Technology

Bloomberg Apple Inc. will soon land a second supplier for the organic light-emitting diode screens used in high-end iPhones, according to people familiar with the matter, a key step in the US company’s push to reduce iPhone costs and its dependence on Samsung Electronics Co. South Korea’s LG Display Co. will initially supply between 2 million and 4 million units, ...

Bloomberg Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd., the state-linked Chinese technology giant, is in advanced talks to acquire French smart-card components maker Linxens, people familiar with the matter said. The Beijing-based company could announce an agreement with Linxens’s owner, private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, as soon as the next couple weeks, according to the people. Tsinghua Unigroup has been discussing a potential ...

Bloomberg South Korea’s dominant message-app operator is considering a private placement next month to raise funds from partners interested in helping to build its crypto platform. Ground X Corp., a blockchain subsidiary of Kakao Corp., may initially seek capital and business alliances with consumer-service companies, Jason Han, the unit’s chief executive officer, said in an interview. Ground X is targeting ...

Bloomberg A self-driving shuttle bus ferrying workers in Detroit from a parking garage to their office has become the first autonomous vehicle to ply the roads of America’s automotive capital. May Mobility, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based startup backed by Toyota and BMW, is deploying a small fleet of six-seat, electric-powered shuttles in downtown Detroit to transport the employees of Bedrock, ...

Bloomberg Artificial intelligence is coming for the service economy, according to Allstate Corp. CEO Tom Wilson. “It’s going to rip through this economy like a tsunami,” Wilson said in an interview on Bloomberg TV from Aspen, Colorado. Automation will affect a wide swath of workers, from traders to taxi drivers. McKinsey & Co. estimates that more than 400 million people ...

Bloomberg When Apple Inc. introduced AirPods earbuds in 2016, chief designer Jony Ive hailed the beginning of a new “wireless future”. The company’s devices would connect and charge without fiddly white cords and unsightly plugs and sockets. The next step was wireless charging for the iPhone, the ability to drop Apple’s flagship product on a charging mat and juice it ...

Bloomberg Tesla Inc.’s CEO Elon Musk has called it “ mind-bogglingly stupid” and carmakers have gravitated away from it in recent years. Yet fuel-cell technology — the science behind hydrogen cars that emit only water vapour — is getting fresh impetus. Hyundai Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit plan to team up on vehicle development and share patent licenses ...

Bloomberg Porsche bought a 10 percent stake in Rimac Automobili, a Croatian maker of electric supercars and components, as the German sports car brand looks to accelerate its shift into battery-powered vehicles. “Rimac has impressively demonstrated its credentials in the field of electromobility,” Lutz Meschke, finance chief for the unit of Volkswagen AG, said in a statement. “We feel that ...

Bloomberg Japan is famous as a land of robots, but most of those machines haven’t made their way off of factory floors. That presents an opportunity in a country with a serious labour shortage and a relatively unproductive services sector. Automation is seen as a key to better productivity and higher wages, which would in turn support consumption and help ...

Bloomberg After struggling for years to address complaints with its audio and connectivity systems, Ford Motor Co. achieved its highest-ever ranking this year in a closely watched annual study of new-car quality. Ford’s namesake brand ranked fifth in J.D. Power’s Initial Quality Study, which measures problems per 100 vehicles in first 90 days of ownership. Ford was one of the ...