, Walmart MP3 Downloads, at the end of the month, a spokesman for the company said.

"We recently notified our music partners that we've made a business decision to no longer offer MP3 digital tracks as of August 29, 2011," said Ravi Jariwala.

Research In Motion was threatened with reprisals Tuesday if it released encrypted communications of its British Blackberry users to help British police quell days of violent looting.

A group or person identified only as Team Poison hacked RIM's official blog and posted a message online warning the Canadian firm against assisting police in identifying rioters and looters thought to have used Blackberry instant messaging to coordinate attacks in London and other cities engulfed by rioting.

Facebook launched a mobile messaging application Tuesday for Apple's iPhone and Android devices.

Facebook engineer Lucy Zhang said Facebook Messenger can be used to exchange messages with Facebook friends but also with other people in a user's telephone contact list.

Apple briefly surged past ExxonMobil on Tuesday to become the largest U.S. company in terms of market value.

The California gadget-maker surpassed the oil giant in market capitalization shortly after mid-day but ExxonMobil ended the day worth more than Apple.

An anti-technology group calling itself "Individuals Tending to Savagery" was responsible for a package bomb that injured two university professors just outside Mexico City, a state prosecutor said Tuesday.

Mexico's Attorney General's Office announced that a suspicious envelope presumbly containing explosives was found at Mexico's National Polytechnical Institute on Tuesday, though it didn't detonate.

The Hong Kong stock exchange said Wednesday its website had been hit by "malicious hacking", forcing trading in at least seven companies that issued price-sensitive information to be suspended.

Firms that were suspended from trade include blue-chips banking giant HSBC and Hong Kong flagship carrier Cathay Pacific, after the technical problems were reported on the bourse's website shortly after the midday break.

Venture capitalists from Silicon Valley to New York all have the same question about Indonesia's come-from-nowhere tech frenzy: Are the young entrepreneurs that have piqued their interest smart bets or just surfing a hype that will soon burn out.

A few years ago, Internet connections were so slow in Indonesia that trying to download a clip off YouTube could take 20 minutes on a good day.

The Chinese craze for micro-blogging has reached such dizzying heights that companies are now offering to help people boost their following and stand out from the crowd -- for a price.

"Why use our services?" one company called Yangcheng Media asks on its website. "Who would you follow? Somebody with 2,000 followers or 20,000 followers? The answer is easy: most people have a herd mentality."