Instagram on Thursday became part of Facebook as the social network completed its billion-dollar acquisition of the smartphone photo-sharing service.

"Very excited to announce that we're now officially joining the Facebook family," Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom said in a Facebook post tagged as being made using a mobile phone in Japan.

Amazon unveiled new models of its Kindle Fire tablet computer Thursday, including a bigger version with a high-definition display, in a clear challenge to the market-leading iPad.

Analysts said the Amazon upgrades -- as well as launching the hugely popular Fire devices outside the U.S., starting in Europe later this year -- signaled the online giant has its sights on challenging Apple's longstanding dominance.

U.S. technology giant Apple is in talks to license music for broadcast on a custom online radio service modeled after Pandora, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said Apple's service would work on the company's hardware, including the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers, as well as potentially on PCs using Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Cyber-crooks are increasingly taking aim at smartphones, following their prey as lifestyles migrate to Internet-linked mobile devices, according to new reports by online security firms.

Symantec's annual Norton Cybercrime Report released Thursday calculated that such crimes cost worldwide consumers $110 billion in the past year, with an increase in attacks on mobile devices and online social networks.

Google and Microsoft have introduced new champions in the fiercely competitive smartphone arena a week ahead of what is likely to be the hotly-anticipated debut of a next-generation iPhone by Apple.

Microsoft and Nokia joined Wednesday to boost their smartphone arsenal with two new Lumia handsets powered by Windows 8 software.

Tim Berners-Lee, the British inventor of the World Wide Web, on Wednesday warned governments that attempts to block the Internet were doomed to failure due to its scattered structure.

Speaking at the launch of a league table showing which countries use the web most effectively, Berners-Lee said the lack of a global internet "off-switch" meant authoritarian regimes could not stem the influx of digital information.

Sony said Thursday that hackers stole details belonging to hundreds of its mobile unit clients, the latest in a string of cyber-attacks to hit the embattled Japanese electronics giant.

A group calling itself "Null\Crew" said it had attacked a mobile communications server, with a Sony spokesman confirming the cyber thieves had grabbed information belonging to 400 customers in mainland China and Taiwan.

Zynga on Wednesday launched a new version of "FarmVille" as the one-time social games darling tries to win back players to one of the Facebook games that fueled its rise to stardom.

"We recognize that there are players who have moved on from FarmVille," said Zynga vice president of games Tim LeTourneau.

Al-Jazeera news network said on Wednesday a number of its websites had been hacked, and Internet users reported that pro-Syrian regime slogans were posted on the broadcaster's pages.

The main Arab satellite news channel said the host company of its websites came under a cyber attack which "caused readers wanting to access Al-Jazeera websites to be diverted to other pages not linked to us."

Rovio, the Finnish makers of the world's most-downloaded mobile app, "Angry Birds", will launch a new game called "Bad Piggies" on September 27, the company said Tuesday.

"This innovative game turns the franchise on its head by letting the fans play as the pigs," Rovio said in a statement.