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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Israel-based wireless-power startup Powermat Technologies on Tuesday announced that it would acquire its Helsinki, Finland-based rival PowerKiss.

The two companies, which previously used to offer incompatible technologies, committed to the PMA standard and agreed to combine under the Powermat Technologies title.

South Australia's first Apple Store is all set to open to the public from 10am on Saturday in Adelaide.

The $2.5 million Rundle Mall store will be the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology giant's first official store in South Australia and 20th in Australia.

Interested shoppers can start use the upcoming store's official website to book appointments with staff at its "Genius Bar" to get tech support and repairs.

A few of the first lucky shoppers through the Rundle Mall store's doors on Saturday will get an honoring T-shirt.

South Korean electronics giant Samsung on Friday announced the availability NFC TecTile 2 tags that are compatible with the company's new Galaxy S4 smartphone.

Samsung's TecTile tags are small NFC (near field communication) stickers which can be easily programmed to execute certain tasks on a smartphones and other mobile devices when the device is brought into contact with them.

Fights back in ongoing antitrust case over e-book price-fixing, Apple has alleged publishers had taken measures like windowing - a practice of postponing releases of e-books to benefit sales of hardcover editions, as early as 2009.

In a filing before the Court for the Southern District of New York, the Cupertino-based tech giant also said that the publishers had also followed in 2009 an agency model to sell e-books, in which the publisher used to set the price range and the retailer would act as an agent and receive a commission on sale of each copy of an e-book.

Recon Instruments has come up with Google Glass-like heads-up display glasses called Recon Jet.

Recon Instruments demonstrate the Jet at Google's annual I/O conference in San Francisco.

Almost identical in size to the Google Glass, the Recon Jet has been designed keeping the sports crowd in mind. It shows the user statistics of my speed and altitude in various sports. The company didn't name any sport to be targeted by the Jet, but many people who donned the glasses at the conference said that it would be perfect for skiing and skydiving.

Amazon, one of the world's leading sellers of both e-readers and tablets, has confirmed that it has hit a deal with Samsung to acquire display manufacturer Liquavista.

Liquavista makes use of electrowetting technology to produce colour displays for portable media players and e-readers.

Confirming the deal, Amazon said, "We are always looking for new technologies we may be able to incorporate into our products. The Liquavista team shares our passion for invention and is creating exciting new technologies with a lot of potential."

The much-awaited Nokia Lumia 928 Windows Phone has now been officially announced by Verizon Wireless; with the carrier revealing that the handset will be available from May 16.

According to the Verizon announcement, the upfront cost of the Lumia 928 - the latest handset in Nokia's Lumia series - will be $150, with a $50 mail-in rebate, and a two-year service contract.

Some of the most impressive features of the attractive-looking Lumia 928, which boasts sharp lines and a slim profile, include a big 4.5-inch AMOLED screen at 1280-by-768 resolution; a Snapdragon S4 processor;

A CNET report has disclosed that tech giant Apple is apparently flooded with demands from police officials to decrypt seized iPhones, so much so that the company has recently created a "waiting list" to tackle the deluge of iPhone decryption requests.

According to court documents, the encrypted iPhone 4S of a Kentucky man, who was accused of distributing crack cocaine, stymied the federal agents so much that they sought Apple's help in decrypting the handset, last year.

Micro-blogging site Twitter on Thursday announced its latest acquisition -- Ubalo, a startup that offers various services aimed at accelerating the coding process.

Ubalo calls its chief technology as "pods" that may contain code, data and any other files required to support a developer's app.

The startup works on simple ways of scaling code beyond single machines. Ubalo allows developers to write code for multiple machines without any additional overhead, with the help of same tools, languages and libraries that they typically used for single-computers apps.

Software giant Microsoft has announced its plans to make enhancements and additions in Office Web Apps, the browser-based version of the company's popular Office suite, within the next twelve months.

The Redmond-based software firm said that their main objective behind making the planned enhancements in the Office Web Apps was to enable users to create polished Office documents from the very start to finish, all from the Web.

The new features will enable real-time co-authoring of documents as well as of the apps in Android tablets through mobile Chrome browser support.