Bloomberg The most talked-about, futuristic product from Google’s developer show isn’t even finished — but it’s already stoking heated debate. At its I/O conference, Alphabet Inc.’s Google previewed Duplex, an experimental service that lets its voice-based digital assistant book appointments on its own. It was part of a slate of features, such as automated writing in emails, where Google touted ...

Bloomberg Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launched its more reusable rocket for the first time, a major step forward in reducing the cost of the closely held company’s missions. The Falcon 9 Block 5 carried Bangladesh’s first geostationary communications satellite towards orbit. It’s the latest major upgrade by SpaceX to its workhorse rocket and is built to handle at least 10 ...

Bloomberg Republican senators from five states with big solar farms are asking the Trump administration to exempt the workhorse of industrial solar panels from tariffs imposed earlier this year. The group of eight senators led by North Carolina’s Thom Tillis urged the administration to waive duties on 72-cell, 1,500-volt panels that are ideal for large ground-mounted “utility-scale” projects, according to ...

Bloomberg PG&E Corp. said it has signed its first so-called community solar project, which allows customers who can’t install panels on their roofs the option of buying solar energy from a nearby facility. Residents will be able to purchase power directly from a 1.66 megawatt solar plant being developed by ForeFront Power in Fresno County, California, according to a PG&E ...

Bloomberg A gauge of UK house prices dipped to its lowest in more than five years last month, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, with the slowdown most acute in London and the southeast. RICS’s gauge of prices dropped to minus 8, the lowest since November 2012, the organization said in a report. The descent into negative territory ...

Bloomberg Mark Carney’s window to raise interest rates before Brexit is closing. As Britain draws nearer to its divorce from the European Union at the end of March with little certainty as to the economic repercussions, Bank of England policy makers with a benchmark interest rate of just 0.5 percent could be left with limited room to cut should they ...

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. must pay $97 million to home mortgage consultants and private mortgage bankers in California who didn’t get the breaks they were entitled to under the state’s stringent labor laws. A federal judge in Los Angeles agreed with the bankers and consultants that the money they were entitled to should be based not just on their ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank held interest rates at a record low and left the door open to a cut as inflation remains subdued. Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr kept the official cash rate at 1.75 percent and said it would remain there “for some time to come.” The RBNZ pushed out its forecast for the first OCR increase to ...

Bloomberg Bank of Japan board members discussed the need for policy sustainability and strengthened commitment to reaching its 2 percent inflation goal during its April 26-27 policy meeting, when it removed language about when it expected to hit that target. A summary of opinions from that meeting indicate that the BOJ looks set to continue on its current course following ...

Bloomberg The gossip inside the Beverly Hills Hilton kept taking an unexpected turn — towards, of all things, Deutsche Bank AG. In chandeliered conference rooms and marble-floored hallways, Wall Street A-listers chatted, with no shortage of schadenfreude, about the German bank’s recent capitulation: After two decades trying to build one of the world’s top investment banks, it’s settling for something ...