Humana to cut 3 percent of jobs
The health insurer Humana is cutting about 1,300 positions a couple months after starting an early retirement program.
A spokesman said Tuesday that the positions amount to less than 3 percent of the insurer’s workforce. Those who lose jobs can apply for another position with Humana, which also has 1,450 openings. The final number of cuts has not been determined.
The insurer said more than 1,150 people volunteered for early retirement, and will leave next year.
Humana says the personnel moves were among several measures it is taking to position itself “for long-term sustainable success.”
Twitter doubles character limit
Twitter says it’s ending its iconic 140-character limit – and giving nearly everyone 280 characters.
Users tweeting in Chinese, Japanese and Korean will still have the original limit. That’s because writing in those languages uses fewer characters.
The company says 9 percent of tweets written in English hit the 140-character limit. This causes people to spend more time editing their tweets or not sending them out at all. Twitter hopes that the expanded limit will get more people tweeting more, helping its lackluster user growth. Twitter has been testing the new limit for weeks and is starting to roll it out Tuesday.
The company slowly has been easing restrictions to let people cram more characters into a tweet. It stopped counting polls, photos, videos and other things toward the limit.
VW, Google cooperate on quantum computing
German automaker Volkswagen and Google have announced plans to cooperate in exploring possible uses in the auto industry for quantum computers.
Quantum computing, a technology that’s still in its early phases, uses the quirks of quantum physics to perform calculations at far higher speeds than current computers.
Volkswagen said Tuesday that specialists from the two companies will work together using Google quantum computers, jointly developing algorithms and simulations.
The automaker said it wants to use quantum computers for traffic flow optimization, exploring structures for new materials such as batteries for electric cars, and to develop artificial intelligence that could be used for self-driving vehicles.
Toyota profit up on sales, cost cuts
Toyota Motor Corp. reported Tuesday that it saw a 16 percent gain in fiscal second quarter profit as sales grew and a cheaper yen offset higher marketing costs.
Toyota, Japan’s top automaker, said its July-September profit totaled 458.2 billion yen ($4 billion), up from 393.7 billion yen the same period last year. Quarterly sales grew 10 percent to 7.14 trillion yen ($62.7 billion).
Toyota, which makes the Camry sedan, Lexus luxury models and Prius hybrid, raised its annual profit forecast through March 2018, to 1.95 trillion yen ($17 billion) from the earlier 1.75 trillion yen ($15 billion).
That would be up 6 percent from 1.83 trillion yen it racked up the previous fiscal year.
Consumer borrowing rises to record high
American consumers increased their borrowing by $20.8 billion in September. It was the largest gain in 10 months and was led by a sharp increase in borrowing for auto and student loans.
The September increase followed a gain of $13.8 billion in August and marks the largest monthly increase since a $24.5 billion jump in November 2016, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday.
The category that covers auto and student loans rose by $14.4 billion, nearly double the $7.6 billion gain seen in August. The category that covers credit cards increased $6.4 billion, slightly better than the $5.5 billion August increase.
Consumer borrowing is closely watched for clues about the direction of consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of economic growth.
The September increase pushed total borrowing to a fresh record of $3.79 trillion.