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.

A tech breakthrough is letting people who are physically unable to speak talk out loud in their own, unique voice.

When a person can't use audible speech to communicate, technology already exists that can allow some people to talk using a computerized voice. Generally people need to use apps or computer programs where you type in what you want to say and the phone or tablet speaks it aloud.

The communications revolution that swept the globe missed the Zapotec village of Talea de Castro high in the mountains of southern Mexico, where making any sort of call meant trudging to a community telephone line and paying what could be a day's wages for a crackly five-minute conversation.

All that has changed, thanks to an ingenious plan that backers hope can bring connections to thousands of other small, isolated villages around the world.

The Pope. President Barack Obama. Queen Elizabeth. Oprah Winfrey.

When Twitter started seven years ago as an obscure medium for geeks, critics dismissed it as an exercise in narcissism. Some thought it would be as intriguing as watching people gaze at their bellybuttons. But it quickly matured into a worldwide messaging service used by everyone from heads of state to revolutionaries to companies trying to hawk products.

Libya will launch a tender in 2014 for the award of the country's first private mobile phone license, Communications Minister Usama Siala told Agence France Presse on Monday.

The country's two publicly-owned providers have more than eight million subscribers, one of the highest penetration rates in Africa, but Libya has no private mobile telecoms operators.

A semiofficial news agency in Iran says hackers gained access to the Facebook page of the country's foreign minister and made comments about the country's 2009 election.

The report Saturday by Fars quotes Marzieh Afkham, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, saying Mohammad Javad Zarif's Facebook page had been hacked.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's media savvy foreign minister, has become the first Iranian official to have a verified account on Twitter, although no one inside the country can legally read his tweets.

In fact technically it is illegal for Zarif to have a Twitter account at all.

Twitter announced Thursday, in a tweet, that it has submitted papers for the most hotly anticipated stock offering in the tech sector since Facebook's last year.

"We've confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale," the company tweeted.