Technology

Bloomberg A consortium led by China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd agreed to buy 10% of the world’s biggest music company, Universal Music Group, from Vivendi SA, after months of talks. The deal values Universal Music at 30 billion euros ($33.6 billion) and allows Tencent and its partners to increase the stake to as much as 20% for the same price before ...

Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc and Postmates Inc sued the state of California, alleging that a labour rights law set to go into effect this week is unconstitutional. The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court is a preemptive strike against the state’s landmark measure designed to ensure gig workers receive employment protections. Uber and Postmates argue the legislative process around ...

Bloomberg YouTube spent 2019 answering critics with some of the most drastic changes in its 15-year history. With each step, it gave those activists, regulators and lawmakers more reasons to attack its free-wheeling, user-generated business model. Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s chief executive officer, announced her goals in April. “My top priority,” she wrote, “is responsibility.” Her company spent the year trying ...

Bloomberg Sony Corp is working around the clock to manufacture its in-demand image sensors, but even a 24-hour operation hasn’t been enough. For the second straight year, the Japanese company will run its chip factories constantly through the holidays to try and keep up with demand for sensors used in mobile phone cameras, according to Terushi Shimizu, the head of ...

Bloomberg Dish Network Corp’s Sling TV is gearing up for a big election news cycle, with the addition of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN’s HLN to its live TV streaming service. But the change comes with a price increase, the second since its launch almost five years ago. Subscriptions to the multiscreen Blue plan will rise to $30 a month ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc is pursuing rights to music videos from major record labels, programming that could boost interest in its Watch video service, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is in the midst of negotiating new licensing deals with the three largest music companies, Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group, and has asked for ...

Bloomberg It’s mid-December, which means it’s time for the staff prognosticators at Bloomberg Technology to sheepishly revisit last year’s predictions while peering ahead with a brash certainty that we haven’t earned. On its surface, 2019 was the difficult year that most of us anticipated. The simmering trade tensions (perhaps diffused by the new phase-one trade agreement) raised the prospect of ...

Bloomberg One year after the tech giant announced it would bring hundreds of jobs to New York, and on the heels of major Manhattan lease announcements by Facebook Inc and Amazon.com Inc, the city’s real estate industry is wondering when the iPhone developer will make its move. “The absence is surprising,” Jim Underhill, chief executive officer of commercial-property firm Cresa. ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Amazon.com Inc — three of the biggest smart-home and voice-assistant providers — are joining forces to make internet-connected homes easier to set up and safer to use. The rivals announced that they’re working with the Zigbee Alliance, a foundation that promotes standards for the Internet of Things, and its members including Samsung Electronics ...

If you want to know how Alphabet Inc’s new Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai will run the company you don’t need to look very far — he’s essentially been doing it for several years already. Pichai, a 47-year-old engineer, grew up in India and immigrated to the US to attend graduate school. His resume reads like the typical Silicon Valley ...