Ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc. has conceded defeat in its battle against the state of California, applying for a permit to test its self-driving vehicles on the streets of San Francisco despite previously arguing that it didn’t require one. Uber first deployed its test vehicles on San Francisco streets back in December with mixed results, ...

Line Corp. is moving into artificial intelligence with the acquisition Thursday of a controlling stake in the Japanese holographic AI firm Vinclu. Line, best-known in Asia for its social chat app, said at Mobile World Congress that it intends to launch a Siri-like chatbot later this year. Founded in 2014, Vinclu designs, develops, and manufactures smartphone ...

Outgoing Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer is giving up her 2016 bonus and any stock award for this year in the wake of the disastrous hacking scandals that plagued the company in 2016. Mayer’s seemingly benevolent gesture was made at the same time the company, soon to be acquired by Verizon Communications Inc. ...

New research from TeamSIK, a group of security professionals from the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in Germany, has found that popular Android password managers suffer from serious vulnerabilities that can expose user credentials. The research tested nine Android password managers:, My Passwords, Informaticore Password Manager, LastPass, Keeper, F-Secure KEY, Dashlane, Hide Pictures Keep Safe Vault, ...

Drone company Lily Robotics Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after it ceased trading in January and promised to refund pre-orders from more than 60,000 customers. The company, founded in 2013, had promised via a crowdfunding campaign to deliver a self-flying camera drone that was in theory capable of following and recording users wherever they went, negating ...

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., Accenture PLC and others have joined forces to establish the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, a new body dedicated to developing Ethereum into an enterprise-grade blockchain platform. Backed by more than 30 firms, including Credit Suisse, UBS, Bank of New York Mellon and Thomson Reuters, the alliance connects Fortune 500 enterprises, startups, ...

Amazon Web Services is developing a commercial version of Alexa designed to manage call centers, according to a report from The Information. The report claims the Alexa-powered platform, currently code-named “Lily,” will be able to answer some questions asked by incoming phone calls as well as via text message with the support of Lex, a chatbot building service that ...

Palo Alto Networks Inc. on Tuesday acquired behavioral attack detection firm LightCyber Ltd. for $105 million in an all-cash deal. But just a few hours later, the maker of security firewalls reported second-quarter revenues that missed Wall Street forecasts. The company also provided fiscal third-quarter guidance substantially short of forecasts, with Chief Executive Mark McLaughlin reporting “execution ...

Artificial intelligence-based hiring platform startup Belong Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. has raised a $10 million later-stage funding round led by Sequoia Capital India. Founded in 2014, the Bangalore-based company claims to help organizations discover, engage and hire relevant talent at the right time using a data-driven solution. The company says its solution helps hiring teams spot ...

A massive data breach at a company that produces Internet-connected toys has exposed passwords, emails and more than 2 million private recorded messages between parents and their children. The breach, discovered by security researcher Troy Hunt, involved data coming from Spiral Toys Inc., the company behind Internet-connected stuffed teddy bears sold under the name of CloudPets ...