By DEE-ANN DURBIN AP Business Writer Airbnb says it is laying off 25% of its workforce as it confronts a steep decline in global travel due to the new coronavirus pandemic. It’s a serious setback for the 12-year-old home-sharing company, which just a few months ago was valued at $31 billion and planning a hotly […]
News
By MATT O’BRIEN and CHRISTINA LARSON Associated Press As governments around the world consider how to monitor new coronavirus outbreaks while reopening their societies, many are starting to bet on smartphone apps to help stanch the pandemic. But their decisions on which technologies to use — and how far those allow authorities to peer into […]
By JOSEPH PISANI AP Retail Writer NEW YORK (AP) — An Amazon executive said he quit his job at the online-retail giant to protest the firing of employees who spoke up about the conditions inside the company’s warehouses and its record on climate change. Tim Bray, a vice president at the company, wrote in a […]
By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer LONDON (AP) — Goodbye lockdown, hello smartphone. As governments race to develop mobile tracing apps to help contain infections, attention is turning to how officials will ensure users’ privacy. The debate is especially urgent in Europe, which has been one of the hardest-hit regions in the world, with nearly […]
By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS Associated Press NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The government of Cyprus is encouraging the voluntary use of a locally developed cellphone application designed to locate people who may have come into contact with someone carrying the coronavirus. The country’s Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy said Saturday that the COVTRACER app, […]
By MARCY GORDON AP Business Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — House lawmakers investigating the market dominance of Big Tech are asking Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to testify to address possible misleading statements by the company on its competition practices. In a letter to Bezos on Friday, leaders of the House Judiciary Committee from both parties are […]
By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO and ALEXANDRA OLSON AP Retail Writers Amazon has spent years honing the business of packing, shipping and delivering millions of products to doorsteps around the world. Now it has a captive audience. With much of the globe in various stages of a lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s largest online […]
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Technology Writer BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — Google reported its weakest revenue growth in nearly five years as the pandemic-driven recession began to shrivel its advertising sales in the first quarter. The January-March earnings for Google parent Alphabet offer a first look at how the digital ad market has fared amid widespread […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co. said Wednesday its operating profit for the first three months of 2020 rose 3.4% from a year earlier driven by increasing demands for computer chips. However, the company predicted its profit would decline in the current quarter with the coronavirus pandemic eating into global sales of smartphones, […]
By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer DETROIT (AP) — After testing on public roads, Tesla is rolling out a new feature of its partially automated driving system designed to spot stop signs and traffic signals. The update of the electric car company’s cruise control and auto-steer systems is a step toward CEO Elon Musk’s pledge […]