Sales of digital cameras that enable users to immediately post pictures on the web have risen sharply in Asia despite stiff competition from smartphones, an industry survey showed Thursday.

Market research company GfK said sales of WiFi-enabled cameras in 13 major Asian markets including Japan and China rose 52 percent from the year before to 8.44 million units in 2012 with a total value of $2.74 billion.

Facebook unveils its "home" on the Android smartphone Thursday, a move expected to tie the leading social network's services tightly into mobile software.

Invitations to a press event at Facebook's main campus in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park rekindled talk of a "Facebook phone," but analysts say the social network wants to spread roots across the Android platform.

The mobile phone turned 40 on Wednesday, with no fanfare to mark the occasion in a market which seemed focused on new smartphones like the iPhone and a possible Facebook-themed device.

The first mobile call was placed April 3, 1973, by Motorola engineer Martin Cooper, head of a team working on mobile communication technologies.

Rovio, the Finnish makers of the hugely popular mobile game "Angry Birds", announced Wednesday a 57-percent rise in net profit last year, boosted by consumer product sales.

"Year 2012 was another record-breaking year for Rovio," the company's chief financial officer Herkko Soininen said in a statement.

A Chicago-based social media company called Timelines Inc. can sue Facebook Inc. over allegations that it violated the smaller firm's trademark on the word "timeline," a federal judge ruled.

Timelines launched a website called Timelines.com in 2009 that enables users to track historical events and their personal lives online. Two years later, Facebook Inc. launched a major new feature it called "timeline," which similarly allows users to highlight their lives online in chronological order.

The Wall Street Journal says Apple is set for a possible summer launch of the next iPhone, rather than a fall launch like the last two models.

Apple is also working on a cheaper iPhone model that could win it some market share in developing countries, the paper says. It cited unnamed people "familiar with the device's production."

Regulators in Google's largest European markets are taking joint action to try and force the company to overhaul its privacy policy.

Led by France, organizations in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy agreed Tuesday on the joint action.

Bangladesh police have arrested three atheist bloggers for defaming Islam and the prophet Mohammed, police said Tuesday, amid demands from religious fundamentalists for an Internet crackdown.

The arrests of the three, who were paraded in hand-cuffs at a press conference Tuesday, came after pressure from Islamists who have organised a march to the capital to demand the death penalty for atheist bloggers.

As the U.S. government opened up visa applications Monday for highly skilled immigrants, debate flared anew on the tech sector's demands to be able to hire more foreign workers.

The U.S. tech sector has long complained of a shortage of workers with specialized skills, but the debate is further complicated this year by fresh attention to a broader immigration law aimed at bringing millions of undocumented migrants out of the shadows.

Apple issued an apology to Chinese consumers Monday after government media attacked its repair policies for two weeks in a campaign that reeked of economic nationalism.

A statement Apple posted in Chinese on its website Monday said the complaints had prompted "deep reflection" and persuaded the company of the need to revamp its repair policies, boost communication with Chinese consumers and strengthen oversight of authorized resellers.