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British broadband provider TalkTalk said on Saturday it did not believe the authors of a cyber attack against it this week would be able to steal money from its customers. The firm said on Friday it had received a ransom demand from an unidentified party claiming responsibility for the cyber attack that may have led to the theft of personal data from its more than 4 million customers. “It is a smaller attack than we had originally thought,” Chief Executive Dido Harding told Sky News.

Google parent Alphabet Inc , Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc made headway in the latest quarter in the areas that will be their main engines of growth for years to come, driving up shares across the tech sector on Friday. For Alphabet, search traffic on mobiles surpassed desktop traffic worldwide for the first time, while Amazon was able to boost margins, an area of concern, as its cloud business boomed. Microsoft's growing emphasis on cloud computing under Chief Executive Satya Nadella also put the company on track successfully transition away from its slowing business that relies on sales of personal computers.

Computer-maker Dell Inc struck a deal on Monday to buy data storage company EMC Corp for $67 billion, setting a record in the technology industry, as it tries to transform itself into a giant in the fast-growing market for managing and storing corporate data. The deal should help privately held Dell, the world's No. 3 computer maker, diversify from a stagnant consumer PC market and give it greater scale in the more profitable and faster-growing market for cloud-based data services. Hewlett-Packard Co, the No. 2 PC maker, is splitting off its computer and printer unit this year to focus on the corporate data business.

(Reuters) – Google Inc has morphed into Alphabet Inc. After U.S. markets closed on Friday, Alphabet replaced Google as the publicly traded company that will house Google's search and Web advertising businesses, maps, YouTube and its “moonshot” ventures such as driverless cars. Google's class A shares and class C shares will automatically convert into the same number of Alphabet class A shares and class C shares and start trading on the Nasdaq from Monday. The structural overhaul, announced in August, is intended to separate the company's core businesses from ventures such as the driverless cars, glucose-monitoring contact lenses and Internet-connected high-altitude balloons.

Europe's antitrust chief dismissed on Friday accusations of anti-U.S. bias over her decision to go after Google for abusing its Internet search dominance and Apple over an Irish tax deal, saying such talk was a fallacy. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager's robust defense of her actions came after she was criticized in the U.S. media for a spate of cases opened over the past year against U.S. giants such as Google, Apple, Amazon and Starbucks. “Some claim that our cases involving Internet giants such as Apple or Google are evidence of bias.

By Julia Love, Siddharth Cavale and Pauline Askin SAN FRANCISCO/SYDNEY (Reuters) – The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus hit stores around the world on Friday, at the start of what is expected to be a record weekend for sales of Apple Inc's marquee product. Eager buyers – joined by at least one robot – flocked to Apple stores from Sydney to New York, itching to get their hands on new models boasting a 3D touch feature and an improved camera. “The first thing I'm going to do is take a picture,” said Lithuanian student Justina Siciunaite, 25, the first of hundreds to emerge with an iPhone 6s from Apple's flagship store on New York's Fifth Avenue.

Hutchison Whampoa Ltd on Friday sought EU approval for its 10.25-billion-pound ($15.82 billion) bid for Telefonica's British mobile unit O2, the same day regulators unveiled a tougher approach towards mergers in the sector. The European Commission said it would decide by Oct. 16 whether to clear the deal, which would make Hutchison's Three UK business the second-biggest of the UK’s three remaining network operators. The EU competition authority could either clear the deal with or without conditions or open an extensive investigation if it has serious concerns.

By Julia Love SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – With its highly profitable iPhone due for an upgrade, Apple is expected to unveil a pair of new handsets at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday, analysts say, in addition to showing off a larger iPad and an updated Apple TV. When Apple executives take the stage at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, investors will be scrutinizing their plans for the next generation of the iPhone, which drove nearly two-thirds of the company's $49.6 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter. Apple is widely expected to keep the size of the phones the same but upgrade it with an improved camera and Force Touch, a display technology that responds differently depending on how hard users press their screens.

Apple has ramped up its hiring of artificial intelligence experts, recruiting from PhD programs, posting dozens of job listings and greatly increasing the size of its AI staff, a review of hiring sites suggests and numerous sources confirm. The goal is to challenge Google in an area the Internet search giant has long dominated: smartphone features that give users what they want before they ask. As part of its push, the company is currently trying to hire at least 86 more employees with expertise in the branch of artificial intelligence known as machine learning, according to a recent analysis of Apple job postings.