Apple on Wednesday said it is working to squash software bugs that have evidently been eating away at battery life in the iPhone 4s and other gadgets powered by its latest mobile operating system.

"A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices," Apple said in a released statement.

Lenovo Group, one of the world's leading personal computer manufacturers, reported Wednesday that its profit in the first half of the year nearly doubled on strong emerging market sales.

Net profit for the half-year period was $252 million, or 2.52 U.S. cents per share, up 92 percent from $131 million a year earlier.

Japan's parliament has come under cyber-attack again, apparently from the same emails linked to a China-based server that have already hit several lawmakers' computers, an official said Wednesday.

Malicious emails were found on computers used in the upper chamber of the Japanese parliament, a government spokesman said.

Japanese electronics giant Sony on Wednesday said it now expected a heavy full-year loss of $1.15 billion as it reels from the impact of a strong yen, weak TV sales and severe flooding in Thailand.

Sony's projected annual net loss of 90 billion yen ($1.15 billion) reversed a forecast in July that called for a 60 billion yen net profit, after the company slumped to a first-half net loss.

Yahoo! announced Tuesday that it is buying Internet advertising company interclick in a cash deal worth $270 million.

Yahoo! said it was offering $9 per share for the outstanding shares of the New York-based interclick, a 22 percent premium over its closing price on Wall Street on Monday.

Boys dressed as an iPad and an iPod were among the young revelers who stopped by the California home of the late Steve Jobs.

The San Jose Mercury News reports dry ice fog enveloped jack-o'-lanterns and thunder rumbled from hidden speakers outside the Palo Alto home where kids seeking treats have been welcomed for years on Halloween.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague issued a warning on Tuesday to countries that try to restrict Internet freedom as he opened a global conference designed to set up cyberspace "rules of the road".

Government officials, technology firms, NGOs, bloggers and security experts from more than 60 countries are at the two-day talks in London, although the main speaker, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pulled out at the last minute.

Toyota unveiled its ambitions for high-tech healthcare Tuesday, displaying experimental robots that the auto giant says can lift disabled patients from their hospital beds or help them walk.

The company aims to commercialize products such as its "independent walk assist" device sometime after 2013 — seeking to position itself in an industry with great potential in Japan, one of the world's most rapidly aging nations.

U.S. Internet security firm Symantec on Monday exposed a cyber spying campaign targeting trade secrets at top chemical firms and linked the industrial espionage to a man in China.

At least 48 companies, including some that make advanced materials for military vehicles, were targeted in a campaign Symantec dubbed "Nitro" given the type of information at risk.

Japanese entertainment and electronics giant Sony Corp. is expected to post another quarterly loss when it reports results Wednesday as a strong yen and its struggling TV business drag on its bottomline.

It's been a tough year for Japanese exporters such as Sony, and the latest quarter is likely to reflect ongoing currency-related woes. The yen has hit multiple record highs against the dollar, which has faltered along with the U.S. economy.