Image: Sarah Tew/CNET Every week, we sound off on the most important technology trends in our Monday Morning Opener. Looking back on 2016, we’ve identified the five tectonic plate shifts that have made the biggest impact on the industry and our readers who use these tools to drive the progress of the planet. So, without further ado, here are the five big tech trends of 2016 according […]
By Kylie MacLellan | LONDON LONDON Britain may need a transitional agreement to smooth its exit from the European Union but it should not “buy back” into too many of the bloc’s regulations, Britain’s trade minister Liam Fox said on Sunday. Fox, who campaigned for a Brexit vote in June’s referendum, also indicated he was seeking a flexible approach on trade to try to ensure the best […]
In this Dec. 8, 2016 photo, Steve Burke and Jim Besha of Albany Engineering Corp. stand at the site of an abandoned iron mine in the Adirondacks, in Mineville, N.Y., where they’re seeking a federal permit to build an underground hydroelectric pumped storage project. The hills behind them are “tailings” leftover from crushing ore to extract iron from the mine that closed in 1971. (AP Photo/Mary Esch) […]
Wall Street is bathing in nostalgia. This week the cover of Barron’s, the bible of US retail investors, proclaimed “Dow 20,000”. Presenters on CNBC are wearing Dow 10,000 caps first donned in 1999. And each day the thinning crowds on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange have watched the boards to see if the Dow Jones Industrial Average, having passed 19,900, can top the 20,000 […]
Dubai, 15 December 2016 At the end of October the new cryptocurrency Zcash was launched. It is positioned by its creators as a more secure alternative to Bitcoin. Soon after the launch, the price of Zcash coins skyrocketed, followed by a spike in the installation of the application used to generate Zcash on personal computers. In many of these cases, the app was disguised as something else […]
A group of intelligence experts, including a former head of MI6, has cut ties with fellow academics at Cambridge university, in a varsity spy scare harking back to the heyday of Soviet espionage at the heart of the British establishment. Sir Richard Dearlove, the ex-chief of the Secret Intelligence Service and former master of Pembroke college, Stefan Halper, a senior foreign policy adviser at the White House […]
Toronto worker Kristy Milland looks for data jobs that she can pick up to make ends meet. Image: Sam Santos/George Pimentel Photography This article originally appeared on TechRepublic. Each morning when she wakes up, Kristy Milland powers up her home computer in Toronto, logs into Amazon Mechanical Turk, and waits for her computer to ding. Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), which has been around for over a decade, […]
New catalysts containing platinum and lead could improve the efficiency of fuel cells — a promising technology for producing clean energy. (via WSJ)
The war in Syria has subjected Turkey’s border regions to terrorist attacks and demographic upheaval on an historic scale, but on the face of it there’s a welcoming feeling to Samanda, a bustling town of 45,000 on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean. On a wall by the town’s beachside boardwalk, graffiti proclaims how “Syrians are our brothers”, a sentiment in sharp contrast to the burning of refugees’ […]
5918 25 by Shannon K. O’Neil December 16, 2016 A worker unloads palm fruit at a palm oil plantation in Peat Jaya, Jambi province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra September 15, 2015 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. September 15, 2015 (Reuters/Wahyu Putro A/Antara Foto). Trade Rules Favor Asia, Not the United StatesAsia’s rise in the global trading system continues. Recent World Economic Forum data […]
Allergic reactions to peanuts cause around 500 hospitalizations and even some deaths in the United States each year. Food that contains trace amounts, because it was produced with factory equipment or kitchen tools that came into contact with peanuts, can prove fatal for allergic individuals who consume it unsuspectingly. Accidentally ingesting as little as a third of a single peanut — about 70 milligrams — can send […]
CAIRO — Egypt said Thursday that explosive traces had been detected on the bodies of passengers retrieved from EgyptAir Flight 804, which plunged into the Mediterranean Sea in May and killed all 66 people on board. The announcement by the Civil Aviation Ministry offers the strongest suggestion yet that a bomb might have felled the airliner as it flew to Cairo from Paris. Previously, officials had focused […]
Doha, Qatar December 15, 2016 Muntajat (Qatar Chemical and Petrochemical Marketing and Distribution Company Q.J.S.C.) signed its first international agency marketing agreement with Total. The signing ceremony took place at the K Trade Fair 2016 in Dusseldorf, Germany and was attended by senior representatives from Muntajat and Total. Total produces a range of polymers including polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene. With Polymers business unit offices based in Brussels, […]
By Elias Biryabarema | BIDI BIDI, Uganda BIDI BIDI, Uganda Besides bags, blankets and tales of horror, some of the thousands of refugees fleeing South Sudan’s civil war each day carry something else – the ethnic hatred the United Nations says is “fertile ground” for genocide. That hatred, fuelled by continuing reports of ethnic-based killings inside the country, is turning refugee camps on its borders into tinder-boxes […]
Steve Garey, who retired from the Anacortes refinery in 2015 after almost 25 years and served as president of the United Steelworkers local, said that while some positive changes were made after the 2010 accident, upper management at Tesoro remains “contemptuous” of its work force and is “hiding behind incredibly permissive process safety regulations.” Those regulations grew out of a string of catastrophic events in the 1980s, […]
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and a number of other prominent figures among the world’s richest people are pledging a $1 billion investment fund for clean energy efforts. The new investment fund aims to help advance clean energy production, which in turn would help fight climate change and the negative impact it has on the environment. Breakthrough Energy Innovations The effort is a multiyear fund called Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which […]
13 December 2016 HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz AlSaud, Chairman of Alwaleed Philanthropies, announced supporting the Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) with $50 million, through joining Bill Gates and members of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEC) in their commitment to invest more than $1 billion in energy technologies. Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) is an investor-led fund that will finance emerging energy breakthroughs to deliver affordable and […]
The battle for eastern Aleppo will be over soon, but tens of thousands of Syrians there will find little peace. The victory for the government of President Bashar al-Assad will open another violent, disorienting chapter in their lives, and a dangerous one for the opposition. Soon, civilians and rebel fighters alike will either be punished or have to flee the city and join the many thousands of […]
By Nigel Stephenson | LONDON LONDON Global shares edged up on Tuesday, helped by gains in banks after Italy’s largest lender unveiled a 13 billion euro share issue, while the dollar held steady before a Federal Reserve meeting expected to deliver higher interest rates. UniCredit launched Italy’s biggest share issue to clean up its balance sheet and boost profitability in the latest move to strengthen the Italian […]
Algebris Investments, a London-based asset manager, is seeking to raise €1bn for a second fund aimed at Italy’s non-performing loans as investors’ interest in what’s been the Achilles heel of the country’s banking sector intensifies. The launch by Algebris, which has $6bn in assets under management, comes amid increased focus by foreign investors on the potential of Italy’s pile of €360bn of problem loans, of which €200bn […]
Oil spills could be cleaned up in the icy, rough waters of the Arctic with a chemically modified sawdust material that absorbs up to five times its weight in oil and stays afloat for at least four months. (via WSJ)
12 December 2016 The Roads and Transport Authority – Majdi Abu Zaid: The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has recently announced the formal operation of a solar-powered abra, considered the first of its kind in the Middle East. The introduction of this sophisticated abra, which is being deployed at Al Mamzar, follows several trial runs to verify the possibility of changing speed. The scheme is part of Dubai […]
A month ago, India asked more than 1.2 billion people to turn out their pockets and turn in their old bank notes, all in an effort to stamp out corruption and tax evasion. A colossal undertaking by any standard, the experiment has unfolded in ways that few nations’ administrators might have been able to predict. That has forced the Indian government to adapt, sometimes without warning, to […]
By Toni Clarke Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a partner at one of the world’s largest venture capital funds and a former deputy commissioner at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is being considered by President-elect Donald Trump to run the agency, according to sources close to the transition team. Gottlieb, 44, a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative […]
