Technology

Bloomberg At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, contact tracing was considered the best hope for getting people back to offices and schools safely without a vaccine. The tech industry was optimistic that apps would provide a faster, more effective alternative to the usual painstaking human process of calling and interviewing the networks of infected people to figure out possible …

Bloomberg Industrial robots are now being used to assemble everything from airplanes to smartphones, using human-like arms to mechanically repeat the same processes over and over, thousands of times a day with nanometric precision. But according to a new report entitled “Rogue Automation,” some robots have flaws that could make them vulnerable to advanced hackers, who could steal data or …

Bloomberg Silicon Valley giants used to snap up smaller tech firms at will, safe in the knowledge that antitrust regulators rarely prevented them from expanding into new industries. The European Commission showed that those days are gone, opening an in-depth probe into Google’s $2.1 billion takeover of Fitbit Inc. — an investigation that focuses on the potentially huge value of …

Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. is exploring an acquisition of TikTok’s operations in the US, according to a people familiar with the matter. A deal would give the software company a popular social-media service and relieve US government pressure on the Chinese owner of the video-sharing app. The Trump administration has been weighing whether to direct China-based ByteDance Ltd. to divest its …

Bloomberg Apple Inc. has acquired Mobeewave Inc., a startup with technology that could transform iPhones into mobile payment terminals. Mobeewave’s technology lets shoppers tap their credit card or smartphone on another phone to process a payment. The system works with an app and doesn’t require hardware beyond a Near Field Communications, or NFC, chip, which iPhones have included since 2014. …

Bloomberg The Covid-19 pandemic is fuelling an e-commerce boom as shuttered businesses move online — but Google isn’t benefiting in way its big tech rivals are. Google advertising sales fell 8% in second quarter, causing overall revenue at parent Alphabet Inc. to shrink for first time. The company’s main digital ad rival Facebook Inc. saw sales jump 11%, while Amazon.com …

Bloomberg Intel Corp.’s decision to consider outsourcing manufacturing heralds the end of an era in which the company, and the US, dominated the semiconductor industry. The move could reverberate well beyond Silicon Valley, influencing global trade and geopolitics. The Santa Clara, California-based company has been the largest chipmaker for most of the past 30 years by combining the best designs …

Bloomberg IRobot Corp. shares dropped after the company warned that its Roomba autonomous vacuums could be hit with trade tariffs later this year. “On April 24, the United States Trade Representative granted iRobot an exclusion for its Roomba robot vacuums from Section 301 tariffs through August 7, 2020. The company does not yet know whether an extension for its exclusion …

Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. showed off its most important video game for the next Xbox, a new installment of its flagship multi-billion dollar Halo series, as the company gears up for the release of the latest generation of consoles in time for the holidays. Halo Infinite returns to the saga of Master Chief, the bioengineered super-solider main character of the series, …

Bloomberg The future of manufacturing may lie with companies like Italy’s Isinnova SRL, which saw a need for respirator valves in its Covid-stricken area and was able make hundreds in two days using 3D printing rather than waiting a week for ones made in Chinese factories. It’s an example of how the US and Europe are leading in innovation in …