By Jim Finkle (Reuters) - Twitter Inc unveiled technology to boost security for its users, following a spate of attacks on accounts of prominent media outlets including the Associated Press, the Financial Times and The Onion. The micro blogging site, which transmits some 400 million messages a day, said on Wednesday that it had begun rolling out an optional "login verification" service to thwart hackers seeking to hijack accounts with stolen passwords. ...

By Jim Finkle (Reuters) - Cybersecurity researcher HD Moore discovered he could use the Internet to access the controls of some 30 pipeline sensors around the country that were not password protected. A hacking expert who helps companies uncover network vulnerabilities, Moore said he found the sensors last month while analyzing information in huge, publicly available databases of Internet-connected devices. "We know that systems are exposed and vulnerable. ...

By Andy Sullivan, Gabriel Debenedetti and Poornima Gupta WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For years, Apple Inc kept a low profile in Washington as it grew into one of the most valuable companies in the world. Now the iPad maker has taken the lead, perhaps inadvertently, on a top priority for U.S. business: simplifying America's tax code. Chief Executive Tim Cook, who was called before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Tuesday to answer questions about Apple's alleged tax avoidance, used his appearance to plead for an overhaul of corporate taxes. ...

Eight years after the debut of the Xbox 360, Microsoft has announced the Xbox One.

By Poornima Gupta SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co raised its 2013 earnings outlook after quarterly results beat low expectations, as CEO Meg Whitman's turnaround plan helped offset shrinking personal computer sales with enterprise computing services. While fiscal second-quarter profit plummeted 32 percent, Wall Street had braced for worse. HP shares gained 14 percent after the company projected full-year earnings per share of $3.50 to $3.60, raising the lower end by 10 cents, and fiscal third-quarter profit that topped analyst estimates. ...

By Lee Chyen Yee and Umesh Desai HONG KONG (Reuters) - Lenovo Group Ltd's bold acquisitions in its flagship PC business, a foray into mobile gadgets, and a relatively light debt load are setting it apart from PC rivals as industry shipments take their steepest fall in decades. Lenovo, a sliver away from unseating Hewlett-Packard Co as the world's top PC maker by shipments, posted on Thursday an estimate-beating 90 percent rise in quarterly profit, its fastest in seven quarters. ...

By Carmel Crimmins and Padraic Halpin DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's finance minister said the country would not be the "whipping boy" for what he called a flawed U.S. Senate report that said Irish loopholes helped technology giant Apple shrink its tax bill. Ireland has been forced to defend its corporate tax rate after the Senate said on Monday that Apple paid little or no tax on tens of billions of dollars in profits channeled through Irish subsidiaries and that it had negotiated a special corporate tax rate of less than 2 percent. ...

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Independent game developers who are excited about selling new games on the Xbox One got some bad news on Wednesday. Microsoft confirmed to ShackNews that independent developers cannot self-publish their own games on Xbox Live Arcade, and are instead required to partner with Microsoft Game Studios or a third-party publisher. The policy is completely different from those employed by Sony and Nintendo. Sony embracesindependentdevelopers and welcomes them to create and self-publish content on the PlayStation Network. Microsofts upcoming console matches up with Sonys PlayStation 4 on paper, however there are still some questions that have been left unanswered, such as theability to play used games.

Earlier this year we learned about a patent holding firm that came up with a novel way of making money by threatening to sue small businesses that allegedly infringed upon its scanner technology patents by using scanners in their offices. Yes, you read that correctly: An entity called Project Paperless LLC really has been sending out letters to small and medium-sized businesses demanding licensing fees for using office scanners capable of sending PDFs via email. Ars Technica has now provided us with an update to this story and has found that Project Paperless is just one of roughly 40 shell entities owned by a company called MPHJ Technologiesthats been sending threatening letters out to small businesses demanding that they pay