Reuters - Technology Report

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Thursday, September 21, 2017

Road to electric car paradise paved with handouts

JUDABERG, Norway (Reuters) - The Norwegian island of Finnoey has the highest density of electric cars in the world. The reason? They are exempt from the $6,000-a-year toll charges for the tunnel to the mainland.

What is at stake for Uber in U.S. bribery probe?

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. bribery investigation at ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] will likely go on for a year or more and could lead to snowballing legal and compliance costs if lawyers find systemic problems.

Twitter to meet Congressional panel probing 2016 election

(Reuters) - Twitter Inc representatives will meet with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence staff next week in relation to inquiries into the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a company representative said.

Saudi is lifting Skype, WhatsApp ban, but will censor calls

RIYADH (Reuters) - The Saudi government is lifting a ban on calls made through online apps on Thursday but will monitor and censor them, a government spokesman said.

China's Baidu launches $1.5 billion autonomous driving fund

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese search engine Baidu Inc announced a 10 billion yuan ($1.52 billion) autonomous driving fund on Thursday as part of a wider plan to speed up its technical development and compete with U.S. rivals.

Distrustful U.S. allies force spy agency to back down in encryption row

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An international group of cryptography experts has forced the U.S. National Security Agency to back down over two data encryption techniques it wanted set as global industry standards, reflecting deep mistrust among close U.S. allies.

Google bets anew on smartphones, pays $1.1 billion for HTC's Pixel division

TAIPEI/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google said it would pay $1.1 billion for the division at Taiwan's HTC Corp that develops the U.S. firm's Pixel smartphones - its second major foray into phone hardware after an earlier costly failure.

Toshiba, keen to seal $18 billion chips sale, wrestles with last-minute delays

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp is locked in last minute discussions over "key issues" with the would-be buyers of its $18 billion memory chip business led by U.S. private equity firm Bain, potentially delaying a formal agreement on the sale.

Swisscom sets up blockchain unit to develop apps in Switzerland

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swisscom is establishing a new blockchain unit to develop applications, including for possible solutions to enable off-exchange trading, the Swiss government-owned phone company said on Thursday.

Equifax says server first compromised on March 10

(Reuters) - Equifax Inc said on Wednesday that investigators had determined that an online dispute website at the heart of the theft of some 143 million consumer records was initially compromised by hackers on March 10, four months before the company noticed any suspicious activity.