Technology, art and magic will mix in perspective-bending ways this week as the prestigious TED conference continues transforming from an elite retreat to a global movement for a better world.

The gathering kicks off Monday in the Southern California city of Long Beach with a roster of 1,350 attendees including Internet heavyweights, Hollywood celebrities, scientists, and other notables.

Hundreds of Chinese have flooded U.S. President Barack Obama's Google+ page, apparently taking advantage of a glitch in China's censorship system to post about human rights and green cards.

Google+ -- the U.S. Internet giant's social networking site -- has been unavailable in China since it was launched last year, apparently blocked by the nation's strict censorship system, widely dubbed "the Great Firewall of China."

The Los Angeles Times said Friday that it will begin charging online readers next month, the latest major U.S. newspaper to require a subscription to its website.

Hacker group Anonymous on Friday vandalized the website of a major US prison contractor in the latest salvo in an anti-police campaign.

Anonymous subgroup "Antisec" took credit for replacing The Geo Group website home page with a rap song dedicated in part to convicted murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal and a message condemning prisons and policing in the United States.

Women are more likely than men to delete friends from their online social networks and tend to choose more restrictive privacy settings, according to a study published on Friday.

The study by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project also found that men were nearly twice as likely as women to have posted content online that they later regret.

Twitter was abuzz on Friday with loving words for Steve Jobs on what would have been the late Apple co-founder's 57th birthday,

"Happy birthday Steve Jobs," read a post from Apple-centric blog Cult of the Mac. "The whole world misses you."

Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to spend years turning itself around as it addresses internal problems and battles broader threats from smartphones and tablet computers.

Investors willing to wait could be rewarded. Its market value is half of what it was about a year ago, and HP could start to improve in the second half of 2012.

The White House unveiled an online privacy proposal Thursday intended to allow Web users to easily opt out of being tracked on the Internet.

The "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights" has received the backing of leading Internet companies and online advertising networks and would involve a simple "one click" setting on a Web browser, the White House said.

Hackers calling themselves the 'Iranian Cyber Army' have attacked the website of mainly Muslim neighbor Azerbaijan's state television station, the communications ministry said on Thursday.

In the overnight attack, the hackers replaced AzTV's homepage with the message: "Life is a game. Game over!"

Sony's slick PlayStation Vita handheld videogame gadget hit major markets around the world on Wednesday as the Japanese entertainment titan bucked a trend towards play on smartphones.

Sony packed movies, music, and the Internet into PS Vita handsets along with what it called the "biggest and best launch lineup" of games in PlayStation history.