Technology

Bloomberg Facebook Inc. will start to reopen its Silicon Valley offices beginning in May, a signal the technology industry may return — at least in part — to the office after more than a year of working from home during the global pandemic. Facebook will begin by opening Bay Area offices at just 10% capacity, and expects that its largest ...

Bloomberg Google asked the US Federal Aviation Administration for permission to test drones to research how the technology can help monitor and control fires, before abandoning the effort. The Alphabet Inc. company’s climate and energy research group said it planned to use the drone at a private property in Firebaugh, California, according to a filing with FAA. Those plans have ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc. is considering launching an Apple Watch with a rugged casing aimed at athletes, hikers and others who use the device in more extreme environments, reports said. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has internally discussed introducing such a Watch variation later in 2021 or 2022 at the earliest, said the people. This is at least the second time ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. is expanding digital medical consultations to its employees across the US and says it will start offering the service to other companies. Together with the launch of an online pharmacy in December, the initiative marks Amazon’s entry into the gargantuan US health care industry. Medical services have long been seen as a target for Amazon, both to ...

Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co. warned it’s grappling with the fallout from a “serious imbalance” in semiconductors globally, becoming the largest tech giant to voice concerns about chip shortages spreading beyond the automaking industry. Samsung, one of the world’s largest makers of chips and consumer electronics, expects the crunch to pose a problem to its business next quarter, co-Chief Executive Officer ...

Bloomberg Alphabet Inc.’s Google is halving the percentage it takes from app developers on sales through its Google Play store, following a similar move by rival Apple Inc. last year. The Mountain View, California-based internet giant said it’s reducing the fees to 15% from 30% for the first $1 million in revenue on sales of apps and in-app-purchases each year. ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc.’s advertising tool used to monetise some of its own apps and services is the target of a new complaint in France. France Digitale, a lobby group representing startups and venture capital firms, filed the complaint, saying that Apple’s own advertising system doesn’t seek a user’s consent for receiving targeted ads. The complaint focuses on an Apple feature ...

Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. has detected and blocked a “new family of ransomware” that was being used against servers that still hadn’t patched vulnerabilities after last week’s major security breach. The updates are a temporary measure to defend against attacks, which were already occurring in many places, the company said. The company discovered suspected Chinese state-sponsored hackers were exploiting previously unknown ...

Bloomberg Instagram will give a small number of creators in India the option to share their short video clips on Facebook Inc.’s main social network as part of a new test. Facebook is running a trial in India in which users can share Instagram Reels, short video clips with augmented-reality effects, in the news feed of the main blue app. ...

Bloomberg Google is under growing pressure to pay for information that, for two decades, the search provider snipped from the web — and made a mint from — without paying a penny. Australian and French efforts to force Google to compensate news publishers are only the latest examples of a trend spanning the globe. Canada is considering a similar requirement ...