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China's Baidu Invests $306 Million in Travel Website

Chinese search engine Baidu has agreed to invest $306 million in domestic travel website Qunar as it seeks to cash in on the booming tourism market in China.

Baidu, which dominates the Chinese search market after Google retreated following a spat with Beijing over censorship and cyberattacks last year, will take a majority stake in the travel search engine, Baidu said late Friday.

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Power Grid Change May Disrupt Clocks

A yearlong experiment with the nation's electric grid could mess up traffic lights, security systems and some computers — and make plug-in clocks and appliances like programmable coffeemakers run up to 20 minutes fast.

"A lot of people are going to have things break and they're not going to know why," said Demetrios Matsakis, head of the time service department at the U.S. Naval Observatory, one of two official timekeeping agencies in the federal government.

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BlackBerry Maker Upbeat on Asian Growth Markets

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) is banking on Indonesia and other populous markets for growth in Asia, while it faces intensifying competition worldwide from rivals like the iPhone.

The Canadian firm had one of the most prominent stands at the CommunicAsia telecom fair that ended Friday in Singapore, where industry executives gather annually to check out new technology and seal deals.

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Nokia Says Symbian Development to Continue with Accenture

The world's number-one mobile phone maker Nokia said on Thursday that 2,800 developers working on its Symbian Smartphone platform would move to consulting company Accenture.

"There’s a tremendous amount of work going on around Symbian, with up to ten new Symbian Smartphones planned in the next 12 months alone," company spokesman James Etheridge told Agence France Presse.

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PrivateSky Shields Online Exchanges From Prying Eyes

A free service launched on Wednesday called PrivateSky lets Internet users shield email, Facebook updates, and other online exchanges from hackers or other unwanted snoops.

The service from startup CertiVox comes as hackers appear to be rampaging through the Internet, cracking defenses at companies, attacking public websites, and tricking their way into email accounts to spy on contents.

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Apple Removes Anti-Israel App From App Store

Apple Inc. says it has removed an application called "ThirdIntifada" from its App Store following complaints that it glorified violence against Israel.

Israel's information minister, Yuli Edelstein, requested the company remove the app in an email he sent to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Jewish human rights group The Simon Wiesenthal Center also complained to Apple.

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Nokia's New Flagship N9 Gets Mixed Reviews

Nokia's latest attempt to win back market share with its N9 phone received mixed reviews Wednesday but analysts said the real test will come when it releases new models using the Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Fans lauded the N9's ease of use without any "home" button -- a feature of the iPhone and other rivals -- while detractors mocked what they saw as its outdated Meego operating system.

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Kinect Bringing Interactive Ads to Xbox 360

Microsoft announced Tuesday it will bring interactive ads to Xbox360 consoles using the voice- and gesture-recognizing capabilities of Kinect controllers.

The U.S. technology titan unveiled "NUads" technology that it heralded as the future of television advertising.

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Paris Air Show Bans Guests from Jamming Phone Signals

The organizers of the Paris International Air Show were forced to order aerospace companies appearing at the event to shut off devices jamming mobile telephone signals, they told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

On Sunday, as exhibitors were setting out their stalls at the Le Bourget aerodrome north of Paris, technicians noticed disruptions to GSM frequencies that were scrambling calls, show director general Gilles Fournier said.

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Web Address Boom Could be Search Engine Boon

The decision to open the Internet to a flood of Web addresses ending in anything from company names to social movements could prove a boon to search engines.

The Internet's global coordinator on Monday approved the creation of website addresses ending in just about any word, triggering one of the biggest ever shake-ups in how the web operates.

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