Microsoft has joined Google in a legal push for permission to disclose more information about secret government requests for data, according to a U.S. court filing made public on Wednesday.

Microsoft's legal request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) on June 19th came a day after a similar petition by Google.

Earthbound financial transactions service PayPal late Wednesday launched a quest for an intergalactic currency, saying it is time to figure out what space travelers will use as cash.

"The time has now come for us to start planning for the future; a future where we aren't just talking about global payments," said PayPal president David Marcus. "We are expanding our vision off earth into space."

The White House added Instagram to its social media portfolio on Wednesday, as it posted a picture of a helicopter with President Barack Obama and his family taking off on a trip to Africa.

"The First Family takes off for a three-country trip across Africa #MarineOne #ObamaInAfrica Follow @WhiteHouse for more!," said the caption for the picture of the presidential helicopter leaving the White House.

The crowd-funded Ouya videogame console hit the market on Tuesday and sold out quickly at online retailer Amazon as well as on the website of major U.S. chain store Target.

"Unreal," Ouya said in a message fired off on Twitter. "Ouya has officially sold out on @amazon U.S. and UK."

The first four of 12 satellites in a new constellation to provide affordable, high-speed Internet to people in nearly 180 "under-connected" countries were blasted into Space on Tuesday.

The orbiters, part of a project dubbed O3b, for the "other 3 billion" people with restricted Internet access, were lifted by a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kourou in French Guiana at 1927 GMT, according to a live broadcast on the website of launch company Arianespace.

Smartphone users have seen an explosion of malware in the past year, dominated by schemes targeting Google's Android operating system, a survey showed Wednesday.

The attacks are also starting to hit corporate networks, possibly as part of broader espionage efforts, according to the Juniper Networks Mobile survey.

The startup behind a Snapchat application for sharing self-destructing smartphone photos and messages got a dizzying valuation on Monday in a new funding round.

Reports that the company launched in late 2011 had raised $60 million from investors, giving it a market value of about $800 million, hit the Internet along with word that people are sharing more than 200 million 'snaps' daily.

Looking for a safe password? You can give HQbgbiZVu9AWcqoSZmChwgtMYTrM7HE3ObVWGepMeOsJf4iHMyNXMT1BrySA4d7 a try. Good luck memorizing it.

Sixty-three random alpha-numeric characters -- in this case, generated by an online password generator -- are as good as it gets when it comes to securing your virtual life.

Tired of checking your smartphone every few minutes for new emails, likes or retweets? Do you spend more time looking at your device than chatting to your date? Are you close to a digital burn-out?

Fear not, an increasing number of options are available for those seeking to detox from technology, from wallpaper that blocks wi-fi to Internet-free holidays and software that forces you off addictive sites.

As a schoolboy, Akihiro Matsumura spent hundreds of hours learning the intricate Chinese characters that make up a part of written Japanese. Now, the graduate student can rely on his smartphone, tablet and laptop to remember them for him.

"Sometimes I don't even bother to take notes in seminars. I just take out my tablet to shoot pictures of what instructors write on blackboards," he told Agence France Presse.