Increased access to technology that allows parents to know the sex of their fetus has left Asia short of 117 million women, mostly in China and India, the U.N. said on Thursday.

The trend is expected to influence the affected countries for more than 50 years, particularly through a shortage of brides for Chinese and Indian men, according to experts at a conference organized by the U.N. and Vietnam in Hanoi.

The death of Apple founder Steve Jobs provoked an online outpouring of grief likely to smash records, an Australian firm said Thursday as mourners took to the Internet to pay tribute to the tech guru.

Social media sites sagged under the weight of Jobs-related posts, with five of the top ten topics trending worldwide on Twitter about the Apple pioneer, including #ThankYouSteve and #iSad.

Steve Jobs touched so many lives that people around the world turned "iSad" on Wednesday, pausing to share thoughts about the charismatic innovator who shaped modern culture.

Tributes poured in from notables from U.S. President Barack Obama to Bill Gates, but it was the scale of the outpouring from ordinary people around the world, hammering out characters on Jobs's own inventions, that was staggering.

Microsoft has opened its first technology center in Latin America and promised to invest $690 million (522 million euros) in Mexicoin the next year.

The Microsoft Technology Center (MTC), inaugurated in Mexico City late Tuesday, is part of a network of 25 sites set up around the world by the company started by Bill Gates, including 11 in the United States.

India is set Wednesday to launch its long-awaited low-cost computer, a $45 tablet device designed to bring the information technology revolution to tens of millions of students.

The touchscreen computer has a seven-inch (18-centimeter) screen, Wi-Fi Internet access, a media player and 180 minutes of battery power, according to official specifications.

With TV network style, Yahoo is launching a fall slate of shows in a bid to strengthen its original programming.

On Tuesday, Yahoo Inc. announced that it will begin premiering seven new Web series this week, all targeting female audiences. That adds to the approximately two dozen original series on Yahoo, which often pull in much higher viewership than other, higher profile video hubs.

Smartphones detecting bad breath and radiation, twistable remote controls and a super-thin tablet computer were just some of the gadgets on show at Asia's biggest tech fair in Japan Tuesday.

Around 600 firms unveiled their innovations at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (Ceatec) technology exhibition in Chiba, near Tokyo, which is expected to draw 200,000 visitors during its five-day run, organizers said.

While BlackBerrys and iPhones are fast becoming must-have accessories for many urban Thais, mobile Internet in the kingdom is still struggling to get out of the slow lane.

A long-running business tussle means that as other nations -- including impoverished Laos -- move to introduce faster 4G technology, Thailand has yet to fully roll out 3G, a decade after it was first launched in Japan.

Microsoft is quietly pulling the plug on its Zune digital media player, its would-be rival to Apple's iPod.

The announcement of the demise of the Zune was buried on a support page for the device.

Former file-sharing renegade Napster has a new owner.

U.S. online music service Rhapsody announced on Monday that it has purchased Napster from electronics retailer Best Buy.