Bloomberg IBM is teaming up with Slack Technologies Inc. to make it easier for companies to build custom chatbots into the startup’s workplace-messaging systems, the latest move by Big Blue to add more diverse business cases for its Watson artificial-intelligence technology. The two companies will release a developer toolkit that includes Watson technologies and can integrate easily into Slack, …

  Bloomberg Millennials’ seemingly unquenchable thirst for coffee is helping to push global demand to a record just as supplies are tightening. Americans are becoming java junkies at an earlier age, and young adults are increasing their daily consumption at a fast enough pace to make up for declines by older folks. The result: Demand in the US, the world’s …

  Krefeld / DPA A visit to the Ascot tie and cravat factory in Krefeld, Germany is like stepping back in time, the very building giving the impression of a sobriety alien to today’s start- ups. Silence and concentration reigns among the workers on the factory floor, where only the rattle of the sewing and knitting machines — some of …