Bloomberg In the geographic heart of the tech industry, it was hard to think of anything except the orange skies, dark and tinted by wildfire smoke. The image software on iPhones failed to capture the dystopian hue, or the feeling of being surrounded by it. Silicon Valley workers tweeted that it felt like night time, or a perpetual sunset, or ...
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Google drops plan to rent Dublin office
Bloomberg Alphabet Inc’s Google unit walked away from a plan to rent space in Dublin for as many 2,000 workers, shelving one of the city’s biggest real-estate deals in recent years. Google had been in talks to rent about 202,000 square feet (18,766 square meters) of space at the Sorting Office, close to the Irish capital’s south quays, adding to ...
Read More »Apple preparing 75mn 5G iPhones alongside new watches, iPad
Bloomberg Apple Inc. has asked suppliers to build at least 75 million 5G iPhones for later this year, roughly in line with last year’s launch, in a sign that demand for the company’s most important product is holding up in the midst of the global pandemic and recession. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant anticipates shipments of these next-generation iPhones may ...
Read More »Apple, Google update Covid-19 alert system to increase adoption
Bloomberg Apple Inc. said the ability to use contact tracing without an app will roll out to iPhones, while Google said Android devices will get this capability in a more limited form later this month. The companies said this will increase adoption of the system, which has begun to identify Covid-19 exposures. It will still only work in regions where ...
Read More »Centricus, Triller seek to buy TikTok assets for $20 billion
Bloomberg Centricus Asset Management Ltd. and Triller Inc. are seeking to buy TikTok’s operations in the US and several other countries from ByteDance Ltd. for $20 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. Investors led by London-based Centricus will partner with US-based Triller, another video and music-based social networking app, which would have a minority stake in a ...
Read More »Google, Facebook dump plans for undersea cable
Bloomberg Google and Facebook Inc. dropped plans for an undersea cable between the US and Hong Kong after the Trump administration said Beijing might use the link to collect information on Americans. But the companies quickly submitted a revised proposal that includes links to Taiwan and the Philippines, as envisioned in the application that was withdrawn last week. The new ...
Read More »Alphabet’s Verily to use big data for health insurance
Bloomberg Verily, the Alphabet Inc. life sciences unit that’s previously targeted mosquito-borne illness and launched Covid-19 testing programs, is getting into the health insurance business. The San Francisco Bay Area company announced a new subsidiary named Coefficient Insurance that will also be backed by Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, the commercial insurance unit of Swiss Re Group. The company will sell ...
Read More »Apple blocks Epic’s App store updates
Bloomberg Apple Inc. terminated Epic Games’s App Store developer account, escalating a bitter legal fight over the iPhone maker’s controversial fees and rules. This means Epic can’t submit new apps or updates to the App Store and it prevents iPhone users from making purchases inside Epic’s popular Fortnite video game via Apple’s payment system. It will also leave the Apple ...
Read More »Apple reverses move for WordPress to add in-app payments
Bloomberg Apple Inc. reversed course on a decision to force popular blogging platform WordPress to add in-app purchases to its app, a move that could help lessen tensions between Apple and developers amid a public battle with Epic Games. The WordPress said that Apple had informed it that it had 30 days to add in-app-purchases to its application, which would ...
Read More »Software firms gear up to reveal books ahead of busy IPO season
Bloomberg Silicon Valley software notables — Unity Technologies Inc., Snowflake Inc. and Asana Inc. — are set to disclose their financials as soon as next week ahead of September trading debuts, according to people familiar with their plans. Palantir Technologies Inc., which also is planning to go public in late September through a direct listing, is nearing disclosure of its ...
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