Cable company Cox Communications says it plans to boost Internet download speeds to 1 gigabit per second starting in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Omaha, Nebraska, late this year. That is dozens of times faster than typical broadband plans.

The move will bring its service in line with Google's fiber rollout in cities such as Kansas City and Provo, Utah, and Austin, Texas; and an AT&T rollout in Austin.

BlackBerry said Wednesday it was building a system to make sense of the maelstrom of information from the "Internet of Things" ranging from cars to appliances and watches.

A series of initiatives codenamed Project Ion are being woven together to create a platform in the Internet "cloud" that businesses can use to collect data from smart devices of all kinds and derive insights in real time.

The independent music community on Thursday hit out at YouTube over proposals for a subscription music streaming service, which the Silicon Valley giant is expected to launch soon. 

The Worldwide Independent Network (WIN), the organisation that represents the global independent music community, issued a statement slamming YouTube's reported plans to block the content of members who do not sign a new agreement for the service as "unnecessary and indefensible".

The U.S. Product Safety Commission on Wednesday issued a recall notice for 440,000 smoke and carbon monoxide alarms by Nest, a tech-driven start-up acquired by Google earlier this year.

Nest in April disclosed that a "wave" feature that lets people disable alert sounds by flailing their arms could also accidentally be triggered by other gestures.

U.S. online giant eBay said Wednesday cyberattackers broke into its database containing customer passwords and other personal data in what could be one of the biggest breaches of its kind.

The California company said it was notifying its customers, urging them to change passwords to protect themselves.

Computer maker Lenovo's annual profit rose 29 percent to a record high as smartphone sales surged in China and other markets.

Lenovo said Wednesday that smartphone shipments during the year jumped by nearly three-quarters to 50 million on strong demand in China, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, almost matching the 55 million PCs sold in the same period.

So, a lady walks into a bar...Wait, scratch that. A lady takes out her phone. With a left swipe of her finger she dismisses Alex, 25 and Robert, 48. She swipes right when a photo of James, 24, pops up. It's a match. James had swiped right too. They chat, and make plans to meet. They're only three miles apart, after all.

Welcome to the new world of dating. As the near-constant use of smartphones proliferates and as people grow more comfortable with disclosing their location, a new class of mobile dating applications is emerging that spans a range as broad as human desire itself. Millennials, busy with school, jobs and social lives, say the apps save time and let users filter out the undesirables, based on a few photos, words and Facebook connections.

U.S. online entertainment powerhouse Netflix announced what it called significant expansion into Europe on Tuesday, promising viewers in six countries online video by the end of the year.

Already a fixture in parts of northern Europe, the digital television and film streaming star said it would offer monthly subscriptions in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Luxembourg.

A Twitter war erupted in India on Tuesday after the official prime minister handle was archived and its 1.24 million followers "transported" to the new account.

The team of departing premier Manmohan Singh reset the @PMOIndia account and renamed it @PMOIndiaArchive, angering the incoming Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by prime minister-designate Narendra Modi.

Google on Monday declined to comment on reports that it is working on a billion-dollar deal to add video game play streaming star Twitch TV to YouTube.

U.S. media reports of Google aiming to buy Twitch come with a boom in online viewing of real-time video game or computer game play as "e-sports" attract growing crowds as spectator events.