The number of online microblog users in China dropped by more than 27.8 million last year, marking the first major decline in popularity of a social media genre that has offered a way to share unfiltered information in a country with strict controls.

The drop comes amid a crackdown on microblogs deemed sensitive by government authorities and new controls on what can be posted and reposted, and has reflected an overall decline in use of traditional social media in China. At the same time, there has been a huge increase in users of cellphone-based instant messaging services that have increasingly incorporated social media functions, including microblog-like features.

Jawbone on Thursday began making it easier to love Siri, Google Now or other virtual assistants in a hint at the future portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film "Her."

The San Francisco-based company behind sophisticated and stylish wireless ear pieces released a new ERA model packing big technology in a diminutive form and enabling users to speak more naturally with software on their mobile devices.

A U.S. woman thought to be the first person to get a traffic ticket for wearing Google Glass was found not guilty Thursday.

Cecilia Abadie was acquitted after San Diego Commissioner John Blair found she was not actively using the Google glass device when she was stopped.

Streaming TV and movie provider Netflix won its first Oscar nomination Thursday for "The Square," a documentary about the 2011 revolution and ongoing strife in Egypt.

The movie, to be released on Friday, recounts the turmoil in Egypt centered on Cairo's Tahrir Square since the uprising nearly three years ago that ousted long-time president Hosni Mubarak.

The number of web users in China has surged to 618 million, a government agency said Thursday, underscoring the rapid growth of online connectivity in the country with the world's largest Internet population.

Its online population -- defined as those who have used the Internet at least once in the last six months -- rose by more than 53 million in 2013, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reported.

Yahoo chief operating officer Henrique de Castro is walking away with a stock award of $20 million as the company struggles to boost revenues, regulatory filings showed.

The California-based Internet firm's second-in-command will be out effective Thursday, having served in the post about 15 month's since being hand-picked by chief executive Marissa Mayer shortly after she took charge.

The Google lab behind augmented reality game "Ingress" is teaming with HarperCollins Publishers and top author James Frey for an Internet age adventure in storytelling.

Niantic Labs announced Wednesday that it will create a mobile augmented reality game as part of an "Endgame" multimedia project meshing together digital novellas, YouTube videos, social media, search results and a trilogy of young adult novels.

With the "Open Internet" rule struck down by a U.S. court, the future of the online landscape is now murkier than ever.

An appeals court in Washington this week ruled unconstitutional a "Net Neutrality" rule that bars broadband Internet providers from discriminating or playing favorites for online services.

Chinese tech giant Huawei on Wednesday rejected suggestions its telecoms equipment is vulnerable to hacking and forecast a rise in 2013 profit of nearly 50 percent.

Chief financial officer Cathy Meng rejected as "groundless" reports that Huawei equipment might be more vulnerable to security threats than telecoms infrastructure made by other companies.

The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world — but not in the United States — that allows the U.S. to conduct surveillance on those machines, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The Times cited NSA documents, computer experts and U.S. officials in its report about the use of secret technology using radio waves to gain access to computers that other countries have tried to protect from spying or cyberattacks. The software network could also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks, the Times reported.