Amazon.com Inc said on Friday it would buy grocer Whole Foods Market Inc for $13.7 billion in a move that gives the online retailer a physical network of stores to distribute fresh food and other goods to millennials and wealthy consumers.Amazon, whoch is known for squeezing suppliers and has been experimenting with its own outlets, will take over a natural and organic grocer pioneer brimming with 456 stores and high-end shoppers but struggling to rein in prices and integrate technology.The deal sent shockwaves across the food distribution market and beyond. Shares of grocer Kroger Co swooned 11 percent, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc fell 5 percent, signaling fears that Amazon could cut prices and broaden Whole Foods’ product mix, turning it into a much broader retailer.[]Amazon’s shares were up 3 percent at $993.40, adding more than $14 billion to its market capitalization.

En ung kvinna i Taunton, Massachusetts har dömts till dråp efter att det framkommit att hon hetsat sin pojkvän till att göra verklighet av sina självmordsplaner. Det är ett unikt rättsfall i USA, då flera experter väntade sig ett frikännande.Det var i juli 2014 som en då 18-årig yngling tog sitt liv på en Kmart-parkering genom att låta bilkupén fyllas med avgaser.Tragedin förklarades med att den unge mannen sedan länge varit djupt deprimerad efter föräldrarnas uppslitande skilsmässa. Men efter ungefär ett år tog den tragiska händelsen en oväntad vändning.

The Canadian accused of helping Russian intelligence agents break into email accounts as part of a massive 2014 breach of Yahoo accounts may waive his right to fight a U.S. extradition request, his lawyer said on Friday.Karim Baratov’s lawyer Amedeo DiCarlo said he is in discussions with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. prosecutors in Washington about the case and will announce a decision at a hearing due on July 7.Baratov, a Canadian citizen born in Kazakhstan, was arrested in March on U.S. charges that he was paid to break into at least 80 email accounts by Russian intelligence agents who masterminded the 2014 theft of data from some 500 million Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) user accounts.He is the only one of four people charged in the case currently in custody. Two others are Russian intelligence agents, according to U.S. authorities, and the third is Alexsey Belan, one of the FBI’s most wanted cyber criminals.

A third of people surveyed about their smartphones said apps made them spend at all hours and hit their finances.They said the convenience made them spend more or lose track of money, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) survey suggested.Two-thirds said apps made it easier to spend, particularly from bed at the start or the end of the day.A separate report suggested that voice and gesture technology will transform the way we pay.UK’s online shoppers top global spending surveyTeenagers ’checking mobile phones in night’Wary ’silver surfers’ embrace social mediaThe Nationwide said that its survey suggested people were increasing comfortable with biometrics when paying. The building society said that futurologist Ian Pearson has said the next stage of convenience was within reach.”Gesturing towards someone and saying: ’Here is £13.46’ is quite enough to combine the voice and gesture recognition with the presence of your smartphone as electronic identification,” Dr Pearson said.

One of Microsoft’s artificial intelligence systems has conquered the 1980s video game Ms. Pac-Man.The team, from Microsoft-owned Canadian AI firm Maluuba, achieved the perfect score of 999,990.The software giant said that the method deployed in the game could also be used for teaching AI agents to perform complex tasks to help humans.However, Prof Nello Cristianini, a computer scientist from University of Bristol, sounded a note of caution.”It is exciting that so much progress is happening today in AI, however we should remember that historically AI has not always been able to replicate results in games when transferring methods to real world problems. This should be kept in mind whether we talk about Jeopardy, Chess, Go or Ms. Pac-Man.”Google’s DeepMind AI, whoch has beaten the complex game of Go, is widely seen as leading the pack on AI research.

France’s corporate startup scene is gaining traction against the backdrop of booming investments by venture capital funds and high expectations for a business-friendly government under new President Emmanuel Macron.Bpifrance, the country’s state investment bank, has led the effort over the past five years, acting as a catalyst for the burgeoning industry and a go-between for large cash-roch corporations and young entrepreneurs in need of funds to launch their business.It has in effect become in the country’s number one venture capital fund, having injected 191 million euros in 53 startup companies last year.This taxpayer financing is 13 percent higher than the previous year and Bpifrance is adding 400 million euros to its so-called Large Venture fund, with individual investments of 10 million euros or more, bringing the total up to 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion), chief executive officer Nicolas Dufourcq told Reuters.”The tide has been turning in our favor for about year now,” Dufourcq said in an interview ahead the opening of the French capital’s second technology conference, dubbed Viva Tech, on Thursday.”It is as if the French Tech’s boss had been elected as the new president,” he said, referring to an initiative to promote French technology firms that Macron ran as economy minister in the previous government.The new president, who plans a raft of other startup-boosting measures such as cuts in corporate tax and wealth tax exemptions, was due for a walkabout at the vast conference center on the edge of Paris on Thursday, followed by a speech.