A trial program in the U.K. lets Nissan Leaf owners draw on the car’s bi-directional charging to help stabilize power supplies
By Rachel Morison
The Nissan Leaf sitting in Paul Kershaw’s driveway outside Cambridge, England, might look like just another car, waiting for its driver to take it for a spin. But the electric vehicle has been more than a means of transportation. It’s also powered appliances, streetlights and other grid-reliant machinery in the neighborhood.
The exchange of power is part of a trial launched in 2019 by Ovo Energy Ltd., the U.K.’s second biggest energy supplier. When Kershaw heard about the program, he applied to be one of 330 people to register his car as an energy-storage device. “I use…
By Brendan Case
Big Tech is flocking to Austin. Big Finance is expanding in Dallas. Houston, the epicenter of the U.S. energy industry, is diversifying away from Big Oil.
Florida may be the destination of choice for A-list money managers looking to flee Wall Street. But in the post-pandemic economy, Texas is rising, welcoming a rush of talented, wealthy people from California, New York and Illinois with the lure of lower taxes, luxury suburbs and opportunities to invest their cash — even as state lawmakers cast a wary eye at their potential blue-state politics.
Hundreds of former employees have left to create their own studios where they can make beloved real-time-strategy video games like Warcraft
By Jason Schreier
In recent years, a stream of developers and executives from top video game publisher Blizzard have left to create their own studios, seeking the creative freedom and autonomy they feel is no longer possible at a company chasing mega hits.
Now an alumni network, affectionately dubbed Blizzard 2.0 by some in the gaming community, has sprung up in Irvine, California, the same town where Blizzard has a sprawling campus. Hundreds of ex-employees, including the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer for decades, have spread out there across a half a dozen independent studios.
Without the best-selling brands…
By Fabiana Batista, Michael Hirtzer and Mike Dorning
A cyberattack on JBS SA, the largest meat producer globally, forced the shutdown of all its U.S. beef plants, wiping out output from facilities that supply almost a quarter of American supplies.
All of the company’s fed-beef and regional beef plants were forced to shutter, and all other JBS meatpacking facilities in the country experienced some level of disruption to operations, according to an official with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
JBS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. …
Automating much of its operations could help the company lower prices and appeal to a mass market. But Instacart needs industry buy-in.
By Spencer Soper, Jackie Davalos and Matthew Boyle
Instacart Inc. has an audacious plan to replace its army of gig shoppers with robots — part of a long-term strategy to cut costs and put its relationship with supermarket chains on a sustainable footing.
The plan, detailed in documents reviewed by Bloomberg, involves building automated fulfillment centers around the U.S., where hundreds of robots would fetch boxes of cereal and cans of soup while humans gather produce and deli products. …
Policymakers learned the lessons of 2008 and deployed a wider set of tools to help repair the damage from Covid. They know how to create a recovery, but can they manage the boom?
By Matthew Boesler
Once ideas about how to manage the economy become entrenched, it can take generations to dislodge them. Something big usually has to happen to jolt policy onto a different track. Something like Covid-19.
In 2020, when the pandemic hit and economies around the world went into lockdown, policymakers effectively short-circuited the business cycle without thinking twice. In the U.S. in particular, a blitz of public spending pulled the economy out of the deepest slump on record — faster than almost anyone expected — and put it on the verge of a boom. …
Moxie Marlinspike, a legendary coder and privacy advocate, takes on Big Tech and internal dissent
By Ryan Gallagher
The encrypted messaging company Signal has long been popular with activists, investigative journalists, politicians and assorted law enforcement officials because of its emphasis on privacy and security. Its growth was steady — but slow.
Then came Christmas break. Employees returned from the holidays to an unexpected surge in new users that overwhelmed Signal’s servers and sent engineers racing to increase capacity.
The catalyst was a backlash against rival WhatsApp, which announced an updated privacy policy that included sharing some user account details with its parent company, Facebook Inc., turning off some of its 2 billion-plus users…
By Diederik Baazil, Hugo Miller and Laura Hurst
Royal Dutch Shell Plc was ordered by a Dutch court to slash its emissions harder and faster than planned, a ruling that could have far-reaching consequences for the rest of the global fossil fuel industry.
Shell, which said it expects to appeal the ruling, has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% within a decade, and to net-zero before 2050. That’s not enough, a court in The Hague ruled Wednesday, ordering the oil producer to slash emissions 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.
The court said the ruling applies…
By Takashi Mochizuki and Debby Wu
Nintendo Co. plans to begin assembly of its new Switch as soon as July and release the upgraded replacement for its four-year-old game console in September or October, people familiar with the matter said.
The new console, likely to be priced higher than the $299 original, may be announced ahead of the E3 conference starting June 12 to allow publishers to showcase their full range of Switch games at the global event, the people said, asking not to be named because the plans are not yet public. …
The pandemic has drawn an infusion of capital to young companies looking to solve old problems
By John Tozzi
Investors are pouring a record amount of money into young companies trying to transform U.S. health care at an accelerating pace.
Spurred by the pandemic, private funding for health-care companies has reached new highs every quarter since Covid-19 emerged. Investors steered a record $6.7 billion to U.S. digital health startups in the first three months of 2021, according to venture firm and researcher Rock Health. In 2011, Rock Health tracked $1.1 billion invested in digital health for the entire year.
The flood of money is getting attention from new corners. JPMorgan Chase & Co. last week announced…
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