Technology Top Stories from Associated Press (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) , Netflix's slumping stock price and weakening financial performance has finally attracted an opportunistic and sometimes nettlesome investor in Carl Icahn. In a Wednesday regulatory filing, Icahn revealed he had used some of his $14 billion fortune to accumulate a 10 percent stake in Netflix Inc.

PARIS (AP) , European news organizations bleeding money and readers are trying to avoid extinction by asking governments in France, Germany and Italy to step in and charge Google for using their content in its search results , something the Web giant has always done for free.

NEW YORK (AP) , Cell towers knocked out by Superstorm Sandy were slowly coming back to life Wednesday, federal regulators said, but about 1 in 5 were still out of service in a storm-hit area stretching from Virginia to Massachusetts. That compares with 1 in 4 cell towers that were out of service Tuesday, the day after the storm made landfall.

TORONTO (AP) , BlackBerry maker Research In Motion says its much-delayed new smartphones are now being tested by 50 wireless carriers around the world. The Canadian company said Wednesday that it is a critical milestone as it prepares to launch the new BlackBerry 10 software and phones in the first quarter next year.

CHICAGO (AP) , Zac Vawter considers himself a test pilot. After losing his right leg in a motorcycle accident, the 31-year-old software engineer signed up to become a research subject, helping to test a trailblazing prosthetic leg that's controlled by his thoughts.

NEW YORK (AP) , Shares of Electronic Arts dipped in premarket trading Wednesday after its outlook fell short of most Wall Street expectations. The video game publisher posted a loss for its second quarter of $381 million, or $1.21 per share, for the July-September period. That compares with a loss of $340 million, or $1.03 per share, a year earlier.

NEW YORK (AP) , Superstorm Sandy knocked out a quarter of the cell towers in an area spreading across 10 states, and the situation could get worse, federal regulators said Tuesday. Many cell towers that are still working are doing so with the help of generators and could run out of fuel before commercial power is restored, the Federal Communications Commission said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) , A decade since George Lucas said "Star Wars" was finished on the big screen, a new trilogy under new ownership is destined for theaters after The Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it would buy Lucasfilm Ltd. from him for $4.05 billion.

NEW YORK (AP) , New York City's bustling technology scene, known as Silicon Alley, was not spared by Hurricane Sandy, which knocked out power lines, devastated the public transit system and left portions of the city flooded.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Disney is paying $4.05 billion to buy Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company behind 'Star Wars,' from its chairman and founder, George Lucas. It's also making a seventh movie in the 'Star Wars' series called 'Episode 7,' set for release in 2015, with plans to follow it with Episodes 8 and 9 and then one new movie every two or three years.

ARMONK, N.Y. (AP) , IBM says its board had added $5 billion to its stock buyback program, bringing the total buyback authorization to $11.7 billion. The computer and consulting company last added to it buyback program in April, in the amount of $7 billion. IBM Corp. said Tuesday that it expects to add more funding to the buyback program next April.

NEW YORK (AP) , The head of Apple's iPhone software development was asked to resign after he refused to sign a letter apologizing for the flaws of Apple's mapping application, according to a published report.

McLEAN, Va. (AP) , Wars and video games seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. But those games usually involve tanks and machine guns and Tet offensives; not horses, bayonets and Bunker Hill.

HELSINKI (AP) , Nokia says its Windows 8 phones will hit stores in Britain and France this week, before reaching Russia, Germany and other select markets in November. The Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 are the ailing company's first handsets to use Microsoft's Windows 8 software, launched last week.

NEW YORK (AP) , Several popular media websites in the New York area are inaccessible after a massive storm knocked out power to much of the city. The Huffington Post website is down. So are gossip site Gawker and the blog Mediaite.