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.

Nokia is selling a new Windows phone that promises enhanced video-recording capabilities.

The new Lumia Icon sports four microphones, compared with the one or two typically found in smartphones. The two on the front are activated when making phone calls, while the two on the rear are used when taking video — to better capture sound coming from the subjects.

Microsoft on Wednesday denied censoring Chinese-language search results across the globe, but the group behind the accusation stood firm.

"We can emphatically confirm that they are not," Microsoft's senior director of Bing search engine Stefan Weitz said in a blog post addressing talk of political censorship.

Francois Hollande announced Wednesday measures to boost innovation and start-ups in France, as he became the first French president in 30 years to set foot in California.

On the last day of his visit to the United States, Hollande, who has seen his approval ratings plummet to rock bottom at home over his failure to restore economic prosperity, said that "France must recognize the dynamism of its entrepreneurs."

Yahoo on Tuesday added the startup behind smartphone visual diary-app Days to its list of acquisitions as CEO Marissa Mayer tries to pump new life into the aging Internet pioneer.

Financial terms of the deal to buy New York City-based Wander were not disclosed, but technology news website TechCrunch put the value at more than $10 million.