Mozilla Foundation announced Sunday it will launch in mid 2013 its widely anticipated Firefox operating system for smartphones in a direct challenge to the duopoly of Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

Mozilla, which campaigns for open development of the online world, showed off the first commercial version of the Firefox OS on the eve of the opening of the world's biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, Spain.

Lightning-fast fourth generation mobile networks are spreading rapidly worldwide, led by the United States, Japan and South Korea, but Europe lags behind and its economic crisis could brake investment, an industry report said Monday.

Next generation Long Term Evolution, or LTE, networks promise download speeds to mobile phone users as fast as fixed broadband connections, opening the way to new mobile services such as high-definition videos with no buffering lag.

LG Electronics on Monday set a global sales target of 40 million smartphones for 2013, as the South Korean firm seeks to expand its presence in a market dominated by bigger rivals such as Samsung.

The world's fifth-largest handset maker said in a statement that it aims to shift 10 million units each quarter by more than doubling sales of phones designed for next-generation 4G services called Long-Term Evolution (LTE).

When the top executives of the world's wireless industry gather next week in Barcelona, Spain, for their annual trade show, cellphones will take a back seat to talk of cars, electric meters and insulin monitors.

That idea of empowering new devices with wireless connections has been percolating for years. General Motors cars have had wireless OnStar connections for more than a decade. But the push is intensifying now that most people have cellphones —and the wireless industry's future growth depends on it. That means the GSM Mobile World Congress, the telecommunications industry's largest annual trade show, will be abuzz with discussion of devices like "smart" meters that report a home's usage of electricity, natural gas or water back to the utility, and to your phone.

Facebook allowed users on Friday to make free calls to friends at the leading social network using its application tailored for iPhones or iPads.

An updated Facebook "app" for the popular Apple mobile devices shows when friends are online and then gives the option of ringing them up by tapping an icon on the screen.

Microsoft joined Facebook and Apple on Friday on the list of U.S. technology titans targeted in recent cyberattacks.

"As reported by Facebook and Apple, Microsoft can confirm that we also recently experienced a similar security intrusion," Trustworthy Computing team general manager Matt Thomlinson said in a blog post.

Struggling Japanese electronics maker Sharp plans to suspend tie-up negotiations with Taiwan's Hon Hai and search for new capital partners, local media reported on Saturday.

Cash-strapped Sharp had been trying to seal a capital-injection deal with Hon Hai Precision, also known as Foxconn, by a March 26 deadline.

"Crysis 3" (Electronic Arts, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, $59.99) is a gorgeous game. Its creator, the German studio Crytek, has lived up to its promises that it will set a new benchmark for computer graphics. On a state-of-the-art PC, it's spectacular.

You probably don't have a state-of-the-art PC, but that's OK. I played "Crysis 3" on Microsoft's eight-year-old Xbox 360, and it still looks pretty good. If only all that beauty was in the service of something more interesting than another alien bloodbath.

Google is adding a new and more expensive touch to its line of Chrome laptops in an attempt to outshine personal computers running on software made by rivals Microsoft and Apple.

The Chromebook Pixel unveiled Thursday includes a nearly 13-inch (33-centimeter) display screen that responds to the touch or swipe of a finger. That duplicates a key feature in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 8, a dramatic makeover of the world's leading operating system for PCs.

North Korea will soon allow foreigners to tweet, Skype and surf the Internet from their cellphones, iPads and other mobile devices in its second relaxation of controls on communications in recent weeks. However, North Korean citizens will not have access to the mobile Internet service to be offered by provider Koryolink within the next week.

Koryolink, a joint venture between Korea Post & Telecommunications Corporation and Egypt's Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding SAE, informed foreign residents in Pyongyang on Friday that it will launch a third generation, or 3G, mobile Internet service no later than March 1.