Technology

Bloomberg A drone developed with the backing of UK defense giant BAE Systems Plc has become the first plane since the dawn of aviation to be maneuvered without the aid of wing flaps. The Magma model is flown by blowing air from its engine at supersonic speeds through slots in the wings. The technology is lighter, more reliable and cheaper ...

Bloomberg One of the most improbable ideas from Google’s eccentric co-founders — using high-altitude balloons to provide internet connections — is getting a boost from another unconventional technology mogul. An affiliate of Masayoshi Son’s telecom company SoftBank Corp is investing $125 million in Loon, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet Inc. The SoftBank unit and Loon will share technology and ...

Bloomberg US venture capitalists Sequoia Capital Operations LLC and Andreessen Horowitz are backing a tech startup that says it’s the world’s largest medical drone delivery service, sending 148 types of medicine to areas around Ghana. San Francisco-based Zipline International Inc struck a deal with the West African nation’s government to make on-demand deliveries of vaccines, blood products and other treatments, ...

Bloomberg An Amazon.com Inc team auditing Alexa users’ commands has access to location data and can, in some cases, easily find a customer’s home address, according to five employees familiar with the programme. The team, spread across three continents, transcribes, annotates and analyses a portion of the voice recordings picked up by Alexa. Team members with access to Alexa users’ ...

Bloomberg The birthplace of America’s auto industry and driving culture will soon have one of the world’s first plants making driverless cars. Alphabet Inc’s Waymo LLC has picked an idled American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc facility in Detroit as the site where it will equip vehicles made by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc with ...

Bloomberg Some test models of Samsung Electronics Co’s new foldable phone suffered defects after only days of use, casting a shadow over next week’s introduction of a $1,980 device meant to rejuvenate a flagging market and showcase the Asian company’s technology expertise. Several publications, including Bloomberg News, outlined a bevy of problems with test versions of the device, which folds ...

Bloomberg Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening. Sometimes, someone is. Amazon.com Inc employs thousands of people around the world to help improve ...

Bloomberg Vista Global Holding, which competes with Warren Buffett’s NetJets in the pay-by-the-hour private plane market, agreed to buy US-based JetSmarter, adding a service that sells empty seats on chartered aircraft. While the Uber-style model will extend the group’s product offering in the $11 billion on-demand corporate flights sector, JetSmarter is mainly attractive for industry-leading digital technology and an app ...

Bloomberg A team of scientists, some of whom have worked for Elon Musk, outlined a way to rapidly implant electrical wiring into the brains of rats. The process, described in an unpublished academic paper, is an important step towards a potential system to plug human brains directly into computers. The paper’s five authors have been employed by or loosely associated ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc is trying a new way to take its Alexa digital assistant mobile: wireless earbuds that mirror Apple Inc’s popular AirPods. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant is readying earbuds with built-in Alexa access for as early as the second half of this year, according to people with knowledge of the plans. The headphones will look and act similar to ...