San Francisco city officials on Thursday said that they have soured on Apple computers due to the Macintosh maker's decision to bail out of a program to promote making electronics earth friendly.

The California company behind coveted iPads, iPhones, iPods and Macbook computers in June abandoned the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool global registry for "greener electronics" and did not respond to requests for comment about the move.

An Iraqi draft law that would jail web users for life for a variety of ill-defined crimes has been condemned by rights groups and activists who have slammed its vague language and hefty penalties.

Little more than a year after revolutions, in part sparked by Internet-based campaigns, rocked the Middle East and ousted several dictators, Human Rights Watch has warned the bill would "constitute serious curtailments" of Iraqis' freedoms, while activists have questioned many of the bill's provisions.

The online retail giant Amazon is testing a new smartphone and may launch production later this year or early next year, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The story, datelined Taipei, said the company is working with Asian component suppliers to test the new device, which would enter a crowded market dominated by Apple's iPhone, Samsung's Galaxy handsets and LG models.

The European Commission presents proposals to limit automobile carbon emissions Wednesday that environmentalists complain will offer favored treatment to manufacturers of big German cars.

In a draft of the proposals obtained by Agence France Presse, the European Union executive calls for a cap on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2020 of an average 95 grams per kilometer per new passenger vehicle, against 130 grams today.

Industry tracker Gartner on Tuesday said that worldwide spending on information technology (IT) was on pace to hit $3.6 trillion this year despite trouble in the global economy.

The revised estimate by Gartner projects that IT spending will be slightly more than previously expected, climbing three percent from the prior year's tally.

South Korea's LG Electronics, long overshadowed by Samsung Electronics, is confident it can outpace its bigger rival in the race to dominate the world's next-generation TV market.

LG, the world's second-largest TV maker after Samsung, believes its technology will give it the edge in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) sets, which are expected to drive the industry in the future.

Online social games could get a shot of real money with a new platform launched by a startup on Monday.

The new platform to allow real-money bets on almost any online game is coming from Betable, a London-headquartered company with a British gambling license, and working in California with U.S. game developers.

Microsoft's next-generation operating system will be available in October as the software giant strives to stay relevant in a blossoming mobile era centered on tablets and smartphones.

"This will be the biggest product and services launch year in our company's history," Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said at an annual gathering of gadget makers and other partners in the Canada city of Toronto.

The so-called Internet doomsday virus with the potential to black out tens of thousands of computers worldwide appeared to pose no major problems Monday after a temporary fix expired.

Security firms reported no significant outages linked to the DNS Changer virus, as many Internet service providers have either implemented a fix or contacted customers with steps to clean their computers.

AT&T said Monday it was implementing a system to block the use of stolen mobile phones, as part of an effort by U.S. carriers to crack down on theft of smartphones.

"As announced in April, AT&T is creating a stolen phone database to prevent devices reported stolen from accessing wireless networks," carrier spokesman Mark Siegel said.