Tech review: Amazon, Starbucks team for NYC store

Amazon and Starbucks are leveraging their retail technology to open a combination café and convenience store in Manhattan. The Starbucks Pickup and Amazon Go store combines the convenience of Starbucks’ order-ahead app with Amazon’s cashierless Just Walk Out technology, where items removed from shelves are automatically charged to shoppers’ accounts. The store, at East 59th Street between Park and Lexington avenues, includes the full Starbucks menu and Amazon Go selections such as salads, snacks, baked goods and sandwiches. The store has a lounge-type seating area with power outlets and USB ports. Amazon and Starbucks plan to open at least two more combined stores in New York next year.

Adele brings order to Spotify

When Adele sings, people listen. When Adele tweets, Spotify listens. The singer, whose new album "30" debuted with more than 60 million streams on Spotify, requested that the service remove the "shuffle" button that reorders the track listing of albums. "We don’t create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason," Adele tweeted. Spotify listened and complied, tweeting back, "Anything for you."

Violent video games and kids

For parents worried that violent video games will have an adverse effect on their kids, new research paints a mixed picture. A study in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization found no evidence that boys ages 8-18 were increasingly violent against other people after playing a violent game. But parents told researchers that their kids "were more likely to destroy things" after playing a violent video game.

Dating app advocates for women

Match Group launched an advertising campaign urging users of its dating apps to call their congressional representatives and advocate for reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The campaign will appear on the company’s apps, such as Tinder and OkCupid. The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which expired in 2019, would mean funding and housing protections for survivors of domestic abuse.

— BLOOMBERG NEWS