IBT Staff Reporter

Teenage Britons are spending more and more time using smartphones to make calls, send texts and use social networking sites, and more than half of those that own the devices claim to be addicted to them, regulator Ofcom said on Thursday.

Security experts have discovered an unprecedented series of cyber attacks on the networks of 72 organizations globally, including the United Nations, governments and corporations, over a five-year period.

Activision Blizzard, the biggest U.S. video game publisher, raised its earnings outlook as a strategy of focusing on a few key titles seemed to be paying off, boosting its shares more than 2 percent.

U.S. authorities said on Wednesday they have dismantled an online bulletin board allegedly used by 600 people around the world to trade graphic images and videos of child sex abuse.

Leap Wireless posted a wider second-quarter loss as it added fewer customers than expected, sending its shares down as much as 5 percent in extended trading.

Stocks bounced from earlier losses on Wednesday, looking to break a seven-day run of declines as technology shares gained ground .

Celina Cass' biological father, Adam Laro, told a Boston news station that the little girl's stepfather Wendell Noyes behaved strangely after the little girl disappeared. Celina, 11, was found dead by divers in the Connecticut River.

Former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said on Wednesday the Fed might need to give serious consideration to further easing if the economy weakens more than expected and underlying inflation comes down.

Activision Blizzard, the biggest video game publisher, raised its earnings outlook for the year and said its quarterly profit rose as more gamers bought content over the Internet for its biggest franchise, Call of Duty.

Randi Zuckerberg, sister of the famous CEO of Facebook, is leaving the company to start her own business.

Long-running TV series "CSI:Crime Scene Investigation" will take on a less serious tone this season as former "Cheers" actor Ted Danson joins the cast of forensic detectives, producers said on Wednesday.

Death row, Sarah Palin, and wannabe Vulcans are some of the topics audiences can explore this year through the Toronto International Film Festival's documentary line up, announced on Wednesday.

Heather Mills was quoted on Wednesday as saying a journalist at British publisher Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper, had hacked her phone before she was married to former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney.

The White House said on Wednesday it was looking at ways to end a partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration that has halted airport construction projects employing thousands of people and extended the summer's political battles.

President Barack Obama will take a three-day campaign-style bus tour through the American Midwest this month, as he tries to refocus attention on jobs seen as vital to his chances of winning re-election in 2012.

Competition is brewing in the small but booming market for flash memory used in corporate data centers, and analysts foresee a wave of consolidation as larger players move in.

Security experts announced on Wednesday the discovery of an unprecedented series of cyber attacks spanning five years that affected the networks of 72 organizations globally, including the United Nations, governments and corporations.

Some are blaming the Chinese government for a massive hack that victimized several government agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

The U.S. has been gaining momentum in its fight against HIV but the number of new infections, about 50,000 per year over the past decade, continues to persist, federal officials said Wednesday. The epidemic still largely concentrates on gay men and rates of new infection have also been rapidly rising in young black men.

U.S. officials called it the largest prosecution of people who participated in an online child exploitation enterprise operated for the purpose of promoting child sexual abuse, disseminating child pornography and evading law enforcement.

Avista Capital Partners and Cinven are among four private equity firms bidding for Thomson Reuters Corp's trade and risk management software business, Kondor, people close to the matter said.

On Saturday, the 'Save Our Schools' march was held in Washington, D.C and hosted by actor Matt Damon who gave the keynote address after an introduction from his mother, a teacher herself.

Frankenstein, Oliver Twist and Robinson Crusoe could all be lurking on your iPad if you download a new application launched by the British Library this week which provides access to over 45,000 historical and antiquarian titles.

Pfizer Inc is interested in selling a non-prescription version of its Lipitor cholesterol drug after it loses U.S. patent protection, but would likely face a battle with regulators because of safety concerns, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The United States has a jobs problem and there's not a lot President Barack Obama or Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke can do about it.

A recent online research study indicating that Internet Explorer users have lower IQs than other browser users was likely bogus. The report, supposedly based on a survey of 100,000 Internet users, was released last week by what appeared to be a Vancouver-based, Web-consulting firm called "Aptiquant."

The British tour operator closes its doors, leaving 12,000 vacationers stranded and scrambling for alternative travel plans.

The S&P 500 index rose on Wednesday, snapping a seven-day losing streak, but worries about the economy kept investors jittery and trading volatile.

The European based VISTA Variables Telescope was able to see through dusty regions of the galaxy and discover 96 new star clusters.