Gardaí yesterday resumed their search for missing schoolgirl Mary Boyle within a few hundred metres from where she was last seen alive nearly 40 years ago.

A snake-like robot designed to examine the inside of one of three melted reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is ready to begin its expedition.

One of the stars of TV3 reality series 'Tallafornia' has today begun an appeal aimed at clearing his conviction for having green diesel in his BMW car.

Riding the wave of gadget goodness from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Samsung released a pretty impressive set of fourth quarter earnings estimates, including a record high profit.

Funding worth a total of €39m was announced today for 30 flagship scientific research projects which will support the work of over 150 researchers.

Sony will cut about 10,000 jobs worldwide over the next year as it tries to return to profit, Japanese news reports said today.

Asian stock markets struggled but European shares advanced today as fears that Italy could become the next domino to fall in Europe’s debt crisis were muted by Greece edging back from the brink.

Asian stocks nosedived today as the first ever downgrade of the US government’s credit rating jolted global financial markets, reinforcing fears that the world economy is weakening.

Japan’s Nikkei stock index nosedived nearly 11% today as the earthquake-shattered country faced an unfolding nuclear crisis after a radiation leak was detected at a crippled power plant and residents were warned to stay indoors. Other Asian markets also tumbled.

Japanese stocks nosedived today as the huge cost of Friday’s devastating earthquake and tsunami fuelled fears about the country’s economy.

Big television sets that use massive amounts of electricity could be banned from sale in part of the US under pioneering new laws.

STUDENTS are less bored and more enthusiastic when interactive whiteboards are used in class, research reveals.

The company that makes Japanese bullet trains was named today as one of three organisations shortlisted by the Government to compete to build a new generation of express trains for the UK’s rail network.

FORGET the remote control: a new device in Japan could let you control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity.

Hitachi Ltd said it has developed the world's smallest IC tag, a device that has a built-in antenna to permit wireless communications with other devices. The company plans to develop new markets for the chip.

IBM is to cut 1,000 jobs at its Hungarian hard disk drive unit IBM Storage Products Hungary by the end of September.

Hitachi is launching a water-cooled laptop in Japan.

Share prices ended the morning weaker on balance following overnight falls on Wall Street, where investor confidence has been knocked by news of accounting irregularities at US companies, dealers said.

Computer giant IBM has cut a further 1,500 jobs around the world.

Japanese electronics company Hitachi is to pay IBM $2.05bn (€2.18bn) for most of IBM's hard drive assets which are to be transferred into a joint venture run by the two companies.

Hitachi says it will IBM €2.2bn for the bulk of IBM's hard drive assets.

Prices of American Depositary Receipts in Asian companies closed lower, as technology and telecoms pressured Asia lower, dealers said.

Microsoft and NEC have announced they will work together to develop and manage corporate computer systems in Japan.

Japanese electronics manufacturer Hitachi said today it was trimming its global work force by 14,700 people, by April.

Toshiba has dealt a fresh blow to the embattled tech sector by announcing plans to axe 18,800 jobs worldwide.

Japanese manufacturer Toshiba Corporation said today it was slashing 17,000 jobs, or about 10% of its global work force, amid a worldwide electronics slump.

Hitachi is reportedly set to slash 20,000 jobs because of falling worldwide demand.

Electronics giants Toshiba and Hitachi are planning large-scale job cuts amid a slump in global demand for information technology.

Japanese and US companies plan to develop cheaper and safer next-generation nuclear reactors in cross-border collaborations, company officials said today.

TOKYO (AFX-ASIA) - Share prices closed lower in line with the steep falls on NASDAQ Friday, but were well off their lows near the close on positive comments from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Shizuka Kamei, dealers said.