U.S. bookseller Barnes & Noble unveiled a new version of its Nook tablet computer Tuesday, a device with the same $199 price tag as Amazon's Kindle Fire.

The seven-inch (17.78-centimeter) Nook Tablet also has eight gigabytes of memory like the tablet released by online retail giant Amazon in November.

U.S. online payments giant PayPal is to create 1,000 new jobs inIreland in a major expansion of its operations in the Eurozone member, Prime Minister Enda Kenny said on Tuesday.

Kenny said it was a "a great signal of confidence in Ireland and in our talented workforce.

Research In Motion on Tuesday released a long-overdue new operating system for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer in the hope of gaining ground in a market led by Apple and Android gadgets.

PlayBook OS 2.0 software, available as a free download, comes just shy of a year later than it was originally slated for release by the Canada-based company.

Tunisia's court of cassation on Wednesday threw out a ruling banning pornographic websites, a judicial source and a press freedom watchdog said.

"The court quashed the first instance and appeals ruling that ordered the censorship of pornographic websites," the judicial source told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

The European Commission said Wednesday it has asked the EU's highest court to rule on the legality of a controversial treaty covering copyright, counterfeiting and Internet freedom.

The EU executive "decided today to ask the European Court of Justice for a legal opinion to clarify that the ACTA agreement and its implementation must be fully compatible with freedom of expression and freedom of the internet," said a statement.

Apple Inc. defended its right to use the iPad trademark in China in a heated court hearing Wednesday that pitted the electronics giant against a struggling Chinese electronics company that denies having sold the mainland China rights to the popular tablet computer's name.

Shenzhen Proview Technology's lawyer Xie Xianghui argued that the sale of the iPad trademark to an Apple subsidiary by Proview's Taiwan affiliate in 2009 was invalid. Apple countered that Proview violated the sales contract by failing to transfer the trademark rights in mainland China.

Iran's authorities this week launched a new, sophisticated offensive against the Internet, stifling Gmail and other messaging services and totally blocking software that provides secure browsing.

The severe clampdown has prompted an outcry by media, businesses, students and private web users, and has even provoked criticism within the regime.

French preschoolers near Bordeaux are posting daily updates to the micro-blogging website Twitter, despite not yet knowing how to read or write.

Since the start of the school year, the 29 schoolchildren have posted short messages of 140 characters or less about a daily activity to their joint Twitter feed, which has 89 followers, most of them parents.

Greek police said Monday they had arrested an 18-year-old suspected of hacking into the justice ministry's website earlier this month, an attack claimed on behalf of online hackers group Anonymous.

Two other boys aged 16 and 17 were also being sought over the case, police said.

Sony is intensifying its push in handheld gaming with a gadget aimed at hardcore players looking for something with a bit more punch than "Angry Birds," ''Words With Friends" and other smartphone pastimes.

The PlayStation Vita, already available in Japan, debuts in the U.S. and Europe on Wednesday. A basic, Wi-Fi version will retail at $250, while one that can access 3G cellular networks will go for $300 plus monthly service fees from AT&T.