The Boston Globe

Innovation Economy

When your cellphone is a toy

TheO Ball is a foam sphere with a pocket in its center to keep the phone safe while allowing players to see its screen.

tech lab

Maintaining privacy while surfing the Web

Tools that can make you more anonymous online include browser plug-ins and a subscription service that helps conceal your possibly embarrassing past.

Tech Lab

Apps to entertain kids on long car trips

With a car full of gadgets and the right apps, the holiday road trip should be a good deal calmer this year — at least until the batteries run out.

Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios lays off entire staff

The former Red Sox pitcher’s video game company had employed more than 400 full-time workers and contractors.

China fund may add $2b to finance Alibaba share buyback

The China Investment Corp. is in advanced talks to add as much as $2 billion into the Alibaba Group to help finance the Internet company’s efforts to buy back a stake from Yahoo, a person briefed on the matter said Thursday.

Frenzy over Facebook IPO costs small investors more than $600m

Facebook, a site used by 901 million people, allocated more than 25 percent of shares to retail investors, said two people familiar with the offering who asked not to be identified because the process was confidential. That means the value of stock bought by that group for $38 in the IPO has dropped by at least $630 million in total, based on the closing price of $32 yesterday and assuming investors held the stock.

La. daily dropping daily circulation

The Times-Picayune, one of the nation’s oldest newspapers, is dropping its daily circulation after 175 years and plans to issue three printed editions a week starting in the fall. With the change, the newspaper would become the largest metro newspaper in the nation to drop daily circulation in this digital age.