The earthquake was the biggest to hit Virginia in more than a century, according to the US Geological Survey.

No data centers were knocked offline but fuel and other supplies were in short supply.

Texas Instruments anticipates between four and six months of disruption to its chip manufacturing operations in Japan following the massive earthquake that struck on March 11.

Companies with operations in Japan are repairing factories and accounting for employees as recovery continues in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the country's eastern coast on March 11.

Technology companies across Asia have found ways to help people in Japan left devastated by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake last Friday, the 7-meter tsunami it spawned, and displacement caused by troubles at a nuclear power plant there.

World technology hardware supplies will take as long as six months to resume normal flows following disruptions from last week's massive earthquake in Japan, a lead Bank of America Merrill Lynch researcher said on Wednesday.

Prices of widely used chips, including NAND flash memory and DRAM, have both risen sharply since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck and hurled tsunami waves at the northeastern part of Japan.

Google, Twitter, Facebook and others are being used to offer and seek help and information.

In the wake of Monday's earthquake in Italy, scientists and researchers working on early warnings systems said that knowing about an earthquake even just a few seconds before it hits can make a big difference to people in a stricken area.

Cell phones in Japan could soon provide a vital warning seconds ahead of a major earthquake.

Japan and Russia plan to link their telecommunications networks via a new undersea fiber optic cable, they said late Tuesday. The cable, which is expected to be in place by the end of this year, avoids the area south of Taiwan in which many cables suffered damage after a powerful earthquake last year.

A kínai földrengés-felügyelet (China Earthquake Administration) digitális földrengés-megfigyelő hálózatának szerverplatformjául választotta a Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Servert.