Technology

  Bloomberg After a tough 2016, Fitbit Inc. has a plan to keep users hooked to its devices for the new year. Taking cues from the addictive nature of Facebook and other networks where people connect with friends, Fitbit is rolling out new social features on its app, including a news feed where users can share exercise summaries, read health-related ...

  Reuters Facebook Inc’s Instagram is bringing more than 30 advertisers into one of its fastest-growing features, Instagram Stories, in a bid to boost advertising revenue, the company said. The social media company will become a more important player in maintaining Facebook’s growth in advertising revenue in 2017. During the last two earnings calls, Facebook executives said they may soon ...

  Bloomberg In Chicago, not far from Lake Michigan, the driver of a Caterpillar Inc. bulldozer looked left, right and forward to maneuver the 230,000-pound (104-metric-ton) machine through a desert obstacle course of sand mounds and old tires. But for all his effort, he didn’t go anywhere. Instead, as he sat inside a stationary box lined with video screens at ...

  Reuters Shopping from the steering wheel will become possible this year as Ford Motor Co. begins taking Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa digital assistant along for the ride. The second largest US automaker said it will begin offering “Alexa in the car” this summer on vehicles equipped with its Sync 3 infotainment system. An automotive version of Amazon’s popular voice-activated Echo ...

  Bloomberg A withering factory town in Japan’s Rust Belt is looking for revival through a dose of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “robot revolution.” Kadoma’s population has declined 13 percent as the nation ages, prompting mergers among elementary schools and emergency services departments. Factories can’t find enough people to run assembly lines, further threatening an industrial base that includes titan ...

  SAN FRANCISCO / AP Few people realized it at the time, but the world shifted fundamentally a decade ago when Steve Jobs pulled the first iPhone from Apple’s bag of technological tricks. “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” Jobs declared as he paced across a San Francisco stage. It obviously wasn’t an ...

  Bloomberg Alphabet Inc. is in talks to sell the Skybox Imaging satellite business it acquired for $500 million less than three years ago, another sign the technology giant is ratcheting back grand ambitions to blanket the globe with internet service. Planet, a satellite imaging startup former known as Planet Labs, may acquire Skybox, according to people familiar with the ...

  Reuters Messaging app Snapchat said it would make London the home of its international operations, delivering another vote of confidence in Britain’s tech standing as the country prepares to leave the European Union. The company, which has 150 million daily users globally, will book sales in countries where it has no local entity in Britain rather than routing them ...

  Bloomberg Team8, founded by veterans of an elite Israeli intelligence unit to solve what they consider the world’s most pressing cybersecurity problems, welcomed Citigroup Inc. and the venture arms of Microsoft Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. into its syndicate. The group of military veterans, who have raised more than $92 million, plan to launch two companies this year. Existing portfolio ...

  Bloomberg CES debuted gadget hits like the VCR, CD player and Xbox over the years, but the popular consumer electronics conference also showcases a lot of technology that fails to match the hype. Some of the top flops from 50 years of the Las Vegas show include Digital Audio Tape players, Apple’s Newton handheld computer and Atari’s Jaguar gaming ...