Technology

Bloomberg Apple Inc. said it plans new features to help parents control how children use its smartphones, responding to criticism from two shareholders about the entrancing qualities and potential mental health impact of the company’s iPhone. “Apple has always looked out for kids, and we work hard to create powerful products that inspire, entertain, and educate children while also helping ...

Bloomberg Mazda Motor Corp. stopped selling rotary engines in 2012 after spending nearly half a century trying to perfect them. The company is reviving the classic technology now in what seems like an unlikely place: battery-powered, self-driving vehicles it’s developing with Toyota Motor Corp. to deliver everything from pizza to people. Mazda will provide rotary engines to run generators that ...

Bloomberg Even as we flirt with Jetsons-style bathrooms hooked up to digital assistants and breakneck races of flying “cars,” one thing remains clear: Despite ever-improving technology, our nostalgia-tuned minds remain glued to the rear-view mirror. At CES, Kodak made that abundantly clear when it revealed footage from its hotly-anticipated reboot of the Super 8 camera, which revolutionised amateur filmmaking when ...

Bloomberg Next year, General Motors Co. will no longer need an engineer in the front seat babysitting the robot brain that controls its self-driving Chevrolet Bolt. The steering wheel and pedals will be gone, giving total control to the machine. When GM starts testing its autonomous electric sedan in San Francisco ride-sharing fleets, it’ll likely be the first production-ready car ...

Bloomberg Nvidia Corp., trying to spread its industry-leading graphics chip technology into new areas, said Uber Technologies Inc. and Volkswagen AG will use its artificial intelligence expertise to help bring self-driving cars to the roads. Uber, the largest ride-hailing company, will use Nvidia processors and software for its forthcoming fleet of self-driving vehicles, the chipmaker’s Chief Executive Officer Jen-Hsun Huang ...

Bloomberg Fitbit Inc. is considering developing a wearable device for children, according to people familiar with the matter, as the company struggles to revive demand for its fitness products by pushing into new hardware categories. The product was focussed around health, a sector Fitbit has been increasingly focussed on, according to one of the people. The line of gadgets for ...

Bloomberg The first augmented-reality glasses with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant will be shown next week at CES in Las Vegas—manufactured by a 75-employee company rather than the e-commerce giant’s growing devices division. Vuzix Corp. will show off a pair of smart glasses that can talk to Amazon.com Inc.’s voice-activated digital assistant and display information to the wearer’s field of view, ...

Bloomberg International Business Machines Corp. and Comcast Corp.’s venture arm will become the largest supporters of an investment fund for startups that help corporations use blockchain, the digital ledger that’s become a hot technology. The startup accelerator, called MState, plans to invest $25,000 to $50,000 apiece in five or six companies over the next six months, co-founder Rob Bailey said. ...

Bloomberg In the future of transportation, what would you get if you mixed the business models of Tesla Inc., Google and Samsung Electronics Co. with the budget of the world’s fifth-biggest automaker? Youngcho Chi is about to find out. Hired from Samsung, Chi has assembled a team of 200 strategists and researchers at Hyundai Motor Co., the 50-year-old South Korean ...

Bloomberg The world’s biggest carmakers and technology companies are spending billions of dollars to perfect your ability to drive without thinking. Nissan Motor Co. is taking a different direction—trying to “decode” your thinking so hands-on driving is more fun. The Japanese company will unveil and test its “brain-to-vehicle” technology at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The “B2V” ...