San Francisco / AFP The tablet market shrank in the recently-ended quarter, as shipments of bargain-priced computers with detachable screens hit a record high, according to market analysis firm International Data Corporation. Tablet makers shipped 43 million units in the quarter, down 14.7 percent from the number shipped in the same period a year earlier, according to an IDC …

  Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. is offering up a new server design that it hopes will influence the rest of the data-center industry, a move that keeps pressure on hardware vendors like Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. to lower the price of cloud infrastructure. An earlier design by Microsoft now accounts for 90 percent of the company’s data center server purchases, underscoring …

  Emirates Business BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest miner, is hot for electric vehicles. The Melbourne-based resources giant, which mines metals and coal used for both steelmaking and fueling power plants, is increasingly optimistic that there’ll be a surge in demand for some of its products as consumers opt for electric vehicles, or EVs, and other renewable energy technologies. …