A "Shopping Module" being tried by a few brands in the US marked a move into e-commerce that comes as potential competition for rivals including online bulletin board Pinterest.

Apple said Tuesday its profit in the just-ended quarter nearly doubled amid improving consumer spending and a "growing sense of optimism" as pandemic lockdowns eased.

Amazon on Monday denied a report that the e-commerce giant planned to begin accepting Bitcoin payments by the end of this year, but acknowledged an interest in cryptocurrency.

Called the Galileo Project, it envisages the creation of a global network of medium-sized telescopes, cameras and computers to investigate unidentified flying objects, and has so far been funded with $1.75 million from private donors.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The Europa Clipper mission will launch in October 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the total contract worth $178 million.

The prayer feature is part of Facebook's recent and concerted outreach to the religious community, which it is speaking about in detail to media for the first time. Facebook sees worshippers as a vital community to drive engagement on the world's largest social media platform. As early as 2017, CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited churches as one example in a lengthy manifesto on connecting the world and the company created a team focused on "faith partnerships."

The Clubhouse audio chat forum on Wednesday opened its virtual rooms to all comers, ending an invitation-only mode that was a coveted ticket during the pandemic.

The milestone is expected to take place within two weeks in a scientifically interesting region of the Jezero Crater called the "Cratered Floor Fractured Rough." 

Funk was one of the so-called Mercury 13 group of women who trained to become NASA astronauts in the 1960s but was passed over because of her gender.

The flawless 10-minute hop from a west Texas base to beyond the Karman line -- the internationally recognized boundary marking the start of space -- and back again to the surface for a gentle desert landing minted four new astronauts, including the oldest and youngest ever.

Journalist Marcela Turati always suspected the Mexican authorities were spying on her. Now she's almost certain, after appearing in a leaked list at the center of a global spyware scandal.

Israel's NSO Group and its Pegasus malware have been in the headlines since at least 2016, when researchers accused it of helping spy on a dissident in the United Arab Emirates.

The locally made app aims to help people schedule their routines around fluctuations in air quality.

Lee Ki-il, deputy minister of health care policy, said on Wednesday that vaccine shipments would pick up starting in August and that the government aimed to vaccinate all eligible people, including young people, by the end of September.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Facebook engineers said the new feature would allow for the hugely popular service be used on multiple "non-phone" devices without needing to connect to the smartphone app. 

Have a beef with beef? A burgeoning veggie burger industry is using artificial intelligence to propose alternatives.

The US tech group must come up with proposals within the next two months on how it would compensate news agencies and other publishers for the use of their news. If it does not do that, the company would face additional fines of up to 900,000 euros per day.

Facebook and Twitter said Monday they were scrambling to take down racially abusive comments directed at members of the England football team following a heartbreaking loss in Sunday's Euro 2020 final.

WhatsApp in January introduced a privacy policy which allows it to share some data with Facebook and other group firms.

Virgin Galactic -- founded by flamboyant British billionaire Richard Branson -- is planning for a July 11 space flight. Blue Origin -- started by Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame -- is set to blast off on July 20.

According to a report by CB Insights, startups globally raised $156 billion in the April-June period, a 157 percent jump from last year, 

Chinese tech giant Tencent has rolled out a facial recognition "midnight patrol" function to root out children masquerading as adults to get around a government curfew on underage gamers.

The idea is more than science fiction. Sometime between late 2021 to early 2022, the United States will launch a robotic spacecraft to intercept two asteroids relatively close to Earth.

A Facebook test of pop-up boxes asking people whether they think friends are becoming extremists raised concerns Friday among US conservatives who felt their voices might be stifled.

The joint effort between the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) of Trieste, a city in the north of Italy, and the nearby Eltech K-Laser company, was launched last year as COVID-19 was battering the country.

Wildly popular among Pakistani youth, the Chinese-owned app has been shut down by authorities twice over "indecent" content, most recently in March after which the company pledged to moderate uploads. 

A "Reading Sidekick" feature gives people with Echo smart speakers and subscriptions to Amazon Kids+ service a way to help children ages between 5 and 10 years of age become better readers, according to the Seattle-based internet firm.

Pepper robots, used to greet people in stores and hotels in Japan and around the world, have become a symbol of SoftBank's strategy of pouring resources into new technology including artificial intelligence.

The Chicxulub meteor, which slammed into what is now Mexico's Yucatan peninsula around 66 million years ago, is thought to have led to the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that killed off three quarters of life on Earth -- dinosaurs included.