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Tesla Motors Inc reported a steeper than expected quarterly loss on Wednesday on higher spending at its vehicle and battery factories, even as the company said it planned to accelerate store openings around the world. The 13th straight quarterly loss for the Silicon Valley electric carmaker underscores the financial hurdles that hamper it while it takes on increasingly ambitious goals – a ten-fold ramp of vehicle production in three years and the recent plan to acquire solar panel installer SolarCity Corp . Tesla, led by entrepreneur Elon Musk, said it was still on track to deliver about 50,000 new Model S and Model X vehicles during the second half of 2016, and reiterated that it would spend $2.25 billion in capital expenditures in 2016 to prepare for its upcoming Model 3 sedan.

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By Joseph Menn and Yeganeh Torbati SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iranian hackers have compromised more than a dozen accounts on the Telegram instant messaging service and identified the phone numbers of 15 million Iranian users, the largest known breach of the encrypted communications system, cyber researchers told Reuters. The attacks, which took place this year and have not been previously reported, jeopardized the communications of activists, journalists and other people in sensitive positions in Iran, where Telegram is used by some 20 million people, said independent cyber researcher Collin Anderson and Amnesty International technologist Claudio Guarnieri, who have been studying Iranian hacking groups for three years. Telegram promotes itself as an ultra secure instant messaging system because all data is encrypted from start to finish, known in the industry as end-to-end encryption.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ride-hailing service Uber [UBER.UL] has decided to invest $500 million into an ambitious global mapping project to wean itself off dependence on Google Maps and pave the way for driverless cars, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The San Francisco-based company is ramping up spending in new technologies such as mapping and driverless cars following new investments into the company earlier this year. A representative for Uber could not immediately be reached for comment. (Reporting by Catherine Ngai; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ride-hailing service Uber [UBER.UL] has decided to invest $500 million into an ambitious global mapping project to wean itself off dependence on Google Maps and pave the way for driverless cars, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The San Francisco-based company is ramping up spending in new technologies such as mapping and driverless cars following new investments into the company earlier this year. A representative for Uber could not immediately be reached for comment. (Reporting by Catherine Ngai; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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By Mark Hosenball, Joseph Menn and John Walcott WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A computer network used by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The latest attack, which was disclosed to Reuters on Friday, follows two other hacks on the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, and the party’s fundraising committee for candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. A Clinton campaign spokesman said in a statement late on Friday that an analytics data program maintained by the DNC and used by the campaign and a number of other entities “was accessed as part of the DNC hack.” “Our campaign computer system has been under review by outside cyber security experts.

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As iPhone sales declined for the second straight quarter, Apple CEO Tim Cook peeled back the curtain ever so slightly on its work in artificial intelligence and augmented reality, aiming to reassure investors that the company is ready to ride the next wave of technology. Raving about hit smartphone game Pokemon GO, Cook stressed that Apple is “high on [augmented reality] for the long-run” and investing heavily. Augmented reality, in which computer-generated content is overlaid on the real world, is one of the latest fixations in the technology business, with Pokemon GO among the first applications to catch on.

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Verizon Communications Inc said on Monday it would buy Yahoo Inc's core internet properties for $4.83 billion in cash to expand its digital advertising and media business, ending a lengthy sale process for the fading Web pioneer. The purchase will boost Verizon's AOL internet business, which it bought last year for $4.4 billion, as it gains access to Yahoo's ad technology tools, BrightRoll and Flurry, and search, mail and messenger assets. “Yahoo gives us scale that is what is most critical here, Marni Walden, who is head of product innovation and new business at Verizon told CNBC, adding that the company's audience will go from the millions to the billions.

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(Reuters) – Two youths unaware of their surroundings when they were playing Pokemon GO on their cell phones made an illegal border crossing this week from Canada into the United States in a remote part of Montana, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said. The two, who were not identified, were found by U.S. Border Patrol agents on Thursday, with their attention affixed to their phones as they were trying to hunt down cartoon characters on a journey that took them over the border. “Both juveniles were so captivated by their Pokemon GO games that they lost track of where they were,” said Michael Rappold, a spokesman for the agency.

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By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Friday pressed major U.S. phone companies to take immediate steps to make technology that blocks unwanted automated calls available to consumers at no charge. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, in letters to CEOs of major phone companies, said so-called robocalls, automated pre-recorded telephone calls often from telemarketers or scam artists, continue “due in large part to industry inaction.” Wheeler's letters went to chief executives of companies including Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Inc, Sprint Corp, US Cellular Corp, Level 3 Communications Inc, Frontier Communications Corp, Bandwidth.com Inc, and T-Mobile US.

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Gamers in Japan, home of Nintendo's Pokemon, are still impatiently awaiting the launch of the smash-hit Pokemon GO game but the government is already preparing for an invasion of little cartoon monsters, issuing a safety warning. The country's National Center for Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) issued nine instructions to users of the mobile game, ranging from advising them not to use their real names to warning gamers over fake apps. It is rare for NISC to issue an advisory over specific games, but Japan is just the latest government to do so over Pokemon GO, a game where users chase cuddly cartoon monsters in their real-life neighborhoods.