Google search guru Amit Singhal believes the search-engine of the future will be "a perfect personal assistant" -- knowing what you want, when you want it.

Although people can travel to the moon's surface without leaving their armchairs, search-engine developments so far are just "baby steps" to "the holy grail of search", Singhal told AFP in a rare interview.

Social media sites have become "the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists", the new head of Britain's electronic spying agency GCHQ wrote in a Financial Times article published Tuesday.

Robert Hannigan said some U.S. technology companies were "in denial" about the situation and urged them to give more help to security services trying to combat Islamic State (IS) jihadists and other organisations.

Search giant Google announced Monday the creation of a new Hindi-language website in an ambitious bid to add 300 million Indian Internet users by 2017 and bridge the country's linguistic digital divide.

The website, www.hindiweb.com, new Hindi-language voice-search and Hindi keyboard are part of Google's push to incorporate more Indian languages into content in the next few years.

Australian gamers Tuesday were among the world's first to get their hands on the latest instalment of "Call of Duty", as publisher Activision sought to boost the blockbuster franchise amid concerns about consumer fatigue.

A racing car designed and built by students in Switzerland on Monday set a world record for acceleration in electric vehicles, their universities said Monday.

The "grimsel" car revved from zero to 100 kilometers (0-62 miles) an hour in just 1.785 seconds, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich said in a statement.

An early Apple device sold by Steve Jobs from his parents' garage goes under the hammer in New York next month valued at $400,000-600,000 in an increasingly competitive computer relic market.

Christie's says the Apple-1 is the only surviving such computer documented to have been sold directly by the late Apple founder to a customer from the garage in Los Altos, California. 

North Korea's state media on Monday blasted South Korea's spy agency for alleging Pyongyang hacked tens of thousands of smartphones in the South using malware disguised in mobile gaming apps.

The South's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a report to parliament last week that North Korea attempted to hack more than 20,000 South Korean smartphones from May to September.

Hotels don't want guests to have to linger at the front desk — or even stop by at all.

New programs are helping speed up the check-in process for busy travelers, or in at least one case, letting them go straight to their rooms by using their smartphone to unlock doors.

An Estonian man accused of being part of a ring that swindled advertisers out of millions of dollars by "hijacking" online traffic was hauled before a U.S. judge on Friday.

Vladimir Tsastsin, 34, was extradited to a federal court in New York to face charges including computer intrusion, wire fraud and money laundering, according to U.S. prosecutors.

Apple Pay, meant to inject momentum into a fragmented market for the emerging mobile payments sector, has instead highlighted the squabbles between retailers and the banking and payments industry.

Since Apple Pay made its debut October 20 for U.S. customers with the iPhone 6, several major retailers have said they would not use it.