Irked by high bank fees on international money transfers, two Estonian IT whizzes who helped engineer Skype and Paypal have hatched Transferwise, a global Internet platform coordinating currency swaps between individuals.

"Hey, hidden fees. Your secret's out," taunts the site founded by Taavet Hinrikus, 32, and partner Kristo Kaarmann, 33.

The next time you try to take a picture of your dinner in a posh French restaurant, don't be surprised if an angry chef comes storming out of the kitchen.

Fed up with patrons snapping photographs with their smartphones to post on social networks, several Michelin-starred French establishments are trying to crack down on so-called "food porn".

With 1.23 billion users in all the flavors and up-and-down stages of romantic relationships, Facebook knows a thing or two about love.

For example, two people who are about to enter a relationship interact more and more on Facebook in the weeks leading up to making their coupled status official — up until 12 days before the start of the relationship, when they share an average of 1.67 posts per day.

Sony Computer Entertainment America added a new chapter Friday to popular videogame "The Last of Us," filled with combat against zombie-like infected people and tailored for PlayStation 3 consoles.

"The Last of Us: Left Behind" is the game's first single-player downloadable content and is billed as a prologue to the award-winning action title that sold more than three million copies in the three weeks after its release in June.

Chinese bloggers urged U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to push for greater freedom online in China during a rare meeting in Beijing Saturday, asking for help to "tear down the great Internet firewall".

The roundtable discussion, organised by the U.S. Embassy, was a unique opportunity for the top diplomat to hear directly from China's bloggers amid reports that Beijing is stepping up its efforts to clamp down on political dissent.

Rakuten, Japan's largest online shopping mall operator, said Friday it would buy Cyprus-based application maker Viber Media for $900 million, as its expands an overseas empire that includes Canadian e-reader company Kobo.

The Japanese firm has been trying for years to counter a shrinking market at home and Viber's 280-million strong global customer base was key to expanding Rakuten's business, which include e-commerce, a baseball team, a web-based travel service and Internet bank, it said.

Apple on Thursday said it has verified that an essential metal used in its mobile devices is not coming from sources that help finance violent groups in Africa.

The California-based maker of iPhones, iPads, iPods, and Macintosh computers said it confirmed in January that smelters producing tantalum used in its devices were "conflict-free" by third-party auditors.

Facebook on Thursday freed members from the bonds of being either male or female, letting people opt for custom genders such as transsexual or "intersex" at the social network.

Along with adding scores of "custom gender" options on profile pages, Facebook is letting members select which pronouns they wish used when referring to them in posts or messages.

Children's advocacy groups fired at Facebook on Thursday, rejecting a $20 million deal made to settle charges that the social network violated privacy by using "likes" as endorsements for ads.

U.S.-based Public Citizen led organizations backing a legal brief urging a federal appeals court in San Francisco to toss the deal inked last year.

U.S. videogame hardware sales surged in January, with Sony's new-generation PlayStation 4 consoles leading the charge, according to figures released on Thursday.

People spent $241 million on videogame hardware, predominately consoles, in January compared to $205 million in the same month a year earlier, when a fifth "leap week" gave figures a particular boost, according to industry tracker NPD Group.