As sleek new smartphones prepared to make splashes at the Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday, a California firm was out to prevent water from being the death of them.

Liquipel was showing off a clear coating a thousand times thinner than a human hair that shields smartphones outside and inside from damaging effects of water.

South Korea's LG Electronics, a leader in smart appliances, has hit on a solution to a common frustration -- how to chill canned or bottled drinks in less than half an hour.

A new refrigerator displayed by LG on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas promises to make drinks ice-cold in just minutes with a feature known as the "Blast Chiller."

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, seeking to expand its presence in the United States and Europe, unveiled the world's slimmest smartphone on Monday.

At 0.26 inches (6.68 millimeters), the Ascend P1S is thinner than the width of a pencil. Apple's latest iPhone, the 4S, by comparison, has a thickness of 0.37 inches (9.3 mm).

Tom Hanks' long gestating Web series is coming to Yahoo.

"Electric City," an animated futuristic series Hanks has been developing for years, will premiere on Yahoo this spring. The series includes 20 episodes, each three- or four-minutes long.

Acer unveiled the world's thinnest laptop computer as an array of "ultrabook" rivals prepared to debut this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Taiwan-based computer titan will begin shipping Acer Aspire 5 models in the second quarter of this year, with prices to be disclosed in coming weeks.

Email addresses and passwords belonging to British, U.S. and NATO officials were posted online following the hacking of a U.S. intelligence analysis firm over Christmas, the Guardian daily reported Monday.

Online "hacktivist" group Anonymous claimed via Twitter on Christmas Day that it had stolen a trove of emails and credit card information from Stratfor's member subscribers.

A Bangladeshi high court on Sunday ordered police to prosecute a university lecturer for sedition after he wished for the death of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Facebook, a state prosecutor said.

The same court handed Jahangirnagar University teacher Ruhul Khandakar six months in jail last week for contempt of court after he failed to respond to repeated summonses to explain his Facebook posting.

Howard Stringer, the Welsh-born American head of Japanese games, music and electronics giant Sony, is to step down as the firm's president, reports said Saturday, while remaining CEO and chairman.

The move puts his reported successor Kazuo Hirai, a games and music veteran who is currently executive deputy president, in pole position to ultimately take over at the top of the company.

Yahoo dangled a $27 million pay package to lure its newly hired CEO Scott Thompson away from PayPal.

The struggling Internet company disclosed the details of Thompson's compensation in a regulatory filing late Friday. Thompson starts his new job Monday after spending the past four years runningeBay Inc.'s PayPal service, where revenue more than doubled during his tenure. PayPal took in an estimated $4.4 billion last year.

Netflix's streaming-video audience of more than 20 million subscribers has led many to label it a kind of digital TV network, and one that may grow into an HBO rival — if it's not already.

But unlike television programming, which comes with viewing guides, DVR reminders and weekly picks from all manner of media, the Netflix instant universe is a largely uncharted, Byzantine library prone to aimless clicking and haphazard double features.