Internet and phone communications in Syria were gradually being restored Monday after a three-hour outage caused by damage to a fiber-optic cable, state television said.
It did not say what caused the damage to the cable, or whether the incident was related to the country's civil war.

Worried by U.S. spying revelations, India has begun drawing up a new email policy to help secure government communications, but the man responsible for drafting the rules still regularly uses Hotmail.
Like many of his peers in ministries across New Delhi, IT Minister Kapil Sibal's office recently sent an email inviting journalists to the launch of his new personal website using the free email service.

Eight leading technology companies on Monday called on the United States to overhaul its surveillance laws to better balance the needs of security and individual rights, in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks.
In an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress, AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo said Washington should lead the way in a worldwide reform of state-sponsored spying.

Apple used freshly deployed iBeacon sensors to virtually -- and personally -- accompany iPhone, iPad or iPod-toting shoppers through its U.S. stores on Friday.
Code woven into Apple's newest iOS mobile operating software lets the sensors tell when one of the California company's gadgets is nearby in-store and then fires off messages about deals, products or other relevant information to draw a potential buyer in.

Apple wants Samsung Electronics to pay $22 million of the legal bills that the iPhone and iPad maker has rung up so far defending its mobile device patents in a courtroom battle.
The money sought in documents filed Thursday would be in addition to the $930 million in damages that juries decided Samsung owes Apple Inc. after hearing evidence of patent infringement in two separate trials held in a San Jose, California, federal court during the past 15 months. The latest verdict was handed down last month.

Twitter has named Marjorie Scardino as a director, adding a woman to the all-white male board for which it's been sharply criticized.
Scardino, 66, was the CEO of Pearson PLC, a publishing and education company, from 1997 to 2012, Twitter Inc. said in a regulatory filing on Thursday. Before that, she worked at The Economist Group, publisher of The Economist and CQ Roll Call. Her roles at the company included CEO.

Security experts say passwords for more than 2 million Facebook, Google and other accounts have been compromised and circulated online, just the latest example of breaches involving leading Internet companies.
Some services including Twitter have responded by disabling the affected passwords. But there are several things you can do to minimize further threats —even if your account isn't among the 2 million that were compromised.

A plan by the New Zealand government to upgrade the country's notoriously slow Internet service has hit a snag after accountants confirmed the main contractor is facing financial problems.
The government agreed to spend $1.1 billion over the next six years to lay fiber cable throughout much of the country to replace existing copper cables. But Communications Minister Amy Adams said Thursday that accountants at Ernst & Young have told her that infrastructure company Chorus is at risk of not fulfilling its contract.

The competition between Microsoft and Google is stretching to the North Pole as the Internet search rivals vie to be top Santa tracker this Christmas.
Google on Wednesday launched a google.com/santatracker website offering reindeer games, elf antics and updates on beloved gift-giver Kris Kringle as children worldwide count down to Christmas eve.

Sexual orientation, private debt, medical records, even your favorite ice cream flavor: do you know much of this personal information is out there and available for sale?
And what if it could affect your job applications, whether you can rent a house or how high your insurance premium will be?
