Technology

  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,” …

  Bloomberg As it firms up plans to upend the auto industry, Apple Inc. is looking toward British carmaker McLaren and San Francisco-based startup Lit Motors for help. Both would give Apple some of the know-how needed to compete head to head against or forge a meaningful partnership with automakers. Yet the two companies exist on opposite ends of the …

  Bloomberg A teardown of the latest generation iPhone 7 shows that in terms of material costs, the new handset is not a rip off. According to the customary IHS teardown that follows the launch of any digital object of desire, if the cost of the latest iPhone were based purely on its materials plus the labor required to put …

  Bloomberg Google unleashed its digital assistant for the first time, arriving late to the intensifying race among the largest technology companies to create a more personal and lucrative way for computers to interact with humans. The Google Assistant uses artificial intelligence tools, such as voice recognition and natural-language processing, to answer questions and satisfy other requests delivered verbally and …

  Bloomberg Instead of hiring a professional photographer for an important marketing job last year, Massimo Portincaso gave the job to computer software. Portincaso, the head of marketing at the Boston Consulting Group, was tasked with overhauling his company’s website. It was a straight-forward assignment, giving the site a fresh look highlighting the business’s capabilities. When the time came to …

  Relaxnews Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, took to Twitter to announce that the world’s leading music streaming site has topped 40 million paid subscribers — a new record. Spotify now counts more than twice as many paid users as its main rival, Apple Music, which has already signed up 17 million subscribers in just over a year. This new record …

  AFP Twitter has announced it is easing its 140-character limit on tweets, in the latest effort to broaden the appeal and boost the user base of the social network. The new policy announced in May and now in effect no longer factors in certain add-ons, including pictures, into a message’s length. “Say more about what’s happening! Rolling out now,” …

  AFP Google has sent out invitations to an October 4 event, hinting that the Internet titan will show off a new smartphone powered by its Android mobile software. Emailed invitations revealed only the time and place for the gathering in San Francisco, the message topped by blue, red, yellow, and green dots of color. Google fired off a Twitter …

  Bloomberg Oracle Corp. unveiled new services that help customers take advantage of cloud computing, putting it more directly in competition with Amazon.com Inc. The company has announced Cloud@Customer, which puts the same hardware and software Oracle uses in its data centers in the customers’ own facilities, Executive Chairman Larry Ellison said Sunday during a presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in …