Facebook on Thursday began letting people locked out of their profiles get back in with the help of "friends."

A new Trusted Contacts account recovery feature lets Facebook users set up lists of friends who can provide codes to unlock accounts.

Facebook's profit in the first quarter of this year climbed as it used its grip on people's online social lives to challenge Google and Apple for revenue from mobile ads and apps.

Mobile advertising helped Facebook boost its first-quarter profit 58 percent from a year ago to $217 million, and to lift revenues past market forecasts, according to earnings results released Wednesday.

Facebook on Wednesday said it will delete beheading videos being shared at the leading social network as it re-evaluates its policy regarding whether such content is acceptable.

The move came as a reversal for Facebook, which had been responding to complaints by refusing to intervene since the clips didn't violate the social network's policy because they were being shared to condemn decapitations.

Global sales of tablet computers surged in the first quarter of 2013, led by Android-powered devices that outpaced gains by Apple's iPads, a research firm said Wednesday.

IDC said the worldwide tablet market saw sizzling growth of 142.4 percent compared to the same period a year ago, with shipments hitting 49.2 million units in the first three months of 2013.

IBM scientists Wednesday unveiled what they called "the world's smallest movie," which tracks the movement of atoms magnified 100 million times.

The film, "A Boy and His Atom," depicts a character named Atom who befriends a single atom and follows him on a journey of dancing and bouncing that helps explain the science behind data storage.

Dozens of Sony executives including the firm's chief are foregoing bonuses this year in an "unprecedented" step to atone for a slump in its embattled electronics unit, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Chief executive Kazuo Hirai is among 40 top managers who will not get a bonus estimated at several hundred million yen (several million dollars) "due to severe business circumstances, including stagnant performance in the electronics sector", the spokeswoman said.

Take all the comments expressed on Twitter, crunch them with an analytics program and you can get a sense of the mood of a city, state or country.

U.S. researchers say they have come up with such a tool, called a "hedonometer," which is effectively a happiness sensor.

When Google launched its social networking service, Google Plus, during the summer of 2011, tens of millions of people clamored to sign up for an account.

But within months, critics had panned the new service, pointing to user pages bereft of meaningful content and exchanges. They said the new social site just wasn't, well, social. It seemed as though Facebook had cornered the market -- Google was too late to the party.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, announced the launch of the world’s first 8 inch tablet, the GALAXY Note 8.0; a new era of intelligent Note technology set to re-ignite the mid-size tablet category that Samsung established in 2010. Providing unrivaled multimedia performance within a compact one-hand-grip screen, the GALAXY Note 8.0 has the power and advanced technology to evolve the tablet experience and ensure you achieve new levels of efficient multi-tasking while benefiting from superb voice call functionality. Furthermore, the intelligent S Pen brings together the latest innovation and the ease of using a traditional pen and paper; creating a sophisticated mobile experience that will enhance life on the go.

“Back in 2010 the launch of the first Samsung GALAXY Tab with 7 inch screen opened a new chapter in the mobile industry. Now almost three years later, Samsung continues to evolve the sector that meets the demands of modern life.” said JK Shin, President of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics.

The world's first web page will be dragged out of cyberspace and restored for today's Internet browsers as part of a project to celebrate 20 years of the Web, organizers said on Tuesday.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said it had begun recreating the website that launched that World Wide Web, as well as the hardware that made the groundbreaking technology possible.