Technology

  AP Of all the personal information people tend to give out willy-nilly on the internet, birthdate is perhaps the most ubiquitous. It’s not just Yahoo and Facebook seeking that information. Websites, newsletters, online stores and a plethora of other places want your birthdate — and many services won’t let you sign up until you provide it. And it’s probably ...

  Relaxnews In recent weeks Yahoo has been prompting users to change their passwords and to add a phone number as an extra layer of security and on Thursday the reason for these requests became clear. The tech company announced that a hack could have compromised 500 million users’ details. MAKE THE CHANGE NOW Whether you’re one of the 500 ...

  San Francisco / AFP Vanishing message service Snapchat announced it will launch a line of video-catching sunglasses, a spin on Glass eyewear abandoned by Google more than a year ago. The California-based company, which also announced it is changing its name to Snap Inc., said in an online post that its Spectacles will be “available soon,” with media reports ...

  Emirates Business While smartphone cameras are still unable to compete with high-end DSLRs, the gap is closing. Despite their shortcomings, the flexibility of smartphones leaves them well-equipped to capture content that is off limits to traditional cameras. From 360 Virtual Reality-ready content and action photography to wide-angle shots, the ability of smartphones to interact with companion devices or smart ...

  AFP The huge Yahoo hack deals a fresh blow to the internet pioneer which has been struggling to reinvent itself, potentially impacting the pending sale aiming at giving it a new start. The hack in late 2014 affecting some 500 million users worldwide, disclosed this week, could further erode confidence in the online giant which has been on a ...

  Bloomberg Twitter Inc. is holding informal talks with several potential buyers after receiving interest from Salesforce.com Inc., people familiar with the situation said. Twitter’s board met several weeks ago after hearing from Salesforce, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public. Twitter then hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Allen & Co. to ...

Bloomberg Google’s cloud services will be used to test blockchain technologies for banks, an area where IBM, Microsoft and Amazon have been courting clients for the past year. Royal Bank of Scotland Group has employed Google servers in a trial of a new blockchain application for clearing and settlement, the consulting firm GFT said Friday in a statement. The company’s ...

  Bloomberg Apple Inc. is pressing ahead with the development of an Echo-like smart-home device based on the Siri voice assistant, according to people familiar with the matter. Started more than two years ago, the project has exited the research and development lab and is now in prototype testing, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing unannounced ...

  Bloomberg As Tesla founder Elon Musk promises to change the world, starting with giant battery factory in the Nevada desert, investors from Toronto to Tokyo are quietly developing the next-generation technologies that may actually get him there. Batteries, especially the lithium-ion variety used in mobile phones and electric cars, are likely to dominate the $44 billion or more spent ...

  Bloomberg For the world’s top tech fund, Facebook Inc. is finally cheap enough to buy. DNB Nordic Technology, the best performing tech fund over the past 10 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, started buying Facebook shares in July. “For the first time, we think the stock doesn’t look that expensive in relation to the figures they deliver,” ...