Technology

BLOOMBERG  Apple Inc will charge an eye-popping $3,499 for its long-awaited mixed-reality headset, testing whether consumers are ready to spend big bucks on a technology that the company sees as the future of computing. The iPhonemaker unveiled the new Vision Pro headset at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, the culmination of more than seven years of development. Introduced with Steve ...

BLOOMBERG PC makers from Lenovo Group Ltd to Samsung Electronics Co are pinning their hopes for reviving laptop sales on upgraded displays. At the Computex show in Taiwan, every major local electronics brand showed off new laptop models with OLED displays, the same technology used in smartphones. Asustek Computer, Acer Inc, Gigabyte Technology Co and Micro-Star International Co all expanded ...

BLOOMBERG Apple Inc’s most significant product launch event in nearly a decade kicks off on Monday, when the company will introduce its first major new product category since the Apple Watch alongside multiple new Macs and software upgrades across its platforms. The event starts from the company’s Cupertino, California, campus on Monday, June  5 at 10 am PT/1 pm ET. ...

BLOOMBERG  Apple Inc is planning a new interface for iPhones that shows information such as calendar appointments, the weather and notifications in the style of a smart-home display, part of a flurry of new features coming in its iOS 17 software update. The view will appear when an iPhone is locked and positioned horizontally, operating similarly to dedicated displays offered ...

BLOOMBERG Instagram is planning to release a text-based app that will compete with Twitter.The company is currently testing the project idea with celebrities and influencers, according to people familiar with the matter. Instagram has been in discussions with select creators for months, though none of them has had access to the full version of the app, according to one of ...

BLOOMBERG Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc was hit by a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) European Union (EU) privacy fine and given a deadline to stop shipping users’ data to the US after regulators said it failed to protect personal information from the American security services. The social network giant’s continued data transfers to the US didn’t address “the risks ...

BLOOMBERG  India is unveiling a 170 billion rupee ($2 billion) financial incentive plan to draw makers of laptops, tablets and other hardware to the South Asian nation as companies look to diversify supply chains beyond China. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is capitalising on the early success of Apple Inc’s local assembly operations — which have helped the US company produce ...

BLOOMBERG  Vans haven’t always been objects of desire. When Fiat launched its Multipla model in the late 1990s, supporters of the soccer team Juventus — many of whom worked for the Italian carmaker — were subjected to stadium banners calling them as unpleasant-looking as the van they built. While Mercedes-Benz’s passenger car division likes to trumpet its popularity among royalty ...

BLOOMBERG Microsoft Corp’s Azure cloud business has been targeted by the European Union’s antitrust arm, amid concerns the US software firm is leveraging its market power to squeeze out rivals. As part of an informal probe, regulators are quizzing competitors and customers about how Microsoft may be abusing its access to business-sensitive information belonging to cloud firms it has commercial ...

BLOOMBERG  Electric bicycles are poised for a breakout year in Europe’s biggest economy. Battery-powered two-wheelers will outsell traditional bikes in Germany for the first time in 2023, according to projections from the country’s industry group. They’re already dominant in the mountain bike category, where nine in ten bicycles are powered by a motor. While the e-bike boom hasn’t meaningfully pushed ...