Intel said Monday it would step up efforts to make chips for smartphones and other mobile devices by targeting emerging markets and the rapidly growing "value" segment.

Intel unveiled its plans at the Consumer Electronics Show, the world's biggest tech sector event, highlighting its efforts to get a bigger share of the sizzling mobile market.

Qualcomm chief Paul Jacobs was officially crowned the star of the mobile-centric tech industry Monday, offering a glimpse of the power of new devices to transform people's lives.

But as Jacobs delivered the main keynote for the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, he briefly ceded the stage to a familiar face: Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, a longtime keynote speaker himself, who made a surprise cameo appearance.

LG unveiled a 55-inch (1.4-meter) TV that sports "ultrahigh-definition" resolution with four times the sharpness of regular HD television sets, kicking off what is likely to be a mini-obsession with the latest super-clear format at the annual International CES gadget show.

The model announced Monday is the smallest in a 2013 lineup that includes 65-inch (1.6-meter) and 84-inch (2.1-meter) versions. But the smaller size — and smaller price tag — begins the parade of TV makers that are seeking to bring ultrahigh definition to the masses.

South Korean conglomerate LG Group said Monday it would boost investment in its electronics business by more than 30 percent in 2013, stepping up its challenge to rival Samsung.

Of a total 20 trillion won ($18.8 billion) it said had been set aside for investment, 13.4 trillion won is earmarked for LG Electronics, which makes TVs, PCs and smartphones, and LG Display, which makes displays used in everything from TVs to mobile handsets.

Lenovo on Sunday unveiled a home tabletop touch-screen computer aimed at turning typically solitary online activities into family affairs.

The Chinese computer colossus proclaimed the arrival of the "interpersonal PC" with the debut of the IdeaCentre Horizon Table in Las Vegas, where the Consumer Electronics Show gadget gala is set to start.

The global tech industry has become a tale of two sectors, with mobile devices surging at the expense of older electronics that are struggling, a forecast showed Sunday.

A survey presented ahead of the International Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest trade show of its kind, projects modest growth of four percent for the industry expected to generate 2013 sales of $1.1 trillion.

The era of the smartphone is rapidly becoming a post-smartphone era, a key tech industry analyst said Sunday ahead of the opening of the world's biggest technology show.

Shawn DuBravac, chief economist at the Consumer Electronics Association, told a gathering that the smartphone has become so successful it is become a hub for people's digital lives, and less of a communications device.

Fidel Castro, Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope Benedict XVI -- Italian Tommasso Debenedetti has killed them all in fake tweets aimed at exposing shoddy journalism that have earned him global notoriety.

The latest victim of Debenedetti's unusual hobby is British author JK Rowling, whose death in an accident he announced from a fake Twitter account purporting to belong to fellow writer John Le Carre.

Iran's police chief says the Islamic Republic is developing new software to control social networking sites.

Gen. Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam was quoted in Iranian newspapers Saturday as saying the new software will prevent Iranians from being exposed to malicious content online while allowing users to enjoy the benefits of the Internet. He did not say when the software would be introduced.

The makers of Blekko believe they've built a great alternative to Google, but they're also realistic. They know their two-year-old Internet search engine won't ever supplant Google as the most popular place to search on laptop and desktop computers.

But Web surfing on tablet computers is a different matter, creating an opportunity that Blekko hopes to exploit with a new product called Izik — a search engine designed especially for Apple Inc.'s iPads and tablets running Google's Android software.