Technology

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 ...

Bloomberg The Apple Watch and the Siri digital assistant inside it; Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo speakers and Alexa service; the data about eating habits recorded by internet-connected refrigerators — all are potential targets in a European Union competition probe. Regulators led by Margrethe Vestager said they want about 400 companies to contribute to a report about how so-called internet-of-things (IoT) devices ...

Bloomberg Twitter Inc. said several of its employees were manipulated by hackers into providing credentials for internal systems, and 130 Twitter accounts were targeted including those of Joe Biden, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The hackers were able to reset passwords for 45 users, while eight had their data, including private messages, downloaded entirely, Twitter said in a blog post. ...

Bloomberg Voice assistants such as Apple Inc.’s Siri and Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa are at the center of a sweeping European Union (EU) antitrust inquiry into how Silicon Valley uses data to gain a tight grip on growing markets. EU watchdogs already see signs that tech giants might be restricting access to data or making products that don’t work well with ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com’s plan for a fleet of 3,236 communications satellites won the backing of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, who said he had asked fellow commissioners to approve the venture. “Satellite constellations like this aim to provide high-speed broadband service to consumers in the US and around the world,” Ajit Pai said in a tweet. Pai added that ...