North Carolina lawmakers are planning to tax hybrid and electric cars to make their owners contribute their share toward maintaining the roads & services they use.

Gas taxes are the biggest source of transportation funding in the United States. According to figures released by the National Conference of State Legislatures, gas taxes account for around 40 per cent of highway revenues in North Carolina and a whopping 90 per cent at the federal level.

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Auto giant Toyota recently introduced the world to a new version of the compact Corolla at an event in Santa Monica, California.

The new version, which the world's largest automaker introduced in a bid to attract new, younger buyers to the brand, is longer and boasts an athletic look that makes it look quit closer to a sports car.

The 2014 version has received a new transmission and suspension along with several enhanced interior features, which according to Toyota's claims makes the car more luxurious.

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Auto giant Toyota recently introduced the world to a new version of the compact Corolla at an event in Santa Monica, California.

The new version, which the world's largest automaker introduced in a bid to attract new, younger buyers to the brand, is longer and boasts an athletic look that makes it look quit closer to a sports car.

The 2014 version has received a new transmission and suspension along with several enhanced interior features, which according to Toyota's claims makes the car more luxurious.

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Amazon's long dormant 9.7-inch Kindle DX has once again been made available for purchase, with a price tag of $299.

The Kindle DX had vanished from the online retailer's e-reader line back in October last year, in wake of the announcement of the backlit Kindle Paperwhite e-reader plus a new line of Kindle Fire tablets.

Confirming the return of the Kindle DX, "Kindle DX is again available on Amazon. com. Our website lists the most up to date availability for all products. We're excited to offer customers this option."

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Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant Apple's new, donut-shaped campus will generated as many as 7,400 new full-time jobs, providing a big boost to employment and local economy.

The four-story facility, one of the last projects that Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs had worked on before his death, will be called Apple Campus 2. It is scheduled to open in 2016.

The iPhone/iPad maker is already the biggest employer in Cupertino, with a workforce of more than 16,000 full time employees. The Campus 2 will increase the number of the company's full time employees to nearly

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At the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan on Monday, device manufacturer Asus unveiled a three-in-one computer - the Asus Transformer Book Trio - which can not only be used as a laptop and a tablet, but also as a desktop PC, if the users add an external monitor.

Asus Transformer Book Trio can run Windows 8 and Android simultaneously. Though the plugging of the tablet in the laptop dock gives the device an appearance similar to its previous Transformer devices, the Trio transforms into a full-fledged Windows 8 laptop due to the full hardware complement inside the dock.

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Feedly, popular alternative to Google Reader, on Monday announced its support for third party apps like Reeder, Press, Newsify, and gReader, enabling users to access their Feedly feeds in all of these apps.

The service said that it decided to provide its API to established apps like Reeder that previously based their offerings on Google Reader API.

Announcing the development, Feedly said, “We have been working behind the curtains with the developers of Reeder, Press, Nextgen Reeder, Newsify, gReader as design partner for our Normandy project.”

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Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, the world's biggest contract electronics manufacturer, on Monday revealed its decision to diversify its business by launching a series of its own Firefox-based products.

Best known by its trading name Foxconn, Hon Hai announced that it would provide devices and applications built on Mozilla's popular operating system Firefox. It added that it was already working on more than five devices, including smartphones, tablets, televisions, electronic whiteboards and outdoor displays.

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Windows XP, software giant Microsoft's more than a decade old desktop operating system, is still popular and accounts for more than a third of the global installations.

According to figures released by Net Applications, Windows XP, which was released in August 2001, still accounts for 37.74 per cent of all Windows installations worldwide.

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Mountain View startup Atheer on Thursday demonstrated a prototype eyewear that delivers 3D augmented reality, thus adding an extra dimension to Google Glass that boasts its ability to deliver 2D augmented reality.

Atheer chief technology officer (CTO) Allen Yang demonstrated how the device could be used to control a display by moving his head around to scroll, selecting an object by moving his hands, and making digital displays appear/disappear on top of the real world scene in front of him.

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GameStop, video game retailer that accounts for nearly half of all Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 software sales in the United States, has suffered a decline of 6.8 per cent in consolidated global sales in the last fiscal from the previous one.

The video game retail giant's comparable store sales also slipped 6.7 per cent form the previous year, with a 6.9 per cent decline in the United States and 6.3 per cent in overseas markets.

GameStop's hardware sales slipped 17 per cent, while new software sales declined 12 per cent during the last year.

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Software giant Microsoft has assured that its upcoming gaming console, the Xbox One, will not be always watching or listening.

The misty details surrounding the Xbox One led many gamers to assume that the Kinect component of the console will need to be always watching and listening as the ability to turn on the console through voice commands will require the Kinect to be always on.

Addressing the privacy concerns, a Microsoft spokesperson assured that the upcoming console would not act as the new Big Brother.

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Google, the world's most popular Internet search firm, is planning to connect as many as one billion more people from remote areas of the world to Internet using blimps, masts and satellites.

The Internet search giant is reportedly working on creating high-speed wireless networks in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia with the help of high-altitude blimps, masts and satellites capable of transmitting signals across hundreds of square kilometers.

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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday formally launched one of the world's biggest bike share programs allowing people to rent bikes to go around the Big Apple.

In the first phase of the network, six thousand blue "Citi Bikes" have been distributed among a total of 333 stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Gradually, the network will be expanded to 10,000 bikes at nearly 600 stations.

Nearly 14,000 New Yorkers have reportedly already paid an annual subscription fee of $103 to get entitled to unlimited rides of 45 minutes.

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Tesla Motors founder & chief executive Elon Musk has reiterated that his company would offer a compact electric vehicle (EV) that would be more affordable than the Model S and better than the Nissan Leaf.

Mr. Musk said that the Model S is a compelling car but it is too expensive to afford for most people; while the Nissan Leaf is cheap, but it is not great.

He stressed that the world needed is a great as well as affordable electric car, which Tesla would provide.

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The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched a probe into Internet search giant Google's display ad business, according to report published by The Guardian.

The FTC is reportedly trying to determine whether Google's DoubleClick advertising subsidiary is pushing clients into buying advertisements on other Google advertising products like text-based AdSense.

Rivals are said to have raised concerns that DoubleClick, which was acquired by Google in the year 2008 for $3.1 billion (£2 billion), is being used to push sites to use other products of the company, such as AdExchange.

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UK network provider EE has confirmed that Facebook has indefinitely delayed the plans to launch the HTC First, aka the Facebook phone, in the U. K. market as Facebook is giving a facelift to its Home software.

EE, the mobile phone carrier that was to carry the phone exclusively, has also confirmed that that the pre-orders for the phone are being refunded.

The carrier added that the decision to focus on adding new customization features to Home and indefinitely delay the plans to launch the Facebook Phone in the U. K. was taken by Facebook following customer feedback.

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The HTC First, the Android-based customized Facebook phone, will reportedly not be sold in the UK.

According to Engadget and others, UK network provider EE, one of the HTC's carrier partners in Europe, has confirmed that it would not sold the so-called Facebook Phone in the UK as Facebook was looking to enhance the Facebook Home experience's customization features before the phone's availability on the right hand side of the Atlantic.

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HTC is in a state of "utter freefall" and is thus suffering an exodus of high-profile employees, according to a recent report published by The Verge.

Citing unnamed sources, The Verge reported that morale of employees at HTC is very low and its senior employees are fleeing.

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The opera browser for Android, which has been in beta for a few months, is finally available for the masses.

Opera Software has started releasing the finalized version of its WebKit-based mobile browser for Android OS.

Available as a free download from Google Play, Opera for Android boasts a few popular features from the OS' desktop version.

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