The city of Mildura is not at the end of a dirt road in the Australian bush, in tire-choking desert sand far from food and water. Unfortunately, Apple's much-maligned mapping application thinks it is.

More than two months after Apple's CEO apologized for errors in its Maps service, Australian police say the app is "potentially life threatening" because of the bad directions it has given to the southern city. On Tuesday, a police official said Apple had "sort of half-fixed" the problem.

Microsoft is rolling out dozens of new apps for the Xbox 360, building on statistics that show members of its paid online subscription service spend more time on it watching video than they do playing multiplayer games over the Internet.

The company said Tuesday that by early next year it will add more than 40 apps to its Xbox Live service, such as MTV, The CW Network and CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. Many of the apps will require paid subscriptions on top of the Xbox Live Gold subscription, which costs $60 a year, or $10 a month.

Clothes that could literally light up your life were unveiled Tuesday by Japanese researchers who said their solar-cell fabric would eventually let wearers harvest energy on the go.

The new fabric is made of wafer-thin solar cells woven together that could see people powering up their mobile phones and other electronics with their sweater or trousers.

The Philippines is to roll out 100,000 electric tricycles in an effort to replace the petrol-powered ones that currently ply its cities, one of the project's financiers said Tuesday.

The "e-trikes" would provide an alternative to the gas-guzzling, smoke-belching motorized tricycles that now ferry Manila residents through narrow streets not served by buses, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said.

Taiwan's HTC on Tuesday unveiled a new smartphone boasting a higher resolution display that Apple's iPhone 5 just days before its rival's latest handset goes on sale on the island.

The HTC Butterfly features a 5-inch screen with a pixel density of 440 ppi (pixels per inch) and full 1080P HD resolution, compared to the iPhone 5's 4-inch screen at 326 ppi at a lower resolution.

Motorola Mobility on Monday confirmed that it is shutting down most of its operations in South Korea as part of a move to consolidate research after being bought by Google this year.

"This was a difficult but necessary decision," Motorola said in an email response to an AFP inquiry.

U.S. regulators have launched a series of probes on whether mobile apps targeted at children violate privacy laws by collecting and sharing data which can be used for detailed profiles, officials said Monday.

The Federal Trade Commission said its latest review of mobile apps available on Apple's App Store and Google Play found that many collect personal data, and often share this with developers or marketers without disclosing this fact to parents.

Nintendo is hoping its new Wii U console will catapult it back to pole position in the video game sector, but analysts are divided on whether the Japanese gaming titan can reboot its fading glory.

Last month, Nintendo released the long-awaited follow-up to its hugely successful Wii in the lucrative U.S. market, selling an eye-popping 400,000 units in the first week alone as fans cleared store shelves.

Australian police Monday warned motorists about using the map system on new Apple iPhones after rescuing several people left stranded in the wilderness, saying the errors could prove deadly.

Victoria state police said drivers were sent "off the beaten track" in recent weeks while attempting to get to the inland town of Mildura, being directed instead to the middle of a national park.

Iran has launched its own video-sharing website to compete against Google's popular YouTube whose content is deemed inappropriate by the Islamic regime, the state television reported on Sunday.

The website (http://www.mehr.ir) called 'Mehr', meaning affection in Farsi, aims to attract Persian-speaking users and also promote Iranian culture, according to its About Us page.