A widespread Microsoft outage was disrupting flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world on Friday.

Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.

The European Union said Friday that blue checkmarks from Elon Musk's X are deceptive and that the online platform falls short on transparency and accountability requirements, the first charges against a tech company since the bloc's new social media regulations took effect.

The European Commission outlined the preliminary findings from its investigation into X, formerly known as Twitter, under the 27-nation bloc's Digital Services Act.

Samsung is dressing up its wearable devices in technology's latest fashion — artificial intelligence.

The South Korean electronics giant on Wednesday revealed that both its first-ever premium smartwatch and a smart ring heralding its entry into a niche market will include AI features that are supposed to help people monitor and manage their health.

The number of international patent filings for innovations using cutting-edge generative artificial intelligence have surged eightfold in six years, the U.N. said Wednesday, the majority from China-based innovators.

Uber driver Hussein Khalil was battling traffic in Beirut when he found himself in the Gaza Strip -- according to his online map, anyway -- as location jamming blamed on Israel disrupts life in Lebanon.

European Union regulators accused social media company Meta Platforms on Monday of breaching the bloc's new digital competition rulebook by forcing Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.

Meta began giving European users the option in November of paying for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram as a way to comply with the continent's strict data privacy rules.

Japanese scientists have used human cells to develop an equivalent to living skin that can be attached to robotic surfaces to flash a realistic -- if creepy -- smile.

China's Chang'e 6 probe returned on Earth with rock and soil samples from the little-explored far side of the moon in a global first.

The probe landed in the Inner Mongolian region in northern China on Tuesday afternoon.

Try saying "no" when a child asks for a smartphone. What comes after, parents everywhere can attest, begins with some variation of: "Everyone has one. Why can't I?"

But what if no preteen in sight has one — and what if having a smartphone was weird? That's the endgame of an increasing number of parents across Europe who are concerned by evidence that smartphone use among young kids jeopardizes their safety and mental health — and share the conviction that there's strength in numbers.

The artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI has raised tens of millions of dollars from the likes of Jeff Bezos and other prominent tech investors for its mission to rival Google in the business of searching for information.

But its AI-driven search chatbot is already facing challenges as some news media companies object to its business practices and tech giants Google, and now Apple, are increasingly fusing similar AI features into their core products.