German engineering giant Siemens said Monday it has agreed to buy eMeter, a U.S.-based data management specialist, in a bid to enhance its position in the field of so-called smart grids.

Both parties had agreed not to disclose the purchase price and expected to close the deal in "mid-to-late December," Siemens said in a statement.

Microsoft Corp. is rolling out a new interface for its Xbox game console users — one that allows you to navigate through music, movies, TV shows and games with the wave of your hand or the sound of your voice.

The interface, first demonstrated by CEO Steve Ballmer in September, is set up similarly to Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows 8 operating system with a series of large panes showing content options.

New York City is already the U.S. capital of advertising, fashion, finance and media. Now it wants to be its high-tech center too.

The Big Apple's ambition to rival Silicon Valley with its own Silicon Alley received a big boost when Facebook announced Friday that it will open an engineering office next year in New York, its first outside the West Coast.

Indonesian police named Research In Motion's country director a suspect for negligence Monday after a BlackBerry promotion turned chaotic and left dozens injured and others knocked unconscious.

Andrew Cobham, president director for Research in Motion (RIM) in Indonesia, and British security consultant Terry Burkey were named as two of four suspects in the incident at a Jakarta mall and could face five years' imprisonment.

As potential voters in New Hampshire and Iowa scan the Internet, they probably are seeing ads for Republican Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama alongside deals for shoes and holiday gifts.

The campaign ads will then follow those voters around the Web, popping up on news sites, Google searches and on social networking sites like Facebook.

Google's Chrome Web browser is gaining ground on Firefox, and according to one industry tracker may even have eclipsed its open-source rival in the global market.

Chrome was the world's second favorite Web browsing program in November, bumping Firefox from that position for the first month ever, according to Stat Counter Global Stats.

Samsung on Saturday welcomed a ruling by a U.S. court rejecting Apple Inc's request for a preliminary injunction against sales of some of its Galaxy smartphones and tablet computers.

The South Korean electronics firm said US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, had denied the request to halt the sales of the products in the United States.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi breaks off from his rounds at the Vatican at least once a day to whip out his smartphone and shoot off a note to his followers: "Good morning, good people!" he tweets.

The Vatican's top culture man, "CardRavasi" tweets snappy quotes from the Bible, famous philosophers and dons, or passes on details about art festivals.

Can you crack the code?

That's the question Britain's electronic listening agency, GCHQ, is asking in an online campaign to find the next generation of cyber specialists.

Research In Motion Ltd., the struggling maker of the BlackBerry phones, is writing off much of its inventory of PlayBook tablets, since it has to sell them at a deep discount.

The Canadian company on Friday said it's taking a pre-tax charge of $485 million in the just-ended quarter to account for the declining value of the tablets. The model originally priced at $500 now costs $200.