WhatsApp's mobile messaging service used by hundreds of millions of customers worldwide breached privacy laws in at least two countries, a joint Canadian-Dutch probe concluded Monday.

The California-based mobile app developer violated "certain internationally accepted privacy principles, mainly in relation to the retention, safeguard, and disclosure of personal data," Canada's privacy commissioner and the Dutch Data Protection Authority (CBP) said in a joint statement.

Apple said Monday it was releasing updated mobile software for the iPhone and iPad which makes it easier for users to get on high-speed networks.

The iOS 6.1 version, which updates the one released last year, includes Apple's own maps program which drew scorn from users because of numerous glitches, and which Apple has pledged to fix.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it had bought U.S. medical imaging firm NeuroLogica, as it seeks to explore new growth sources by expanding into the health sector.

Samsung did not disclose the value of the deal but said it had bought a full stake in the Massachusetts-based firm, which makes medical devices including CT scanners.

Weeks after its chairman Eric Schmidt's secretive visit to North Korea, Google has rolled out a detailed map of the isolated state that even labels some of its remote and infamous gulags.

Until now North Korea was pretty much a blank canvas to users of Google's "Map Maker", which creates maps from data that is provided by the public and fact-checked in a similar process to that used by Wikipedia.

Sarah Bertness slipped into her seat at a recent staging of the musical "Million Dollar Quartet" and, when the lights dimmed, started doing something that's long been taboo inside theaters: typing away at her iPhone.

The 26-year-old freelance writer from Providence wasn't being rude. She had a spot in the "tweet seat" section at the Providence Performing Arts Center.

It sounds, at first, like a bold, next-generation solution: personalizing guns with technology that keeps them from firing if they ever get into the wrong hands.

But when the White House called for pushing ahead with such new technology as part of President Obama's plan to cut gun violence, the administration did not mention the concept's embattled past. As with so much else in the nation's long-running divisions over gun rights and regulation, what sounds like a futuristic vision is, in fact, an idea that has been kicked around for years, sidelined by intense suspicion, doubts about feasibility and pressure tactics.

Japan's big manufacturers reduced greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 15 percent annually on average over the past five years compared to 1990, according to a survey in the Nikkei daily Sunday.

The projected annual average reduction of 14.9 percent in the five years to March this year compares to the level in the 1990 fiscal year, the business daily said.

The U.S. Department of Defense has approved a fivefold expansion of its cybersecurity force over the coming years in a bid to increase its ability to defend critical computer networks, The Washington Post reported late Sunday.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the newspaper said the Defense Department's Cyber Command, which currently has a staff of about 900, will expand to about 4,900 troops and civilians.

A new voluntary system aimed at rooting out online copyright piracy using a controversial "six strikes" system is set to be implemented by U.S. Internet providers soon, with the impact unclear.

The program was created with the music and film industry and the largest Internet firms, with some prodding by U.S. government.

A "privacy visor" that uses infra-red light to interfere with facial recognition technology has been developed in Japan for people worried about being spotted by computers.

The goggles are useful for anyone who wants to avoid their identity being detected by hidden cameras, the inventors say.