As one of the world's richest men and most active philanthropists, Bill Gates usually has his hands full. Just not with poop.So it came as a surprise when the founder of Microsoft brandished a jar of human waste at a forum on the future of the toilet in Beijing on Tuesday.The stunt was an effort to draw attention to a problem affecting developing countries around the world: not enough toilets. Microsoft founder Bill Gates talks next to a container with human feces, a stunt to draw attention to t

NEW YORK (AP) — After a yearlong search for a second home, Amazon is now reportedly looking to build offices in two cities instead of one, a surprise move that could still have a major impact on the communities it ultimately selects.New York’s Long Island City as well as Crystal City in northern Virginia have emerged as the front runners, according to sources familiar with the talks with Amazon.Selecting those areas would bring more jobs to places that already have plenty. Jed Kolko, the chief e

NEW YORK (AP) -- Apple’s new iPads will more closely resemble its latest iPhones as they ditch a home button and fingerprint sensor to make more room for the screen.As with the latest iPhone models — the XR and XS —the new iPad Pro will use facial-recognition technology to unlock the device and to authorize app and Apple Pay purchases.Apple also unveiled new Mac computers, including an overdue refresh of the MacBook Air laptop, now with a high-resolution screen. John Ternus, Apple`s V.P. of Hard

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- IBM said Sunday it has reached a deal to buy open source software company Red Hat for $34 billion, among the biggest tech mergers in history which the computing giant said would enhance its cloud offerings.If approved it will be the third biggest tech merger in history, according to business news site CNBC. Red Hat said it was the biggest involving a software company.The deal will see IBM acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190 per share in

NEW YORK (AP) -- Amazon reported another record quarterly profit Thursday, fueled by the growth of online shopping and its cloud-computing service. But its revenue grew less than Wall Street analysts expected, and Amazon's shares fell after the results were released.   (AP)The company, based in Seattle, has boosted its profitability as it expanded far beyond online shopping. For years, the company posted razor-thin quarterly profits, spending most of what it earned on building warehouses and mak

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (AP) -- Tesla Motors delivered on CEO Elon Musk’s promise to make money during its latest quarter after fulfilling his pledge to boost production of its first electric car designed for the mass market.The company earned $311.5 million during the three months ending in September, swinging from a loss of $619 million at the same time last year. It’s only the third time that Tesla has posted a quarterly profit in its eight-year history as a public company and the first time in

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday said the United States needs a federal privacy law to protect the personal data of internet users."We at Apple are in full support of a comprehensive federal privacy law in the United States," Cook told a conference in Brussels.He said such a law should allow for personal data to be minimized and force companies to de-identify customer data or not collect them in the first place.Users should also have the right to know what data are being collected and what for, a

Rebecca Witzofsky, a 20-year-old deaf student at Gallaudet University in Washington, and her hearing friend Nikolas Carapellatti wanted to get a coffee. But on Tuesday, Witzofsky finally didn't have to struggle to make her order understood.US coffee giant Starbucks opened its first "signing store" in the United States in northeast Washington near the campus of Gallaudet, the world's only university with an entire curriculum designed to accommodate the deaf and hard-of-hearing.At the store, all s

Apple offers you a simple trade-off with its new iPhone XR, the middlebrow cousin to the top-of-the-line iPhone XS.On one hand, the XR lacks the high-resolution screen and dual-lens camera found on the XS. On the other, you’d save at least $250 and still get most of the other cutting-edge features found on the more expensive model. (AP)Based on several days of testing, it looks like Apple made the right cost-cutting trade-offs with the XR, which starts selling Friday for about $750. The standard

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said in an interview for publication Sunday he backed a global minimum fiscal regime for multinationals as Europe looks to levy tax notably on US tech giants."We need a minumum tax rate valid globally which no state can get out of (applying)," Scholz, a social democrat in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government, told the "Welt am Sonntag" weekly.Europe is trying to devise a strategy to tax profits from the likes of Google, Amazon, Facebook

BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that there was "still a chance" for an accord with Britain to leave the EU but that Berlin was preparing for a no-deal Brexit. German chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for a session of the German parliament ahead of an EU summit focused on Brexit, on October 17, 2018 in Berlin. (AFP)"There is still a chance to achieve a good and sustainable exit accord," Merkel told parliament ahead of a crunch EU summit in Brussels that will focus on Brexit

NEW YORK (AP) -- Facebook says it has purged more than 800 US pages and accounts for spamming users with garbage links and clickbait.Facebook accuses their backers of "coordinated inauthentic behavior" for setting up networks of pages and accounts designed to mislead users about who they are and what they're doing. (AFP)The social network says these accounts spread "sensational political content" designed to drive people to ad-laden websites outside Facebook. In the past, such spammers have ofte

NEW YORK (AFP) -- Wall Street stocks plummeted Wednesday amid worries about surging US interest rates and the impact of trade disputes, as President Donald Trump blamed the Federal Reserve, saying it had "gone crazy."US shares suffered a broad-based selloff that slashed more than three percent from major indices."I think the Fed is making a mistake. It's so tight. I think the Fed has gone crazy," Trump told reporters shortly after markets closed, as he arrived in Erie, Pennsylvania for a rally.(

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Netflix has chosen New Mexico as the site of a new U.S. production hub and is in final negotiations to buy an existing multimillion-dollar studio complex on the edge of the state's largest city, government and corporate leaders announced Monday.It's the company's first purchase of such a property, and upcoming production work in Albuquerque and at other spots around New Mexico is forecast to result in $1 billion in spending over the next decade. Netflix logo (AP)More tha

The Latest on Elon Musk's settlement with U.S. regulators to remain at the company (all times local):5:40 a.m.Shares in Tesla are surging in premarket trading after founder Elon Musk reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that will keep him at the company as CEO.The price of Tesla shares was up 16 percent in electronic trading a couple hours before the stock market was due to open Monday. On Friday, it had plunged 13.9 percent to close at $264.77 a share.Under the settl