Big technology firms including Google, Facebook, eBay and Amazon have joined to create a new lobby group aimed at promoting "an open, innovative and free Internet."

The Internet Association announced its formation in a statement on its website, indicating it will be headed by Michael Beckerman, a former congressional staffer.

A semi-official Iranian news agency says police hope to work with Facebook to fight cyber-crimes and pornography — a turnabout in Tehran's stance toward the social networking giant that it previously banned after activists used it as an organizing tool.

A Tuesday report by ISNA quotes Gen. Kamal Hadianfar, head of Iran's cyber-police, as saying the country is trying to remove pages on Facebook created by Iranian citizens that promote pornography and prostitution.

More consumers are buying the least expensive iPhones and iPads, a new phenomenon that is causing Apple's breakneck growth rate to slow.

On Tuesday, Apple Inc. revealed that both revenue and net income posted increases of just over 20 percent — cause for celebration at most companies, but meager by Apple standards.

South Korea's LG Electronics said Wednesday its second-quarter net profit surged 47 percent from a year earlier, thanks largely to booming sales of flat-screen televisions and home appliances.

The world's second-largest flat-screen TV maker by shipments after Samsung Electronics reported net profit of 159 billion won ($138.2 million) for April-June, up from 108.44 billion won a year earlier.

Prem Watsa, one of Canada's best-known value investors, has nearly doubled his stake in BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. to 9.9 percent, according to a regulatory filing Monday.

The increase makes him the largest shareholder in the struggling company and identifies a buyer for shares that other investors have been unloading.

Business software maker VMware is buying computer networking specialist Nicira for nearly $1.3 billion.

The deal announced Monday will expand VMware's product line in the rapidly growing field of computer "virtualization." The term refers to software that lowers the costs of running data centers by enabling a single computer to function like multiple machines.

On Tuesday, Apple is set to report financial results for the second quarter. Analysts are expecting net income of $9.8 billion. But whatever figure Apple reports won't reflect its true profit, because the company hides some of it with an unusual tax maneuver.

Apple Inc., already the world's most valuable company, understates its profits compared with other multinationals. It's building up an overlooked asset in the form of billions of dollars, tucked away for tax bills it may never pay.

Rival factions from the Internet security world will mix warily this week at a pair of Las Vegas conferences gathering computer security experts and software savants who make sport of hacking them.

More than 6,500 high-level security experts will attend the Black Hat conference already under way, with many apt to swap surnames for code-names and stay for the infamous Def Con gathering of hackers that starts on Thursday.

News Corp. said Monday it would launch a new tablet computer with AT&T aimed at the education market to bring "digital innovation" to the classroom.

The media conglomerate headed by Rupert Murdoch said the effort would come from its education division which is being renamed Amplify.

Lebanon’s mobile telecommunication service does not get an applause but major dissatisfaction with its services which prompted a group of individuals to launch the alloFail initiative aiming to pressure the two Mobile Telecom Operators Alfa and Touch for better services.

AlloFail started in June 2012 in Lebanon by a group of non-sectarian and politically independent Lebanese individuals, which includes a lawyer, a telecommunication engineer and Lebanese PR experts in a bid to exert pressure on the mobile operators to provide better products and services by listening to and acting upon customer complaints.