Google is adding features on its Maps service to alert users about COVID-19-related travel restrictions to help them plan their trips better, the Alphabet Inc unit said on Monday. The update would allow users to check how crowded a train station might be at a particular time, or if buses on a certain route are running on a limited schedule, Google said. The transit alerts would be rolled out in Argentina, France, India, Netherlands, the United States and United Kingdom among other countries,...

Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it would await federal regulation before selling facial recognition technology to police, making it the latest big firm to back away from the business following protests against law enforcement brutality and bias. The announcement came shortly after rival Amazon.com Inc declared it was pausing police use of its "Rekognition" service for a year and International Business Machines Corp said it no longer offers the software generally. In a statement, Microsoft...

Spotify has acquired US comedian Joe Rogan's podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience", which will be available on the music streaming platform starting September 1, and will then become exclusive to the platform later this year. The company did not disclose financial details of the multi-year agreement, but the deal is seen as part of the streaming platform's aim to transform itself into the Netflix of audio. Rogan's podcast is downloaded millions of times each month and is routinely featured among...

Facebook beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly revenue on Wednesday and said it has seen “signs of stability” for sales in April after a plunge in March, in yet another indication that tech giants may weather the coronavirus-induced economic collapse better than other sectors. The company said advertising revenue was roughly flat in the first three weeks of April compared with the same period last year, a tentative early sign of recovery following a “steep decrease” in March revenue as...

(Reuters) – Silicon Valley billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg offered dueling views on lockdown measures designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus on Wednesday, with Facebook’s Zuckerberg endorsing the measures while Tesla’s Musk condemned them as anti-democratic. Musk, who has often made outspoken and even inflammatory comments on conference calls and on Twitter, said in comments to analysts on Tesla Inc’s <TSLA.O> earnings call that it was “fascist” to say people cannot leave...