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By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Friday pressed major U.S. phone companies to take immediate steps to make technology that blocks unwanted automated calls available to consumers at no charge. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, in letters to CEOs of major phone companies, said so-called robocalls, automated pre-recorded telephone calls often from telemarketers or scam artists, continue “due in large part to industry inaction.” Wheeler's letters went to chief executives of companies including Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Inc, Sprint Corp, US Cellular Corp, Level 3 Communications Inc, Frontier Communications Corp, Bandwidth.com Inc, and T-Mobile US.

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Gamers in Japan, home of Nintendo's Pokemon, are still impatiently awaiting the launch of the smash-hit Pokemon GO game but the government is already preparing for an invasion of little cartoon monsters, issuing a safety warning. The country's National Center for Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) issued nine instructions to users of the mobile game, ranging from advising them not to use their real names to warning gamers over fake apps. It is rare for NISC to issue an advisory over specific games, but Japan is just the latest government to do so over Pokemon GO, a game where users chase cuddly cartoon monsters in their real-life neighborhoods.

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(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp reported higher quarterly adjusted revenue, driven mainly by growth in the company's cloud business. The company's shares jumped 3.5 percent to $54.91 in extended trading on Tuesday. Revenue in the cloud business, which includes the Azure cloud platform as well as products related to server software, rose 7 percent to $6.7 billion. Under the leadership of Satya Nadella, the software behemoth has focused on the building the company's expertise in cloud-based services amid slowing PC sales. …

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TOKYO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The phenomenal success of Pokemon GO and the surge in Nintendo Co's market value by $17 billion in just over a week has been seized upon by one of its most vocal investors to press for a change of strategy at the company. Until Pokemon GO, a mobile game, was launched just over a week ago, Nintendo had taken every opportunity to say its main focus was still gaming consoles, and games for smartphones were just a means to lure more people to them. Encouraged by the success of mobile games like “Candy Crush”, he has campaigned for years for the Japanese console maker to develop and sell games for platforms run by Apple and Google .

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By Tom Bergin and Nathan Layne LONDON/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Shortly after 7 p.m. on January 12, 2015, a message from a secure computer terminal at Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador instructed San Francisco-based Wells Fargo to transfer money to bank accounts in Hong Kong. Over 10 days, Wells approved a total of at least 12 transfers of BDA funds requested over the secure SWIFT system. The SWIFT network – which allows banks to process billions of dollars in transfers each day – is considered the backbone of international banking.

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By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Google has no plans to expand its partnership with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV to create a self-driving car, the program chief at the Alphabet Inc unit said on Thursday, affirming that the technology company was still in talks with other potential partners. Earlier this month, Google and Fiat Chrysler agreed to work together to build a fleet of 100 self-driving minivans in the most advanced collaboration to date between Silicon Valley and a traditional carmaker. Google said it was not sharing proprietary self-driving vehicle technology with Fiat Chrysler, and that the vehicles would not be offered for sale.

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By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dustin Volz WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg prepares to meet conservative leaders on Wednesday to discuss allegations about political bias at the social media website, one thing he may not have to worry about is federal regulation. Although the U.S. Senate committee is investigating whether there is liberal bias in how Facebook employees select news stories for its “trending topics,” there is little chance the government will try to regulate their practices, said Republican Senator John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. “I don't have any reason to believe that would be necessary,” Thune told reporters on Tuesday.

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(Reuters) – Twitter Inc users will soon have more flexibility in writing tweets because the company plans to stop including photos and links as part of its 140-character limit, according to a Bloomberg report. Months earlier, Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said the company would simplify its product in an effort to attract new users. “We think there's a lot of opportunity in our product to fix some broken windows that we know are inhibiting growth,” Dorsey said during a February earnings call.