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Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan pledge $3 billion to cure all diseases Facebook CEO   Mark Zuckerberg   and his wife Priscilla Chan will spend $3 billion over the next ten years on their ambitious goal aimed at helping to eradicate all diseases by the end of this century. The goal is to "work together to cure, prevent or manage all diseases within our children's lifetime," Chan, who is a pediatrician, said during an event in San Francisco for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the couple's philanthropic group. Speaking through tears, Chan recalled telling parents their child had an incurable disease or could not be revived, experiences she said made her even more determined to work with scientists and engineers to build new tools that can save lives by the end of the century. The investments will include creating research tools - from software to hardware to yet-undiscovered techniques - they hope will ultimately lead to scientific breakthroughs, the way the...

Apple sets stage for iPhone 7, many already waiting for 8 The   iPhone 7   is expected to make its global debut on Wednesday, but many consumers and investors are already setting their sights on Apple Inc's 2017 version of the popular gadget, hoping for more significant advances. At its annual product launch in San Francisco on Wednesday, the world's most valuable publicly traded company is expected by blogs and analysts to reveal an   iPhone 7 launch   without a headphone jack, paving the way for wireless headphones, a touch-sensitive home button that vibrates, double-lens cameras for the larger 'Plus' edition and other incremental improvements. Apple typically gives its main product, which accounts for more than half of its revenue, a big makeover every other year and the last major redesign was the iPhone 6, in 2014. The modest updates suggest that this cycle will be three years. "It looks like part of the reason they are keeping the design the same ...

Pfizer nears agreement to buy Medivation for $14 billion US pharmaceutical giant   Pfizer   is nearing a deal to buy US biotech firm Medivation, which specialises in   cancer treatments , for nearly $14 billion, US media reported. Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal said the deal could be made public as early as today. The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said it could be an all-cash transaction. Pfizer's offer for the San Francisco, California-basedMedivatio n goes far beyond the company's market value of $11.1 billion. Medivation shares closed at $67.16 in Friday trading. By purchasing Medivation, Pfizer would add to its portfolio the drug Xtandi, a promising treatment against prostate cancer that analysts estimate will generate some $1.33 billion in annual sales by 2020.   Visit Here

Google launches Duo to take on Apple's FaceTime, Skype Knock, knock, Google's video chatting app has arrived. The app, dubbed Duo, represents   Google Duo   response to other popular video calling options, including Apple's FaceTime, Microsoft's Skype and Facebook's Messenger app. Duo   isn't much different from the other video chatting services, except that it gives a glimpse at who is making the call, helping the recipient decide whether to answer.   Google   calls this feature, "Knock, knock." The new app, announced in May, is being released Tuesday as a free service for phones running on Google's Android operating system as well as Apple's iPhones. Like   FaceTime   for iPhones, Duo only requires a person's phone number to connect. Many other services require both participants to have account logins to use their video calling options. Google has been offering video calling through its Hangout feature for several years, b...

Electric car charging station companies issue warning over VW settlement Electric vehicle charging companies are calling for independent oversight of the $2 billion Volkswagen AG is required to invest in clean car infrastructure, saying   VW   should not have the power to shape the nascent   electric car   charging space. The German automaker agreed to invest the money, which includes $1.2 billion nationally and $800 million in California, as part of its penalties for equipping hundreds of thousands of its diesel vehicles sold in the   United States   with software designed to cheat tailpipe emissions tests. While charging station companies called the money a potential "game changer," they worry that if it is misspent, it could hurt competition. "The agreement shouldn't pick winners and losers, especially given that this emerging market transition will in no small part define 21st century transportation," twenty eight companies, including Char...

GlaxoSmithKline and Alphabet create $715 mln bioelectronics firm GlaxoSmithKline and Alphabet's life sciences unit are creating a new company focused on fighting diseases by targeting electrical signals in the body, jump-starting a new field of medicine known as bioelectronics. Verily Life Sciences   — known as Google's life sciences unit until last year — and Britain's biggest drugmaker will together contribute £540 million ($715.12 million) over seven years to Galvani Bioelectronics, they said on Monday. The new company will be based at GSK's Stevenage research centre north of London, with a second research hub in South San Francisco. GSK   first unveiled its ambitions in   bioelectronics   in a paper in the journal Nature three years ago and believes it is ahead of   Big Pharma   rivals in developing medicines that use electrical impulses rather than traditional chemicals or proteins. For Verily, the tie-up is the latest sign that Google's ...

Facebook's quarterly profit surges 186% to $2 billion Facebook’s profit leapt 186% from a year ago to $2 billion, as the world's biggest social network blasted past most analyst forecasts for the second quarter. With its global base of monthly active users growing to 1.71 billion,   Facebook   saw a 59% jump in total   revenues   to $6.4 billion, mostly from online advertising. Facebook shares jumped seven percent in after-hours trade on the stronger-than-expected results. "Our community and business had another good quarter," said Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. "We're particularly pleased with our progress in video as we move towards a world where video is at the heart of all our services." Facebook has been dominating the social media space as well as related   online advertising   as it seeks to diversify into areas such as messaging, virtual reality and other fields. The research firm eMarketer estimates that Fa...

Oracle ordered to pay HP $3 billion in Itanium case A California jury ordered   Oracle   to pay Hewlett-PackardEnterprise $3 billion in damages in a case over HP's Itanium servers, an Oracle spokeswoman said on Thursday. Oracle said it would appeal the verdict. The Itaniuum processor is made by Intel Inc. Oracle decided to stop developing software for use with HP's Itanium-based servers in 2011, saying that Intel made it clear that the chip was nearing the end of its life and was shifting its focus to its x86 microprocessor. But HP said it had an agreement with Oracle that support for Itanium would continue, without which the equipment using the chip would become obsolete. In the first phase of trial in 2012, Santa Clara Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg ruled that there had been a contract. The jury on Thursday decided damages. "HP is gratified by the jury's verdict, which affirms what HP has always known and the evidence overwhelmingly showed,...

Apple is bringing Siri to Mac & third-party apps, says WSJ Tech giant  Apple  is likely to bring Siri, its computer programme that works as an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator, to the Mac. The company will also give developers access to  Siri  so that they can incorporate it into their apps. The announcement is likely to be made during the week-long Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off Monday, the  Verge  quoted the  Wall Street Journal  as saying. Apple introduced Siri as an  iPhone  feature in 2011, creating a way to find information or complete tasks by speaking to the phone instead of typing or tapping. Siri uses a natural language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of Web services. The software, both in its original version and as an  iOS  feature, adapts to the user's individual language usage and ...

Microsoft to see 1,850 jobs cuts at struggling smartphone unit Microsoft announced more big cuts to its smartphone business on Wednesday, just two years after it bought handset maker Nokia in an ill-fated attempt to take on market leaders Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics. In a move that clearly puts the stamp of two-year chief executive   Satya Nadella   on the US company, Microsoft said it would shed up to 1,850 jobs, most of them in Finland, and write down $950 million from the business. It did not say how many employees currently work on smartphones in the group as a whole. Shares of Microsoft were trading around $52 late Wednesday, roughly flat with their $51.59 close Tuesday, but significantly up from $34.20 when Nadella became CEO in February 2014. Remaking Microsoft, known primarily for its software, into a more device-focused company was a hallmark of previous chief executive Steve Ballmer. In one of his last major acts, Ballmer closed a deal to buy Noki...