Technology

  NEW YORK / AP Toys that teach aren’t a new thing, but a growing number are calling for kids to build with blocks, circuits or everyday items before reaching for a tablet screen. Play is how kids learn about the world around them, whether it’s a toddler throwing a ball or teens playing video games. It’s about seeing how ...

  TOKYO / AP Toyota Motor Corp. has developed a new way of observing the movements of tiny particles in batteries used to power electric vehicles — an advance it says will help boost their cruise range by 10 percent to 15 percent. Toyota engineer Hisao Yamashige explained to reporters on Thursday at the Japanese automaker’s Tokyo office the complex ...

    BEIJING / AP China’s biggest online travel service Ctrip.com is buying Skyscanner i n a deal that values the British travel search site at 1.4 billion pounds ($1.7 billion). The deal announced Thursday adds to a string of global acquisitions by Chinese companies in search of technology, brands and access to foreign markets. Ctrip.com International Ltd. said the ...

  WASHINGTON / AP Breaking a sweat? Researchers are creating a skin patch that can test those droplets while people exercise and beam results to their smartphones, possibly a new way to track health and fitness. The experimental gadget goes well beyond activity monitors like the Fitbit. A little larger than a quarter, it’s almost like a tiny lab stuck ...

  Bloomberg U.S. highway safety officials called on smartphone makers to add features that would keep motorists from using functions linked to a surge in deaths due to distracted driving, a proposal that drew immediate opposition from the electronics industry. The voluntary guidelines proposed Wednesday asked device makers to take steps such as blocking some video displays and preventing manual ...

FRANKFURT / AP Volkswagen’s namesake brand hopes to bounce back from its diesel emissions scandal with a broad restructuring that will mean more battery-powered cars, digital services such as ride-sharing, and more SUVs for the U.S. market. Herbert Diess, the head of the Volkswagen division, unveiled the company’s Transform 2025 plan at a news conference, saying that “in the coming ...

  San Francisco / AP Facebook has built a tool for geographically censoring posts at the leading social network as it seeks a path back into China, The New York Times has reported. The New York Times cited three current and former Facebook employees, who asked for anonymity, as saying that the tool could filter news feeds at the social ...

  San Francisco / AP An industry-backed autonomous car lobbying group has urged US regulators to go further to remove speed bumps than what was laid out in guidelines published two months ago. In a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a ‘Self-Driving Coalition’ founded early this year by Google, Ford, Volvo, Uber and Lyft hailed the framework ...

  Faye Flam Bloomberg Blind faith in any technology can be dangerous — especially when it comes to areas of forensic science such as DNA fingerprinting. For example, if police have “DNA evidence” against a suspect, most juries will assume that’s proof of guilt. But while the technology for analyzing DNA has become vastly more sensitive since it was first ...

  Bloomberg A U.S. safety agency is investigating an accident involving a massive experimental drone Facebook Inc. is developing to bring the internet to remote areas of the world. No one was hurt in the incident, which came during the unmanned aircraft’s first test flight on June 28. It marks the latest hiccup in Facebook’s plans to wirelessly connect the ...