Games on tablets and smartphones are better, faster and more varied than ever, but the excitement surrounding the upcoming PlayStation 4 -- expected to attract big crowds at this week's Tokyo Game Show -- proves consoles are here to stay, say observers.

They point to Tuesday's global roll-out of Grand Theft Auto V, the latest in a multi-billion dollar mega-franchise that dwarfs some Hollywood films, as evidence of the sector's vitality.

A tech breakthrough is letting people who are physically unable to speak talk out loud in their own, unique voice.

When a person can't use audible speech to communicate, technology already exists that can allow some people to talk using a computerized voice. Generally people need to use apps or computer programs where you type in what you want to say and the phone or tablet speaks it aloud.

The communications revolution that swept the globe missed the Zapotec village of Talea de Castro high in the mountains of southern Mexico, where making any sort of call meant trudging to a community telephone line and paying what could be a day's wages for a crackly five-minute conversation.

All that has changed, thanks to an ingenious plan that backers hope can bring connections to thousands of other small, isolated villages around the world.

The Pope. President Barack Obama. Queen Elizabeth. Oprah Winfrey.

When Twitter started seven years ago as an obscure medium for geeks, critics dismissed it as an exercise in narcissism. Some thought it would be as intriguing as watching people gaze at their bellybuttons. But it quickly matured into a worldwide messaging service used by everyone from heads of state to revolutionaries to companies trying to hawk products.

Libya will launch a tender in 2014 for the award of the country's first private mobile phone license, Communications Minister Usama Siala told Agence France Presse on Monday.

The country's two publicly-owned providers have more than eight million subscribers, one of the highest penetration rates in Africa, but Libya has no private mobile telecoms operators.

A semiofficial news agency in Iran says hackers gained access to the Facebook page of the country's foreign minister and made comments about the country's 2009 election.

The report Saturday by Fars quotes Marzieh Afkham, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, saying Mohammad Javad Zarif's Facebook page had been hacked.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's media savvy foreign minister, has become the first Iranian official to have a verified account on Twitter, although no one inside the country can legally read his tweets.

In fact technically it is illegal for Zarif to have a Twitter account at all.

Twitter announced Thursday, in a tweet, that it has submitted papers for the most hotly anticipated stock offering in the tech sector since Facebook's last year.

"We've confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale," the company tweeted.

Japan Display, the world's biggest maker of LCD screens for smartphones and tablet computers, plans to raise $2.0 billion in an initial public offering, reports said Friday.

The IPO would be the biggest on the Tokyo Stock Exchange so far this year after drinks giant Suntory's food-and-beverage unit raised $3.9 billion.

With the swipe of a finger, Apple could jumpstart a new era of smartphone security and strip away fear of tending to banking or other business on mobile devices.

Fingerprint recognition technology built into a sophisticated iPhone 5S set to hit the market on September 20 was hailed by computer security specialists as a welcome move that rivals will likely rally to match.