Gamers gathered Thursday for the start of the Tokyo Game Show, an annual extravaganza that this year will give punters their first real taste of the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One.

Developers from more than 350 companies in 33 countries were vying to showcase their latest offerings, with special areas in the vast Makuhari Messe convention center set aside for romance simulation games, cloud gaming and the booming smartphone and tablet game sector.

Several hundred employees of the online retail giant Amazon went on strike in Germany on Thursday in a planned three-day walkout over pay, unions said.

Between 300 and 400 employees on the morning shift halted work at two logistics centers in Bad Hersfeld in the west of Germany, said Mechthild Middeke, a representative of the giant service-sector union Verdi at Amazon.

Struggling smartphone maker BlackBerry has unveiled its new Z30, touting it as the company's biggest, fastest and most advanced smartphone.

The all-touch smartphone comes with a 5-inch display and BlackBerry's largest battery so far. BlackBerry says it's designed for people looking for a smartphone geared toward communications, messaging and productivity.

With consumers eagerly awaiting the release of two new iPhones this week, the more dramatic change may be in the software, not the hardware.

The new mobile operating system called iOS 7 became available Wednesday, providing users of iPhones and iPads a bolder look, which may be a shock for some, but which Apple hopes will keep its fans happy and draw new customers.

LinkedIn has asked a secret court to allow it to disclose the number of U.S. national security orders the company has received under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

On Wednesday, LinkedIn joined four other companies that have similar cases pending before the FISA Court. The other four are Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook.

Yahoo Japan Corp. has developed a voice-activated Internet search that links to a 3D printer, letting users look online for blueprints to deliver solid objects in a few minutes, the company said.

The search engine scours the Internet for information that it can use to print palm-sized renderings of items as diverse as hippopotamuses or fighter jets.

IBM said Tuesday it would invest $1 billion in new Linux and open source technologies for its servers in a bid to boost efficiency for big data and cloud computing.

"Many companies are struggling to manage big data and cloud computing using commodity servers based on decades-old, PC era technology," said IBM vice president Brad McCredie.

Brazil plans to divorce itself from the U.S.-centric Internet over Washington's widespread online spying, a move that many experts fear will be a potentially dangerous first step toward politically fracturing a global network built with minimal interference by governments.

President Dilma Rousseff has ordered a series of measures aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security following revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted her communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company's network and spied on Brazilians who entrusted their personal data to U.S. tech companies such as Facebook and Google.

A technical glitch allowed some Iranians temporary access to banned social networking websites Facebook and Twitter, an Iranian Internet official said on Tuesday.

Surprised Internet users in Iran Monday night were able to log onto their accounts without using illegal software that enables them to circumvent a widespread state-run filtering mechanism.

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.