Technology

Bloomberg BMW AG offered another glimpse of its futuristic self-driving iNext car as the German manufacturer seeks to gain momentum in the race to overtake rival Mercedes-Benz in luxury car sales. The company, showing the iNext in a copper-colored version for the first time in 2016, will offer a more concrete concept of the vehicle this year, Chief Executive Officer ...

Bloomberg The first video-game built using technology developed by Improbable Worlds Ltd., the virtual reality startup backed by SoftBank Group Corp., has been released by British developer Bossa Studios. Worlds Adrift uses Improbable’s SpatialOS software, which lets programmers create realistic simulations of massive scale and complexity and run across a cloud-computing network. Softbank acquired a non-controlling stake in London-based Improbable ...

Bloomberg At Memphis International Airport, drones may soon be inspecting planes and delivering airplane parts for FedEx Corp. In Reno, Nevada, they will test airlifting life-saving defibrillators to patients. And customers in Virginia could get goods they ordered from Alphabet Inc.’s flying devices. A who’s who of technology and aviation companies won US approval on May 9 to push the ...

Bloomberg Looking to sell its customers on the latest and greatest smart-home technology, builder Lennar Corp. flirted with Siri. Now it’s decided to go steady with Alexa. Lennar’s model homes — equipped with video doorbells, Sonos speakers and Amazon.com Inc.’s voice-activated Echo (known by its wake-word, “Alexa”) — will double as Amazon Experience Centers, the tech giant said. The builder, ...

Bloomberg Wells Fargo & Co. is adding a new tool to make its mobile app easier to use as the bank tries to keep Silicon Valley innovators from stealing more customers. “Pay with Wells Fargo” will be an option on the app’s home screen that lets customers select their most commonly used features, such as the peer-to-peer payment service Zelle, ...

Bloomberg NASA is working toward a future when humans will walk on the surface of Mars. But first it’s going to try flying a drone through the air. The Mars Helicopter, a small, self-flying aircraft designed specifically for the Red Planet, will be included in the space agency’s next rover mission in 2020 to beam back a birds-eye view of ...

Bloomberg The most talked-about, futuristic product from Google’s developer show isn’t even finished — but it’s already stoking heated debate. At its I/O conference, Alphabet Inc.’s Google previewed Duplex, an experimental service that lets its voice-based digital assistant book appointments on its own. It was part of a slate of features, such as automated writing in emails, where Google touted ...

Bloomberg Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launched its more reusable rocket for the first time, a major step forward in reducing the cost of the closely held company’s missions. The Falcon 9 Block 5 carried Bangladesh’s first geostationary communications satellite towards orbit. It’s the latest major upgrade by SpaceX to its workhorse rocket and is built to handle at least 10 ...

Bloomberg A series of high-profile accidents involving self-driving cars are slowing the mad rush into the autonomous vehicles business, according to a report issued. The accidents, some of them fatal, have ignited a debate about how to regulate the safety of self-driving vehicles and tempered the public’s expectations, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said. They’ve also exposed the downside of rushing ...

Bloomberg Google is secretly building a social-gaming startup, part of its effort to create fledgling companies within the internet-search giant. The founder and co-owner of the new firm, called Arcade, is Michael Sayman, according to people familiar with the matter. Sayman is the 21-year-old wunderkind who started as a Facebook Inc. intern at age 17 and left that company for ...