They've come a long way since the man who would be Mario set off to rescue Pauline from Donkey Kong and Pac-Man gobbled up as many dots as he could before the ghosts caught up with him.

But really, are video games art?

Apple's new iPad tablet computer drew a muted response from fans in Europe after smaller crowds than previous launches turned out in Asia for a device that is short on new technology.

Fans queuing in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Frankfurt and London praised the improved display, and did not seem concerned that its much-vaunted 4G LTE connection would be largely unavailable outside North America.

French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi said Friday that it will buy the US company Pluromed and push for widespread adoption of its FDA- and EU-approved cardiovascular surgery aid LeGoo.

Financial details of the deal were not released.

Google says it is retooling its search machine to go beyond recognizing words in queries and begin understanding what it is people are asking for.

The California-based Internet titan is intent on adding "semantic" capabilities to automatically comprehend meanings of phrases and questions to better fetch the online information being sought.

Online financial transactions titan PayPal has started to allow merchants across the world to take payments using smartphones in a direct challenge to startup Square.

The PayPal Here system uses a triangle-shaped "dongle" card reader that plugs into mobile devices to let people make purchases.

China's popular social media sites buzzed Thursday with the downfall of Bo Xilai, a high-profile political leader famed for his Maoist revival campaign, filling a gap in information left by state media.

The news that Bo had been removed as party chief of the southwestern city of Chongqing quickly became a "hot topic" on popular social media, generating millions of comments from the nation of half a billion Internet users.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he wants "Internet giants" to pay tax in France, shortly before he was due to meet the founder of the micro-blogging site Twitter.

"It is unacceptable that they have a turnover of several billion euros in France without paying tax," he told Le Point magazine, adding that the French government should consider taxing online advertising revenues.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, the financial backbone of the world's biggest economy, said Wednesday it would try its hand at Twitter to improve communications with the public.

The central bank's board launched its official Twitter channel -- @federalreserve -- "with the aim of increasing the accessibility and availability of Federal Reserve Board news," its said.

Google paid tribute on Wednesday to the "father of the modern origami" Akira Yoshizawa by transforming its celebrated homepage logo into a homage to the folded-paper art pioneer.

To mark what would have been Yoshizawa's 101st birthday, the letters in Google's name are formed by folded paper shapes created by origami artist Robert Lang.

Google linked up Tuesday with Belgian museum, the Mundaneum, which was set up as a 19th-century paper equivalent of the U.S. Internet search giant.

"We want to honor and promote the important European pioneers of computing and the Internet," said Google Belgium's chief Thierry Geerts. "For Google, this mission sounds eerily and pleasantly familiar."