Technology

  Bloomberg If you want an example of China’s rising consumer class, take a look at the burgeoning demand to play video games. Sales will jump an average 7.4 percent a year from 2016 to 2020, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. That’s higher than the 4.8 percent rate forecast for the industry worldwide, PwC said in its global entertainment and media ...

  Bloomberg Walt Disney Co. reported third-quarter results that reflected tough times for its TV business and said it’s taking big steps in online video to adapt to changing consumer viewing habits. The world’s largest entertainment company said it will pay $1 billion for a one-third take in BAMTech, a technology and streaming business formed by Major League Baseball, and ...

  Bloomberg Mapbox Inc., the provider of maps for customers including Evernote and the Washington Post, felt Pokemon Go’s impact the very day the monster-hunting game launched in the U.S. last month. Inquiries from game developers poured in even though Mapbox wasn’t behind the smash hit. One asked for a dark theme for night-time fighting, another for a pirate map ...

  Bloomberg Intel Corp., which makes chips that run more than 90 percent of the world’s servers, said it’s buying startup Nervana Systems to add software, a cloud service and future hardware in an attempt to better tune its products for artificial intelligence work. While Intel’s Xeon processors dominate in data centers, they’re not built for the unique workloads of ...

  Bloomberg Facebook is blocking ad blockers on the desktop version of its service, saying well-made, relevant ads can be “useful.” At the same time, the world’s biggest social media company says it is giving users easier ways to decide what types of ads they want to see — unless, of course, the answer is “none.” Ad blockers filter out ...

  Bloomberg Wal-Mart Stores Inc. agreed to buy e-commerce startup Jet.com Inc. for about $3.3 billion and put founder Marc Lore in charge of the combined company’s online operations, marking the retail giant’s strongest bid yet to compete with e-commerce leader Amazon.com Inc. The deal includes $3 billion in cash and $300 million in shares that will be paid over ...

  Relaxnews Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is extending a hand to companies such as SAP SE keen on operating in China, proffering a window into a market that’s increasingly hostile to foreign technology. China’s largest e-commerce company is aiming to help them comply with local regulations and sell their products, as it seeks news areas of growth to combat a ...

  Sydney / AP Playing online games may boost teenagers’ school results while spending time on social networks such as Facebook could do the opposite, according to an Australian study. The research, based on the performance of 15-year-old Australians in the globally recognised Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, looked at the relationship between internet usage and educational outcomes. ...

  Bloomberg Twitter Inc. is offering about a quarter of the space at its San Francisco headquarters complex for sublease, adding to a growing amount of excess offices available in the city as the technology industry cools. About 78,800 square feet (7,320 square meters) is listed for sublease on the seventh floor of 1355 Market St., a renovated 1930s furniture ...

  Bloomberg Qualcomm Inc., which has struggled to get paid licensing revenue in China, said it signed up phonemaker Vivo Communication Technology Co., helping cement its position in the world’s largest phone market. Vivo, the third-biggest smartphone maker in China, agreed to pay Qualcomm for technology used in 3G and 4G phones, the US chipmaker said. The deal with Vivo ...