Microsoft on Friday scrapped a policy which allowed it to peek at Hotmail messages to plug leaks or investigate intellectual property theft.

The change came after news broke last week that the U.S. technology titan peered into the account of a French blogger who had gotten hold of inside information about Windows software in 2012.

Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing service, has almost caught up with Twitter's number of U.S. users.

The market research firm eMarketer said in a report Thursday that nearly 35 million people in America accessed Instagram at least once each month as of the end of 2013, a jump of more than 30 percent from a year earlier.

Microsoft unveiled a version of its popular Office software suite for iPad tablets Thursday as the company's new chief moved to expand its "Internet cloud" footprint.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella laid out a vision of making the company the master of programs and services offered in the cloud for whatever gadgets people prefer.

Apple is to release its newest iPhone in September, with higher resolution and bigger screens, a report said Friday, its latest salvo in the smartphone wars where it has lost global market share to rivals such as Samsung.

The new handset, expected to be called the iPhone 6, is to come in two versions with a 4.7- or 5.5-inch screen, both bigger than the current four-inch panel, the respected Nikkei business daily said, without citing sources.

Facebook revealed Thursday it has a lab working on using drones, satellites and solar-powered planes to provide web access around the world.

"We've been working on ways to beam Internet to people from the sky," Facebook co-founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on the leading social network.

Internet giant Yahoo Japan said Thursday it would buy almost all of domestic telecom company eAccess from its parent Softbank Corp. in a deal valued at around $3.2 billion, or 324 billion yen.

Yahoo Japan, a unit of the Japanese mobile phone and Internet service company Softbank, said the deal was aimed at further growth in its Internet services through smartphones and tablets.

The global launch of Samsung's latest smartphone has been upstaged by South Korean mobile network companies.

SK Telecom, South Korea's largest mobile carrier, said it will start selling the Galaxy S5 on Thursday, two weeks before the scheduled sales launch on April 11.

King Digital, maker of the wildly popular Candy Crush video game, got a sour welcome on Wall Street Wednesday as shares tumbled some 15 percent in their first trading day.

King's initial public offering (IPO) raised $500 million from the sale of 22.2 million shares, as the British company sought to capitalize on the popularity of Candy Crush Saga, which boasts some 97 million players worldwide.

Twitter on Wednesday added Facebook-style photo "tagging" and bumped up the number of images that iPhone users can share in a single post.

As many as 10 people in a single image can be "tagged" with names without eating into the 140-character limit to text messages posted at the service, Twitter software engineer Cesar Puerta said in a blog post.

HTC is updating its flagship HTC One smartphone by giving it a larger screen, better software and more camera features.

The original HTC One received good reviews and was named the best smartphone of 2013 at the wireless industry's premier trade show in Barcelona, Spain, last month. But HTC has failed to translate that glowing praise into sales.