Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt cast a science-fiction vision of the future as the world's top tech fair opened Monday, with the German IT sector predicting record sales in 2012.

"Think back to 'Star Trek', or my favorite the 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. Much of what those writers imagined is now possible," said Schmidt.

IBM on Monday revealed an alliance with the venerable Louvre Museum to use sensors, real-time data analysis and other Internet Age tools to make the museum smarter.

IBM's "building whisperer" has been listening to the Louvre to make the famed Paris museum better at protecting art, saving energy, and staying open for its millions of annual visitors.

Automakers are thinking small — in size, not ambition.

After years marked by environmental concerns, then the economic downturn and now European austerity measures, car manufacturers have honed their products to cater for cost-conscious buyers.

A microchip manufacturer controlled by the Abu Dhabi government says it has reached an agreement to acquire a minority stake held by former owner Advanced Micro Devices.

The chip company, Milpitas, Calif.-based GlobalFoundries, said Monday that it would acquire AMD's share but retain the producer as a key customer.

Internet players are set to make a big splash at the world’s biggest IT fair opening in Germany Monday, likely to widen the event's appeal from a traditional devotion to pure technology.

While CeBIT, held in Hanover, tends to focus on the business side of technology, it has been overshadowed recently by the gadget wizardry unveiled at other showcases in Las Vegas, Berlin or Barcelona.

The world's biggest watch event opens in Basel, Switzerland, this week on the back of a bumper year thanks to Asian demand for luxury timepieces.

Whether this hunger will extend to the expected star of the show -- a $5 million diamond-laden model by Hublot -- is unclear but with 1,815 exhibitors from 41 countries, high-range watch devotees can expect to see something they like.

The Tajikistan government ordered Internet providers on Saturday to block Facebook, along with several independent media sites, a spokeswoman for the country's web-provider association told Agence France Presse.

"Internet providers received a spoken order from government agents to block the sites," said Parvina Ibodova, president of the association.

Tech-savvy TED-goers watched in wonder as flying robots darted through tossed hoops, worked together in swarms and even formed a band to play trademark "James Bond" film theme music.

A video of University of Pennsylvania professor Vijay Kumar showing off palm-sized "agile aerial robots" from the college lab logged more than 200,000 views online at ted.com by the time the prestigious gathering ended on Friday.

Passengers in the Channel Tunnel linking Britain and continental Europe will soon be able to use their mobile phones in the undersea rail link, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The Daily Telegraph said a French technology group had sorted out a way of connecting the tunnel with mobile phone networks.

President Barack Obama called Saturday for the development of new technologies to help tackle America's energy problems and the scrapping of a $4-billion-dollar tax break for oil companies.

"We've got to develop new technology that will help us use new forms of energy," Obama said in his radio and Internet address.