Visit any tourist destination, and you're bound to see individuals and groups taking photos of themselves for sharing on social media. It's a declaration to the world that they were there.

Pop stars such as Rihanna and Justin Bieber have helped popularize the trend, too, by posting stylized selfies to their leagues of followers. Even politicians are taking selfies with ordinary folks these days as a way of showing how close they are to voters.

The photo-sharing service Twitpic announced Thursday it was shutting down, saying it faced an ultimatum from Twitter to abandon its trademark or lose access to the messaging service.

Twitpic, launched in 2008, allowed users to post photographs on the messaging platform before Twitter adding its own photo-sharing option in 2011.

Twitter erupted with worry Thursday after word spread that the globally popular messaging service might try to tame its raw stream of real-time posts.

Technology news website Gigaom pieced together comments by Twitter executives and came up with a picture of plans to use computer algorithms to present posts based on relevance rather than freshness.

Apple is ramping up iCloud defenses in the aftermath of hackers swiping nude photos of celebrities from the online digital vault, the Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday.

The Journal quoted Apple chief executive Tim Cook as saying iCloud accounts of film stars including Jennifer Lawrence were looted by hackers who used tactics such as correctly answering security questions to obtain passwords, or tricking victims into revealing user IDs and passwords with ruses referred to as "phishing" scams.

Samsung and other electronics companies used the IFA trade show in Berlin to showcase their holiday lineups.

New smartphones, computerized wristwatches and a virtual-reality headset were among the gadgets announced Wednesday.

From recycled cooking oil to fox meat and chemicals, a litany of food scandals have turned Chinese diners' stomachs, but a new "smart chopsticks" concept by Internet search giant Baidu could put the answer in their hands.

The device, which the firm says can tell consumers whether the food in front of them is safe to eat, was born of an April Fool's video, a spokesman said Thursday.

South Korean giant Samsung unveiled the next generation of its pioneering "phablet" and "smartwatch" gadgets at the IFA consumer electronics fair Wednesday in a bid to keep ahead of arch-rival Apple.

It also surprised technophiles with a virtual reality headset, the Samsung VR.

Netflix on Tuesday began letting people share shows they love at the online streaming television service with friends from leading social network Facebook.

After watching a film or television show episode at Netflix, viewers will be asked whether they would like to recommend it to friends at Facebook, according to director of product innovation Cameron Johnson.

Google on Tuesday said it is working on a super-fast "quantum" computer chip as part a vision to one day have machines think like humans.

The Internet titan added renowned researcher John Martinis and his team at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to the Quantum Artificial Intelligence team at Google, according to director of engineering Hartmut Neven.

To keep private pictures private, never upload them online.

That's the advice experts offer after hackers broke into female celebrities' personal accounts, stole nude photos and posted them on the web. Jennifer Lawrence and Mary Elizabeth Winstead have said they were victims of the hack attack.