Lee Chang-june can be miles from his 12-year-old son but still know when he plays a smartphone game. With the press of an app he can see his son's phone activity, disable apps or totally shut down the smartphone.

The app, "Smart Sheriff," was funded by the South Korean government primarily to block access to pornography and other offensive content online. But its features go well beyond that.

Engineers have known for some time that if cars could only "talk" to each other, they could avoid a lot of accidents.

Vehicles could be driven more safely with information about another car, obstacle or pedestrian around a blind curve, for example.

There was a time when a new video game adaptation was enough to make film critics gag, but the big money involved is starting to attract a new level of talent.

Video game movies have an ignoble history in Hollywood, dating back to the dark days of the early 1990s when clangers like "Super Mario Bros." starring Bob Hoskins and "Street Fighter" with Jean-Claude Van Damme were stinking up the screen. 

Japan's Sharp may seem like just another faceless corporate giant, but the struggling Japanese electronics maker still has feelings -- on social media anyway.

The firm, best known for its televisions, confessed to feeling down in the dumps after announcing it was taking a multi-billion-dollar bailout and laying off about 10 percent of its 49,000-strong global workforce to deal with huge losses.

The latest version of Google's self-driving car — a pod-like two-seater that needs no gas pedal or steering wheel — will make its debut on public roads this summer, a significant step in the technology giant's mission to have driverless cars available to consumers in the next five years.

This prototype is the first vehicle built from scratch for the purpose of self-driving, Google says. It looks like a Smart car with a shiny black bowler hat to hide its sensors, and it can drive, brake and recognize road hazards without human intervention. It has more capabilities than the prototype Google introduced last May, which was so rudimentary it had fake headlights.

Microsoft said Thursday its Bing search engine would be reconfigured to give more prominence to "mobile-friendly" websites, an acknowledgment of the growing importance of smartphones and other mobile devices.

The announcement comes just weeks after Google implemented a similar shift. The moves by the two search engines could have big implications for website operators, advertisers and for those who seek to optimize search rankings.

Facebook pushed deeper into the media business Wednesday by crafting a deal with news publishers which allows the social network to deliver articles directly to readers and could reshape the news landscape.

The long-anticipated move by Facebook means it will host news items on its servers to give readers faster access.

China has warned soldiers against using smartwatches, high-tech spectacles and other Internet-connected wearable gadgets, saying they could "endanger security" after a recruit was caught trying to take a photograph of troops.

"The use of watches that have internet access, location information, and telephone conversation functions should be considered a violation of secrecy regulations at army barracks," the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Daily said.

Japan is readying to lift the lid on what could be its most effective global marketing gimmick yet: the high-tech toilet seat.

Few foreign visitors make it through their first day in Japan without singing the praises of this epitome of Japanese know-how; a contraption that offers both comforting warmth and a frighteningly accurate bidet jet.

Verizon Wireless will pay $90 million and Sprint $68 million to settle charges that the mobile giants allowed phony charges on their customers' monthly bills so they could keep a cut of the profit, federal regulators announced Tuesday.

The two mobile providers had partnered with third-party vendors that sell premium text messaging services, such as daily horoscopes, trivia and sports scores. But consumers who hadn't signed up for the services were being billed anyway, typically about $9.99 a month, according to the Federal Communications Commission and several state attorneys general. Regulators said they launched an investigation after receiving numerous complaints that the carriers had refused to refund the charges.