Google on Friday began letting U.S. Smartphone users stay abreast of local news wherever they happen to be.

"News near you" lets iPhones or Android-powered Smartphones display stories relevant to people's locations at any given moment, according to product manager Navneet Singh.

Pioneering Swiss solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse, which holds a 26-hour record for flight duration, took off from Switzerland on Friday on its first international flight to Belgium.

The experimental emissions-free aircraft is expected to take about 12 hours to complete the journey to Brussels Airport, the team said.

Dictators in the Arab world could crush uprisings against their iron-fisted rule using the same social media that have been credited with boosting the revolts, Amnesty warned in a new report Friday.

In its annual analysis of the world's human rights, Amnesty International praised the role of websites such as Twitter and Facebook in fomenting the biggest revolt against repressive regimes since the end of the Cold War.

YouTube on Thursday began publishing a chart that tracks top music videos at the popular Google-owned website.

A YouTube 100 chart online at youtube.com/music will be updated weekly based on the popularity of videos whether works are amateur or professional, according to YouTube product manager Chris LaRosa.

Startup WhoSay has been working quietly in the background helping Hollywood stars keep control of pictures and videos at social networking sensations Twitter and Facebook.

The invitation-only service caters to celebrities whose mere choice of shoes can spark fashion trends or casual meals out could turn unknown restaurants into hip dining spots.

The popular online file-sharing service LimeWire has agreed to pay $105 million to settle charges that it was a platform for music piracy.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said Thursday that the negotiated settlement came as jurors in a federal court in New York City mulled how much LimeWire should pay for "massive copyright infringement."

With scores of smartphones available, one obvious way for them to stand out is with size. Two new phones take that to extremes: HP's tiny Veer 4G and Samsung's massive Infuse 4G.

Both have the foundations of good smartphones, including great operating software and the ability to run on AT&T's high-speed "4G" network. But their sizes present some major weaknesses, too.

Social networks are "lucrative hot beds" for cyber scams as crooks endeavor to dupe members of online communities, according to a Microsoft security report released on Thursday.

"Phishing" attacks that use seemingly legitimate messages to trick people into clicking on booby-trapped links, buying bogus software, or revealing information rocketed 1,200 percent at social networks last year, it said.

Google wants Android to move into people's homes with the open-source software powering everything from smart light bulbs to sound systems.

More than 5,000 software savants at Google's annual developers conference in San Francisco on Tuesday were shown an "Android@Home" software platform for making dumb devices smart and robots manageable.

U.S. computer security firm Symantec has said that Facebook accidentally left a door open for advertisers to access profiles, pictures, chat and other private data at the social network.

Facebook told Agence France Presse that there was no evidence anyone stepped through that door and swiped any information from the accounts of its more than 500 million members.