A Japanese defense researcher has invented a spherical observation drone that can fly down narrow alleys, hover on the spot, take off vertically and bounce along the ground.

About the size of a beach ball and jet black, the remote-controlled Spherical Air Vehicle resembles a tiny Death Star from the Star Wars movies but has a more benign purpose -- to transmit live images from a video camera.

Japanese entertainment titan Sony had the dubious honor of winning a "Most Epic Fail" award Thursday at a prestigious Black Hat gathering of computer security professions in Las Vegas.

Sony and hacked computer security powerhouse RSA were mockingly honored with Pwnies, annual awards named in a reference to geek slang for "owning" or totally dominating an opponent.

Reporting for the first time as a public company, career-oriented social network LinkedIn posted strong membership growth and better-than-expected quarterly revenue on Thursday.

Computer security star Dan Kaminsky revealed plans Wednesday to release software that will track whether Internet service providers are favoring some websites or content over others.

Kaminsky crafted his free "N00ter" software to expose whether Internet service providers (ISPs) are being honest with customers when it comes to the hot topic of "net neutrality."

U.S. online video site Hulu announced plans Wednesday to produce its first original long-form show, a documentary series by "Super-Size Me" director Morgan Spurlock.

"A Day in the Life" will consist of six half-hour episodes focusing on 24 hours in the lives of "fascinating people," Hulu said in a statement.

Fare dodgers in Germany are using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to warn fellow travellers of the presence of public transport inspectors on buses and trains.

Some even describe the inspectors, who wear ordinary clothes, so that those riding the transit system illegally can avoid them before being challenged to show their tickets.

Sony's next-generation portable game machine, the PlayStation Vita, won't be going on sale in the U.S. or Europe in time for Christmas — a key sales period for game console makers.

Expectations had been high the machine would be ready worldwide for the year-end holiday shopping season. Sony earlier promised a "phased global rollout" starting late this year.

Flat-panel TVs and PCs go great together — the PC gets a giant screen, and the TV gets access to tons of online video.

But getting the two together in an elegant way has been difficult. PC makers haven't shown much interest in making computers that work really well when controlled from the couch.

Research In Motion is unveiling five new BlackBerrys with touchscreens, as it hopes to revive the line's dwindling appeal in the face of competition from the iPhone and Android smartphones.

The new phones had been expected earlier this year, but were delayed. Those delays have weighed heavily on Research In Motion Ltd.'s stock price, which is at its lowest level since 2006.

Google is a latecomer to social networking but its new site, Google+, is growing much more rapidly than Facebook, Myspace and Twitter did in their early days, technology experts said Tuesday.

While Google+ may be the fastest-growing social network ever, it remains to be seen, however, whether it can pose a serious threat to the social networking titan Facebook, which has more than 750 million members.