For Shayaan Tahir, it all began when an order he placed on Amazon for a new iPod was rejected because the online giant would not deliver electronics to Pakistan.

Frustrated, he decided to take matters into his own hands and founded one of Pakistan's first e-commerce ventures -- a sector that today is booming.

When a pair of filmmakers first approached video game publisher Capcom about crafting a live-action movie based on their popular zombie series "Dead Rising," they were asked to prove themselves in a very specific way: The creators behind such video game franchises as "Street Fighter" and "Resident Evil" handed the movie producers a game controller.

"They told me, 'Show me you love the game,'" said Tomas Harlan, who along with business partner Tim Carter, is the brains behind Contradiction Films. The independent production company last brought supernatural martial-arts fighters to life with "Mortal Kombat: Legacy," a series of web shorts set in the world of Midway's long-running punch-out series.

Tired of trying to remember a different password for each of your online accounts? Or worried about re-using the same password too many times? You're not alone. Tech experts agree that traditional passwords are annoying, outmoded and too easily hacked.

This week, Yahoo and Microsoft offered up some alternatives: Yahoo says it can text temporary passwords to users' phones each time they want to sign into their Yahoo accounts. Microsoft says it is building facial-recognition and fingerprint-identification technology into Windows 10, the new computer operating system coming this summer, so users can log on with their fingertip or face. The two approaches drew different reviews.

A broken arm as a boy led Cosmin Mihaiu and some inventive colleagues to turn tedious physical rehabilitation exercises into a game that they hope can make it easier for people to recover from injuries.

The Romania-born software engineer demonstrated the game Thursday at the prestigious TED Conference in Vancouver, showing how it can be played on the motion-sensing video game platform Kinect for Micosoft's Xbox.

Japanese electronics giant Sony on Friday launched its PlayStation gaming console in China, where authorities impose strict controls on content, but some popular titles including "Grand Theft Auto" and "Call of Duty" were not available.

China last year authorized the domestic sale of game consoles through its first free-trade zone (FTZ) in Shanghai, ending a 2000 ban that authorities argued was aimed at protecting the country's youth.

Look out, Internet Explorer. After 20 years of competing against rival web browsers, Microsoft is gearing up to launch its own alternative to its once-dominant Internet surfing program.

Microsoft has built a new web browser designed for the modern web and mobile devices to go with its new Windows 10 operating system that's coming later this year. Explorer will still be available, but Microsoft hinted this week that its new — and as-yet unnamed — browser will get top billing in the future.

Sony announced Wednesday it was launching an Internet subscription television service that includes live feeds from major broadcast networks, mounting a challenge to the cable TV model.

PlayStation Vue, a cloud-based TV service, will initially be available in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia to customers with the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 game consoles, and later to customers with Apple iPads.

Technology firms will ultimately prevail in their efforts to use strong encryption on devices that cannot be accessed by the government, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said Wednesday.

Schmidt, speaking at a Washington think-tank, said he was "sympathetic" to the arguments of law enforcement and intelligence agencies seeking to thwart crime and terrorism, but that it is not feasible to create access only for "the good guys."

Facebook (NasdaqGS: FB - news) launched a new initiative Tuesday to offer entrepreneurial and technology skills to small businesses in Sao Paulo's biggest slum, a trial program eyeing Brazil's huge and increasingly lucrative favelas.

Under the program, computer use and classes will be offered to entrepreneurs in the poorer slum district of Heliopolis to help them reach more consumers.

Need a copy of your wedding ring, a new name tag for the dog, or a spare part for the washing machine? Just print it, is the message at the CeBIT IT fair in Germany.

A host of companies are showcasing new tech marvels, from web-connected robots to 3D printers, that can turn homes, schools and offices into design labs and mini factories.