An UltraViolet platform for letting people buy lifetime viewing rights to films is poised to launch in the United States.

The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) alliance said Friday that it is licensing the technology to retail businesses and that UltraViolet offerings should be available by October.

Apple on Friday released a software update to patch a vulnerability that hackers could use to break into the company's popular iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch gadgets.

The flaw made it possible for hackers to infiltrate Apple mobile devices by duping users into opening PDF document files booby-trapped with malicious computer code.

Superstar singer and actress Jennifer Lopez will split with her musician and actor husband, Marc Anthony, after seven years of marriage, the couple revealed to People magazine in a joint statement Friday.

"This was a very difficult decision. We have come to an amicable conclusion on all matters," they said in the statement.

Opera Mini web-browsing software for smart phones has become an antidote for congested telecom networks and carrier bills that rise along with the amount of data streamed to handsets.

As the popularity of smart phones and tablets continues to surge and telecom carriers shy away from all-you-can-eat wireless data plans, Opera is wooing users with technology that minimizes bytes of data streamed over the air.

Thieves and art dealers are the usual suspects, but mildew and flashbulbs are just as dangerous for some of the Philippines' beleaguered cultural treasures.

From a 30,000-year-old skull fragment of one of its first human inhabitants to imposing churches built during Spanish colonial rule, the Southeast Asian archipelago has a stunning display of artifacts showcasing its diverse history.

At least 25 people were killed during a Nigerian military raid after a bomb blast blamed on Islamists and many others have been reported missing, a statement from Amnesty International said Friday.

The statement referred to an incident last weekend in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, which has seen a wave of attacks attributed to an Islamist sect known as Boko Haram and where hundreds of troops have been deployed.

A one-legged delivery truck driver was stopped at a Cape Town roadblock Friday, when police found him using his 11-year-old son to operate the clutch.

The 39-year-old driver had his left leg amputated in 1996 after a gunshot injury, leaving him unable to press the clutch to change gears, the city's traffic department said in a statement.

Vampires, the devil's deceit and mental illness are among the hot topics for some 300 exorcists who flocked to Poland this week from as far away as Africa and India for a week-long congress.

Held at Poland's Roman Catholic Jasna Gora monastery, home to the venerated Black Madonna icon, this year's congress "examines the current fashion for vampirism in Europe and the world-over, schizophrenia and other mental disorders as well as the devil's deceit during exorcism," according to the monastery's radio station.

Israeli aircraft struck Gaza overnight for the fourth time in as many days, wounding an activist who was about to fire a rocket, Palestinian security sources said on Saturday.

The Palestinian was admitted to hospital but his injuries were not life-threatening, the sources said.

The seven Estonians who were kidnapped in Lebanon for four months revealed that they were held captive in Lebanon and Syria, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

They told Agence France Presse during a press conference in the Estonian capital Tallinn: “We were held in three different secret locations by the eight terrorists, in both Lebanon and Syria. The big advantage was we were together, and that unity gave us the strength to believe we would see a happy end.”