Apple has told two companies assembling its new lower-cost iPhone 5C that it is cutting orders for the fourth quarter, raising concerns over weaker-than-expected demand, a report said Wednesday.

Apple told Foxconn and Pegatron Corp. earlier this month that shipments of the iPhone 5C in the October-December period would be reduced, Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Yahoo on Tuesday took attention off a lackluster quarterly report with word that it plans to hold onto a larger chunk than originally planned of Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba.

The California-based Internet pioneer that has been struggling for years to reinvent itself after withering in Google shadow said that its profit in the recently-ended quarter slipped from the same period a year ago, when its coffers were swelled by the sale of shares in China's Alibaba.

Ford Motor Co. and the University of Michigan are opening a new battery research and manufacturing lab that they hope will speed the development of batteries for electric and hybrid cars.

The center, on the university's campus in Ann Arbor, will bring together battery makers, car companies and researchers who will test new batteries for prototype vehicles.

Yahoo said Saturday that it acquired tech company Bread, a URL shortner that allows users to design then target advertisements to readers who click on their links.

"Through this acquisition, we're gaining a team of six engineers and product managers who will join our advertising technology organization in Sunnyvale," a Yahoo spokesperson said.

Google wants your permission to use your name, photo and product reviews in ads that it sells to businesses.

The Internet search giant is changing its terms of service starting Nov. 11.

Facebook is ending a feature that allowed users to hide from the social network's billion-plus members.

The feature, akin to Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, will be removed, meaning that someone looking for another Facebook user can more easily find that person.

Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, said Thursday that he respects but disagrees with complaints about his company's privacy policies made by data protection authorities in six European countries.

Schmidt said the Internet search and ad giant has "very broadly communicated" its policies to authorities in the countries where the complaints have been made.

Facebook is getting rid of a privacy feature that let users limit who can find them on the social network.

Facebook Inc. said Thursday that it is removing a setting that controls whether users could be found when people type their name into the website's search bar.

Toyota on Friday unveiled the next generation of cars featuring an auto pilot system that will swerve to avoid collisions and also keep to the middle of the road, all without drivers touching the wheel.

The Japanese giant autos using the self-driving technology could be available on the market in just a few years' time.

BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis has boosted his stake in the troubled Canadian tech firm with the intention of making an acquisition bid, regulatory documents showed Thursday.

A document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Lazaridis now has eight percent of BlackBerry shares and is working with another co-founder, Douglas Fregin, "to explore the possibility of submitting a potential joint bid" for the group.