Amazon on Monday unveiled a new media stick allowing users to stream content to television sets, challenging Google's Chromecast device released last year.

The plug-in Fire TV Stick, a device the size of a pack of gum, provides access to Amazon Instant Video as well as other services including Netflix, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN and NBA Game Time.

Mountains of discarded remote controls litter the warehouse floor. In a dimly-lit room, women on plastic stools pry open the devices, as if shucking oysters, to retrieve the circuitry inside.

In a narrow alley a few blocks over, a father and son from a distant province wash microchips in plastic buckets. Men haul old telephones and computer keyboards by the shovelful off a truck.

"Miss! We made it breathe out fire!" exclaimed 10-year-old Joe, pointing at the laptop on his desk, where he has programmed his animated dragon to belch flames into the face of the Greek hero Heracles.

Gasps of excitement ripple across the classroom, as the children at Launcelot school in south London try to work out the string of commands that Joe used to create their own virtual battles.

How do you defend yourself against scores of tear gas wielding police while manning the barricades at Hong Kong's protest camps? Unleash the wrath of Chinese deity Guan Yu.

That's just one of the options available to players of a new smartphone game which has swiftly become a hit among gamers and protesters in the southern Chinese city.

A Silicon Valley startup has developed technology to let dispatchers know when a police officer's weapon has been fired.

The latest product by Yardarm Technologies would notify dispatchers in real time when an officer's gun is taken out of its holster and when it's fired. It can also track where the gun is located and in what direction it was fired.

Flush with a reported $5.5 million in fresh funding, upstart social network Ello on Thursday legally changed its corporate standing to back a promise to remain ad-free.

Ello converted to a public benefit corporation, which it described as "a new kind of for-profit company in the USA that exists to produce a benefit for society as a whole — not just to make money for its investors."

Facebook on Thursday released an application that lets people create virtual "rooms" to chat about whatever they wish using any name they would like.

"Rooms" software introduced in the U.S. and Britain for iPhone made its debut as Facebook tries to make peace with people unhappy that real identities are mandated for profiles at the world's leading social network.

Google on Thursday announced a partnership with artificial intelligence teams at Oxford University to teach machines to think like people.

Oxford professors behind spinoff startups Dark Blue Labs and Vision Factory will work with DeepMind, a London-based startup that Google bought early this year.

Microsoft on Thursday reported quarterly profits ahead of most expectations, as revenues got a boost from its Xbox consoles and Internet "cloud" services for enterprises.

Net profit in the quarter dipped to $4.5 billion from $5.2 billion in the same period a year ago, but topped most analyst forecasts.

Google provided a sneak peek into Bhutan Thursday by unveiling a Street View project for the remote Himalayan kingdom, featuring panoramic views of its majestic mountains, monasteries and crystal-clear rivers.

The "Land of the Thunder Dragon" has long been one of the most isolated countries on earth, only lifting its ban on television in 1999. Most foreign tourists have to pay a minimum $200 a day to visit.