A ball boy holds a ball on Court 18 at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, July 3, 2015. Reuters/Henry Browne Deep in the bowels of the All England Club, an army of employees from one of the world’s technology giants are teaching a computer named Watson to master tennis. Seven-times Wimbledon champion Roger Federer can relax though. A silicon-chipped cyborg is not about to wreak havoc […]
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, during a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry as part of nuclear negotiations in Vienna on Friday. By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID E. SANGER July 4, 2015 VIENNA — The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Saturday that, with Iranian cooperation, his agency could complete an assessment on Iran’s suspected past nuclear work by December, potentially removing a major obstacle to a […]
A Swiss man attempting to circumnavigate the globe with an aircraft powered only by the sun’s energy landed in Hawaii on Friday, after a record-breaking five-day nonstop solo flight across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. The Solar Impulse 2 is the first aircraft to fly day and night without any fuel. Pilot Andre Borschberg’s 120-hour voyage shattered the 76-hour record for nonstop flight by late American adventurer […]
Google’s new image-recognition program misfired badly this week by identifying two black people as gorillas, delivering a mortifying reminder that even the most intelligent machines still have lot to learn about human sensitivity. The blunder surfaced in a smartphone screen shot posted online Sunday by a New York man on his Twitter account, @jackyalcine. The images showed the recently released Google Photos app had sorted a picture […]
Innovation key to globalize for top Chinese firms BEIJING, 17 hours, 1 minutes ago Leading Chinese companies are making innovation a strategic priority in their business models to stay competitive in global markets, according to a new report. The Emerging Best Practices of Chinese Globalizers: Develop the Innovation Models report by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Strategy& (a part of the PwC network) was based […]
According to a recently published white paper, cable boxes have the potential to become protocol-agnostic Internet-of-Things (IoT) hubs and in the process begin to address the competing protocols and closed systems that continue to hold back the IoT industry. The paper was written by Susan Crouse, director of product management for Alticast, which sells products and software for multi-screen viewing and TV interactivity. In the white paper, […]
With an up-to-date Android or iOS device, YouTube users can now play back videos at 60 frames per second. Google-owned YouTube rolled out the HFR (high-frame-rate) option for desktop devices last fall, and expanded that to live streaming in May. For now, though, HFR live streaming remains available only on desktops, not on mobile devices. YouTube said 60 fps videos provide “silky smooth playback,” especially for video […]
Wireless carrier Sprint is backpedaling on the video streaming limits on its new All-In program. The company apparently underestimated the customer backlash that would haunt it for putting a 600 kbps maximum on the new plan. Here’s the backstory: On Tuesday, Sprint announced the All-In wireless plan for $80 a month. The plan includes a wireless device with unlimited talk, text and high-speed data. “If you went […]
If you’re sick of your smartphone’s shaky Web capabilities and its tendency to lose power after just a few hours, Apple is feeling your pain. According to reports, the company’s next iPhone might offer faster Web connectivity and better battery life, all thanks to a single component. The handset, which by most indications will be called the iPhone 6S, will launch with a chip called the MDM9635M. […]
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged more companies to make electronic and digital goods on Wednesday, reviving his campaign promise to bridge India’s digital divide backed by over $70 billion in investment pledges. Launching a “Digital India Week” aimed at popularising the government’s push to connect 250,000 villages by 2019, Modi spoke of the need to boost local manufacturing of electronics – the country’s largest import […]
MUMBAI Indian property firm Housing.com, backed by Japan’s SoftBank, ousted its co-founder and chief executive officer on Wednesday, marking the first major management upset at one of the country’s largest start-ups. Housing.com’s boss Rahul Yadav had been at odds with his investors for months and even resigned in April in a letter where he was highly critical of the company’s investors. He later withdrew that resignation. But […]
UAE. 85 percent of financial institutions from around the world reported that their boards of directors currently devote more time to oversight of risk than they did two years ago, while 79 percent felt that increasing regulatory requirements and expectations were their greatest challenge, according to the ninth edition of Deloitte’s Global risk management survey. In addition, the most common board responsibilities are approving the enterprise-level statement […]
|By TAP Staff| Dubai announced plans to build the world’s first fully functional 3D printed building, an ambitious move that will establish the UAE’s position as the global centre of technology in architecture construction and design. The building will be located close to the ‘Museum of the Future’, launched earlier this year in Dubai, and will act as temporary headquarters for its staff. It will be approximately […]
Under a new 10-year agreement that starts in 2016, AOL will be taking over a large part of Microsoft‘s display ad sales for numerous sites and services, including MSN, Xbox, Outlook.com and Skype. As part of the partnership, announced Monday, AOL will adopt Microsoft’s Bing as its exclusive provider of search and search advertising services across all of its properties. In a separate deal, first reported Monday […]
People visit the Microsoft booth during the 2015 Computex exhibition at the TWTC Nangang exhibition hall in Taipei, Taiwan, June 2, 2015. Reuters/Pichi Chuang Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said on Monday it will hand over its display advertising business to AOL Inc and AppNexus Inc, and sell some map-generating technology to ride-hailing app company Uber, as it slims down its money-losing online operations. The moves mean Microsoft will […]
Dubai real estate developer Limitless has taken a step closer to securing a second restructuring on debt outstanding from Dubai’s property crash six years ago. It said on Monday it would repay 2.07 billion dirhams ($564 million) to creditors and has won the approval of almost 90 percent of banks to extend its remaining debt to December 2018. Limitless is seeking to follow in the footsteps of […]
UAE. A new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm and the world’s leading advisor on business strategy, delves into the challenges faced by Exploration & Production (E&P) companies here in the GCC region. The fact is, these are trying times for E&P companies globally. Following more than a decade of strong financial returns, the industry has experienced several difficult years caused […]
VIENNA — Iran’s top nuclear negotiator was heading back to Tehran on Sunday to consult with his nation’s top leadership, as negotiators remained divided over how to limit and monitor Tehran’s nuclear program and even on how to interpret the preliminary agreement they reached two months ago. With all sides now acknowledging the talks would need to continue beyond what was once considered the absolute deadline for […]
VIENNA — Secretary of State John Kerry began on Saturday what the Obama administration hopes will be the final push for a nuclear accord with Iran, just three days before a deadline for concluding an agreement. However, American officials have almost discounted the notion that a deal will be made by Tuesday’s deadline. Their goal is to bridge a number of technical and political divides over the […]
A 3D plastic representation of the Facebook logo is seen in this illustration in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, May 13, 2015. Reuters/Dado Ruvic SAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc (FB.O) released new diversity data Friday that showed the number of women and minorities has remained little changed over the past year. The number of women increased only 1 percentage point, from 31 percent to 32 percent. The number of […]
In a memo to employees on Thursday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spelled out his mission for the company: “to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” Microsoft will also aim to “reinvent” productivity and business processes, build an intelligent cloud platform and create a more personal computing experience for its users, he said. Nadella’s vision statement comes just a week after the […]
Networking company Netgear just made a big move in the cable modem router world. So big, in fact, that high-speed Internet users on home fronts everywhere have good reason to rejoice. The firm just rolled out the industry’s fastest-ever cable modem router. It’s the first router in the Nighthawk line and it aims at cable Internet subscribers who have an extreme need for broadband speed. The Nighthawk […]
Wigley … increased focus on HR technology in the GCC. HR technology spend sees spike across ME, Europe DUBAI, 1 days ago Nine out of 10 firms in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region plan to spend the same or more on HR technology this year than they did last year, a report said, adding that 12 per cent of them will hike investment by […]
