Technology

Bloomberg One recent afternoon in the Indian city of Pune, a 35-year-old mason named Om Prakash Gaekwad gets a crash course in technology. He watches a street-corner skit explaining the virtues of WhatsApp’s messaging service and Reliance Jio’s wireless network. He then climbs aboard a truck to find out how to set them up. Half an hour later, he’s made ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG and Tesco Plc plan to build the UK’s largest vehicle-charging network spanning 2,500 bays across some 600 stores in the next three years, even as buyers have so far stayed on the fence and economic fallout from Brexit is difficult to predict. Customers will be able to charge their electric and plug-in hybrid cars using a 7-kilowatt ...

Bloomberg Worldwide delivery service DHL is deploying artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicles and product-picking robots at its warehouses in North America to help handle the surge in e-commerce demand. The US unit of Deutsche Post AG will spend $300 million on its plan to equip 350 of its 430 facilities with new technology that includes autonomous trolleys that shadow human workers ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. opened up its popular home speakers to Apple Inc.’s music service, a new step in the nascent cooperation between the two tech rivals. Beginning from December 17, Apple Music will be available on Amazon’s Echo devices, according to a statement on Amazon’s blog. Music has always been one of Alexa’s most popular features, Amazon said. And Apple’s ...

Bloomberg iDreamSky Technology Holdings Ltd., a Chinese game distributor, has attracted Sony Corp. and JD.com Inc. as cornerstone investors for its planned Hong Kong initial public offering, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Shenzhen-based company plans to start taking investor orders on Monday, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. The firm ...

Bloomberg The Philippines’ richest man Henry Sy will start rolling out robots next year to help customers navigate his massive shopping malls. Initially three androids will be deployed in the first quarter of 2019 in SM Megamall, the nation’s second-biggest shopping centre, said Steven Tan, chief operating officer for the shopping malls of SM Prime Holdings Inc. The talking bots ...

Bloomberg GameStop Corp., the video-game retailer, agreed to sell its AT&T wireless stores to Prime Communications LP for $700 million, exiting a business that the company once viewed as a key source of future growth. The sale of Spring Mobile, with 1,289 stores, is expected to close by the end of January, Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop said. Proceeds from the sale ...

Bloomberg Elon Musk is apparently charting his way out of what he’s referred to as “delivery logistics hell” by making acquisitions and lining up contracts with trucking haulers. The Tesla Inc. CEO tweeted that Model 3s ordered in the US by the end of the month will be delivered by year-end. He wrote that using trucks instead of rail shaves ...

Bloomberg Bringing fast, widespread internet to rural Africa has proven vexing for companies that have tried—and largely failed—with strategies ranging from drones to satellites. Now, a sister company of Google says it has the answer: balloons. Loon, spun out of the search giant’s X innovation lab in July, is teaming up with Telkom Kenya Ltd. to build a network of ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG plans to add a subcompact crossover costing about 18,000 euros ($21,000) to its all-electric I.D. range, expanding its lineup of zero-emissions vehicles that are more affordable than those of Tesla Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The entry level vehicle may be built at VW’s factory in Emden, Germany, said the people, who asked not ...