Google is expanding its empire to cars, watches, businesses and televisions.

The technology titan laid out a sweeping vision at the opening of a sold-out developers conference in a keynote presentation streamed online to millions of people across the world.

A new electronic chip with microscopic chemical sensors can detect explosives in the air at concentrations as low as a few molecules per 1,000 trillion, its Israeli developers said Tuesday.

The nanodevice can identify several different types of explosives in real time, even at a distance of several meters from the source, they wrote in the journal Nature Communications.

Smart gadget specialty firm Withings introduced a fashionable Swiss-made time piece Tuesday that doubles as a fitness tracker.

The French company billed "Activite" as a chic watch with computing brains to track steps taken, calories burned, distance traveled, and sleep patterns.

Business software giant Oracle said Monday it was buying rival Micros Systems for $5.3 billion in a deal to expand its big data efforts in key retail sectors.

The acquisition is the biggest for Oracle since buying Sun Microsystems in a deal announced in 2009 and closed in 2010.

Yahoo on Monday ramped up its move to mobile, grabbing for Android smartphone home screens with an Aviate application tuned to where people are.

Yahoo bought Aviate early this year in a deal reported to be valued at about $80 million dollars. The software was subsequently honed with a test group.

Malicious software is increasingly making its way into mobile phones through "cloned" versions of popular apps, and software weaknesses in legitimate ones, security researchers said Tuesday.

McAfee Labs said in its quarterly threat assessment that weaknesses in app security is becoming a growing problem for owners of mobile devices.

San Francisco's new crackdown on a mobile app that allows people to auction off their public parking spots marks yet another clash between innovative technologies and regulators trying to maintain law and order, public safety and a sense of social decorum.

The app, called Monkey Parking, allows drivers who score a notoriously hard-to-get San Francisco parking spot to sell it for $5, $10, even $20 and then hang out there until the buyer arrives to take their place.

The new robot guides at a Tokyo museum look so eerily human and speak so smoothly they almost outdo people — almost.

Japanese robotics expert Hiroshi Ishiguro, an Osaka University professor, says they will be useful for research on how people interact with robots and on what differentiates the person from the machine.

CNN said Monday it was launching a research project with the Georgia Institute of Technology on how drones could be used for newsgathering by media organizations.

The research will evaluate the technology, personnel and safety needs to operate effectively and will share its findings with the Federal Aviation Administration, which is considering rules for unmanned aerial vehicles.

Vast amounts of hot water from household appliances, businesses and factories gurgle down the drain every day, wasting not only H2O but also another precious resource: heat energy.

Not, however, in the Austrian town of Amstetten, where a pilot project by the local utility company is "recycling" this energy from a place where normally few dare to tread -- the sewer.