"Angry Birds" maker Rovio is to launch a new title Thursday allowing users to play as the "Bad Piggies" from the smash-hit game, and take revenge on the birds who attacked them with slingshots.

Rovio Asia senior vice president Henri Holm said the new game would be launched in the Taiwanese capital Taipei in the first of a series of global events.

South Korea's LG Display, one of the world's top flat-screen TV makers, said Thursday it had filed a patent infringement suit against Samsung Electronics over the use of advanced displays.

LG Display, a sister firm of LG Electronics, accused Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display of infringing seven of its patents on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology.

Global sales of so-called smart connected devices -- computers, smartphones and tablets -- rose sharply in the past quarter, driven by smartphones and tablets, a survey showed Wednesday.

The IDC report said shipment reached 267.3 million units in the second quarter, a 27.4 percent increase year-over-year and a 2.8 percent rise from the prior quarter.

Barnes & Noble is rolling out two new versions of its Nook tablet with sleek new hardware and a sharper high-definition screen. The bookseller's move heightens the already intense tablet wars heading into the holiday season.

Barnes & Noble said Wednesday that its new Nook HD will come in two sizes, one with a 7-inch (18-centimeter) screen (measured diagonally), starting at $199, and one with a new 9-inch (23-centimeter) diagonal screen, called the Nook HD+, starting at $269.

California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed a bill clearing the way for self-driving cars to jockey with human-operated vehicles to test the technology on the state's roads.

"Autonomous vehicles are another example of how California's technological leadership is turning today's science fiction into tomorrow's reality," Brown said during a signing ceremony at the Google campus in Mountain View.

Samsung launched Wednesday the newest version of its oversized smartphone Galaxy Note, just a week after Apple's iPhone 5 hit shelves, in an apparent bid to outpace its rival with a wider range of gadgets.

The South Korean electronics giant said the Galaxy Note II -- first unveiled at a trade fair in Berlin last month -- will eventually hit stores in 128 nations including the United States, where the firm's recently lost a $1.05 billion patent case to Apple.

In the nasty world of U.S. politics, voters want to know: who is behind some of the ads they see on TV. Now, there's an app for that.

The Super PAC App is an iPhone application which allows users to find out more information on political ads in the 2012 presidential election by simply holding up their phone to the ad while it's playing.

Tesla Motors Inc. unveiled a solar-powered charging station that it said will make refueling electric vehicles on long trips about as fast as stopping for gas and a bathroom break in a conventional car.

CEO Elon Musk said at a news conference Monday at Tesla's design studio that the company's roadside Supercharger has been installed at six highway rest stops in California.

Apple Inc. said Monday that it sold more than 5 million iPhone 5s in the three days since its launch, fewer than analysts had expected.

Apple shares fell $9.30, or 1.3 percent, to close at $690.79 on Monday. The shares hit an all-time high of $705.07 Friday as the phone went on sale in the U.S., Germany, France, Japan and five other countries.

A new vineyard worker is looking for a job in France. White with red trim, 50 centimetres (20 inches) tall and 60 wide, he has four wheels, two arms and six cameras, prunes 600 vines per day, and never calls in sick.

The Wall-Ye V.I.N. robot, brainchild of Burgundy-based inventor Christophe Millot, is one of the robots being developed around the world aimed at vineyards struggling to find the labour they need.