Of all the economic questions being debated today, the most frightening one is “Will the robots take our jobs?” This nightmare scenario comes in several flavors. The extreme version is that automation simply makes human workers obsolete, just as cars made horses redundant. A less apocalyptic possibility is what economists call “skill-biased technological change” — people who are technically …

  Bloomberg Bitcoin technology is starting to seep into the electricity business, shaking up the way payments are managed every time a light switch is flipped. From New York to Vienna, researchers and utilities are adapting the cloud-based ledger system used to track bitcoins as a replacement for slower administrative systems that require constant human input and multiple spreadsheets. Once …

  Bloomberg HP Inc. sees its future in copiers and printers. The personal-computer maker has agreed to buy Samsung Electronics Co.’s printer business for $1.05 billion, betting that it can grab share and generate income, even in a shrinking global market. The deal will add to earnings in the first full year, Palo Alto, California-based HP said in a statement …