Latin America is the world's fastest-growing market for Internet access, and could double within a decade, the group that oversees Internet-related tasks said Friday.

"I think this is the decade of our region in many ways," said Rodrigo de la Parra, regional vice president for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

Google confirmed Friday that it has hired Digg co-founder Kevin Rose and other members of the team at his latest project, a Milk incubator for startups making "apps" for mobile gadgets.

The 35-year-old serial entrepreneur considered a Silicon Valley star will evidently be putting his skills to work on the Google+ social network launched in a challenge to Facebook.

They've come a long way since the man who would be Mario set off to rescue Pauline from Donkey Kong and Pac-Man gobbled up as many dots as he could before the ghosts caught up with him.

But really, are video games art?

Apple's new iPad tablet computer drew a muted response from fans in Europe after smaller crowds than previous launches turned out in Asia for a device that is short on new technology.

Fans queuing in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Frankfurt and London praised the improved display, and did not seem concerned that its much-vaunted 4G LTE connection would be largely unavailable outside North America.

French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi said Friday that it will buy the US company Pluromed and push for widespread adoption of its FDA- and EU-approved cardiovascular surgery aid LeGoo.

Financial details of the deal were not released.

Google says it is retooling its search machine to go beyond recognizing words in queries and begin understanding what it is people are asking for.

The California-based Internet titan is intent on adding "semantic" capabilities to automatically comprehend meanings of phrases and questions to better fetch the online information being sought.

Online financial transactions titan PayPal has started to allow merchants across the world to take payments using smartphones in a direct challenge to startup Square.

The PayPal Here system uses a triangle-shaped "dongle" card reader that plugs into mobile devices to let people make purchases.

China's popular social media sites buzzed Thursday with the downfall of Bo Xilai, a high-profile political leader famed for his Maoist revival campaign, filling a gap in information left by state media.

The news that Bo had been removed as party chief of the southwestern city of Chongqing quickly became a "hot topic" on popular social media, generating millions of comments from the nation of half a billion Internet users.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he wants "Internet giants" to pay tax in France, shortly before he was due to meet the founder of the micro-blogging site Twitter.

"It is unacceptable that they have a turnover of several billion euros in France without paying tax," he told Le Point magazine, adding that the French government should consider taxing online advertising revenues.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, the financial backbone of the world's biggest economy, said Wednesday it would try its hand at Twitter to improve communications with the public.

The central bank's board launched its official Twitter channel -- @federalreserve -- "with the aim of increasing the accessibility and availability of Federal Reserve Board news," its said.