Technology

Bloomberg Worldwide smartphone shipments are expected to fall by 11.9% this year — their biggest annual drop ever — indicating things are going to get worse for the industry before they get better. In its latest market forecast, research firm IDC anticipates shipments of 1.2 billion in 2020, down from ...

Bloomberg Sennheiser’s HD 25 headphone was not originally designed for DJs. Though today it’s considered an essential piece of equipment behind the decks—worn by the likes of Calvin Harris, Luciano, Richie Hawtin, Martin Solveig, and scores of other boldface names—they were first designed in 1988 for broadcast booths and recording ...

Bloomberg In the wake of the historic global economic shutdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, governments are unleashing trillions of dollars in a bid to create jobs and spur economic recovery. The scale of this stimulus is unprecedented, in some cases amounting to more than 10% of countries’ gross ...

Bloomberg Zoom Video Communications Inc. soared to a record with a rally in the last hour of trading helping the company close with a market value above $50 billion for the first time. The maker of video conferencing software rose 9.7% to $179.48, giving it a market value of $50.6 ...

Bloomberg As Japan’s second female astronaut to fly up in the Space Shuttle Discovery, Naoko Yamazaki didn’t expect to spend a quarter of her time dusting, feeding mice and doing other menial jobs. It can cost more than $430 million a year to keep an astronaut in orbit, according to ...

Bloomberg Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp are in firing line as Europe’s leading privacy watchdog for US tech giants edges closer to delivering its first major sanctions under the region’s tough data-protection rules. The Irish Data Protection Commission said on May 22 that it finalized a draft decision linked ...

Bloomberg In recent months, Audible, the audiobook service owned by Amazon.com Inc., has been meeting with talent agencies and producers to discuss acquiring potential new podcast projects—or, in the terminology that Audible prefers, “Audible Originals.” Audible is offering anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to a few million dollars ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc. plans to hire more remote workers in areas where the company doesn’t have an office, and let some current employees work from home permanently if they’d like to. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said the firm plans to “aggressively open up remote hiring” starting immediately with the ...

Bloomberg With much of the US and Europe in lockdown, video-game use has exploded. It’s become a way for millions of quarantined people to pass the time and stay connected to others without spreading coronavirus — and health officials have applauded the idea. But for some percentage of users, the ...

Bloomberg Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to spend $12 billion building a chip plant in Arizona, a decision designed to allay US national security concerns and shift more high-tech manufacturing to America. TSMC said it will start construction of its next major fabrication facility in 2021, to be completed by ...