ELECTRONICS
App store popular
Apple said people spent more than $10 billion in its app store in 2013, on apps such as Minecraft, Angry Birds Star Wars and Sleep Cycle alarm clock.
December was the most successful month in the store’s history, as customers spent $1 billion that month. Apple says the year’s total was also a record.
There are more than a million apps available in the app store for the iPhone, the iPad and the iPod Touch. Besides games, there are newspapers, magazines, travel, business and health and fitness apps, among others.
Apple launched the app store in 2008, a year after the iPhone with 500 apps.
FOOD
Change in treatment
Smithfield Foods is recommending that its contract growers phase out the practice of keeping female hogs in small metal crates while pregnant.
The world’s largest pork producer is asking the growers to move pregnant sows from gestation crates to group housing by 2022.
Smithfield has been criticized for continuing to breed sows in the crates that severely restrict the animals’ movement.
The company previously announced that it was phasing out the practice at its U.S. facilities by 2017. It has transitioned 54 percent of its pregnant sows to group housing so far.
— Bloomberg News