AFP Apple announced the sale of its billionth iPhone, a milestone for the company as it seeks to keep momentum in a competitive smartphone market. Chief executive Tim Cook made the announcement at a staff meeting at the company’s California headquarters. “IPhone has become one of the most important, world-changing and successful products in history,” he said in a ...

  Relaxnews According to new research from Technavio, as the Internet of Things begins to grow in popularity, no smart home will be complete without at least one set of wireless Bluetooth speakers. Portable speakers that sync with tablets, smartphones, PCs and TVs are already a huge hit among consumers and every Consumer Technology Association (formally the Consumer Electronics Association) ...

  AP Samsung Electronics Co. reported second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates, fueled by stronger sales of Galaxy S7 smartphones and aggressive cost cuts. Net income, excluding minority interests, was 5.83 trillion won ($5.1 billion) in the period, the Suwon, South Korea-based company said in a filing Thursday. That compares with the 5.64 trillion-won average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. ...

  DPA Freestyle Fairy is not in a good mood. “When they prick their ears back like that, they’re getting ready to bite you,” says Leslie Combs. The man with the southern US accent is standing in the stall of the two-year-old thoroughbred and wants to pet the horse’s snout, but the horse flinches. Freestyle Fairy can get away with ...

  TNS Well, this is a bit troubling. A new survey conducted by industry group The Alternative Board (TAB) found that nearly two out of every three small business owners (or 59%) think social media is not that essential to business operations. It’s an interesting result given how much social media has invaded every area of our lives. Tweets pop ...

  WASHINGTON Columnists get complaints. After my last column (which argued that maybe the economy is better than we say), I got one from Alice Lang of Spartanburg, South Carolina. She accused me (politely) of ignoring the long-term unemployed, of which she is one. After our conversation, I asked her to put her thoughts in an email. Here’s what she ...

  The Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates untouched was born out of optimism and apprehension. In the end, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) resorted to a studied restraint. And while doing so, they issued an upbeat statement about the improving economic conditions in the US, but didn’t rule out the possibility of hiking the rates should there ...

  Eli Lake Watching Donald Trump comment on the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers brings to mind the Dave Chappelle show. In a recurring bit called “when keeping it real goes wrong,” various people would decide to say what they really felt, only to face disastrous consequences. Trump was revealing a little too much about himself when ...

  Just when it seemed that negative yields could not spread any further, they did. Corporate bonds paying negative interest rates now account for about $512 billion of market value, bringing the world close to a total of nearly $10 trillion in securities with yields below zero. Most are government securities. There are numerous explanations for this strange and unexpected ...

  A lack of ideas is a gloomy thing to behold in a tech leader. Executives try to strike all the right notes and use all the latest buzzwords, but the numbers show a disturbing trend and competitors are way ahead with real innovations that can be seen and touched. This is now happening to Apple. On Tuesday, Apple released ...