Tim Byrnes is an unlikely symbol of China’s bid to become the world’s high-tech superpower. For a start he is Australian. Yet the 39-year-old quantum physicist’s decision to swap a research post in New York for Shanghai goes some way to explaining the lengths to which Beijing is going in its efforts to upend the world order. “Quantum physics is very strong in China,” says Mr Byrnes. […]
That concern gives weight to arguments for greater reliance on special operators as the Trump administration for now eschews larger deployments of conventional troops and proposes deep cuts in foreign aid and State Department budgets. Continue reading the main story The global reach of special operators is widening. During the peak of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly 13,000 Special Operations forces were deployed on missions […]
Our round-up of the week’s best comment and analysis from the Financial Times focuses on positive signals for the word’s second-largest economy and the implications for investors of the Federal Reserve rate rise. The selection is taken from our Markets Insight and Smart Money columns, written by industry contributors and FT commentators. Investors may be wary of being burnt by China but the drumbeat of bullish noises […]
Last weekend, after looking at the latest H.8 statement by the Fed, we noted something concerning: total loans and leases by U.S. commercial banks were rising at an annual pace of about 4.6%, based on weekly Fed data. That is down from a 6.4% pace for all of last year and peak rates of around 8% in mid-2016. This is the slowest pace of debt creation since […]
(Image: Intel) Intel has taken the wraps off its first Optane 3D XPoint storage product, the SSD DC P4800X, which the company claims can make database transactions up to 10 times faster. Optane will first be available from today to select early customers as a 375GB add-in card, and during the second half of the year will also be available in 750GB, 1.5TB sized cards, and as […]
UAE-based Aster DM Healthcare is in discussions with its banks to change some terms of a syndicated loan to counter difficult business conditions, including delays to payments it is owed, sources familiar with the matter said. The company, which operates hospitals, clinics and pharmacies in the Gulf and India, raised a multi-tranche syndicated loan equivalent to about AED600 million ($163 million) in March last year, Thomson Reuters […]
Tech Times reported on March 11 that Tesla co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk backed up Lyndon Rive’s bold claim at the Powerwall 2 launch at Newport, near Melbourne, that the company can solve South Australia’s energy storage problems in 100 days with its new battery. Rive, Tesla’s Vice President for Energy Products, cited the company’s experience in building a power plant in South California in 90 […]
Employer-funded healthcare in the US is an accidental system. It came into being during the second world war, when wage freezes and 1.9 per cent unemployment forced the government to allow companies to offer fringe benefits like healthcare in an attempt to attract workers. In 1943, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that employer-based healthcare should be tax free — and we were off to the races. The […]
A surgeon implants a pacemaker to a patient An Ohio man claimed he was forced into a hasty window escape when his house caught fire last year. His pacemaker data obtained by police showed otherwise, and he was charged with arson and insurance fraud. In Pennsylvania, authorities dismissed rape charges after data from a woman’s Fitbit contradicted her version of her whereabouts during the 2015 alleged assault. […]
Government of Dubai Media Office, 19 March 2017 Chairperson of the International Humanitarian City (IHC) HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, wife of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, today opened the IHC’s Members Global Meeting organized by its newly appointed CEO and leading logistics expert, Giuseppe Saba, under the theme ‘ONE for Humanity’. Attending […]
Spam emails are often used to distribute malware. Image: Symantec Cybercrimes like phishing and malware distribution could almost be eradicated if organisations took one simple step to actively fight against it, a senior member of the UK’s organised crime fighting operation has claimed. That step, says Paul Edmunds, Head of Technology at the National Crime Agency (NCA) National CyberCrime Unit, is the adoption of an “active defence” […]
The United States has declassified its secretive footage of the nuclear tests it conducted between 1945 and 1962 and published them online on YouTube. Much of the footage will make viewers run for cover as they see chilling reminders of the arms race for military superiority during the Cold War. The footages were captured by multiple cameras at various angles. They documented each explosion at the rate of […]
In a startling move that went contrary to almost everyone’s expectations, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that there would be no changes in H-1B “skilled worker” visas this year. Applicants who still wished to apply for the skilled worker category visa would face the same Congressional limit of 65,000 in the general category and another 20,000 for foreign students who have a masters degree […]
Some jailbreaking enthusiasts have been getting impatient for an iOS 10.2.1 jailbreak from formidable hackers such as Luca Todesco, Marco Grassi, the Pangu Team, and PP Jailbreak, among others. But there hasn’t been any update from any of them since Todesco and Grassi released the Yalu102 on Jan. 26. While Todesco has already declared, however, that he’s going on hiatus after the final Yalu102 version is released — without […]
Using asteroseismology, an international research team has discovered a surprising alignment of the rotation axes of stars in open clusters, shedding light on the conditions in which stars are formed in our galaxy. Using data from Nasa’s Kepler mission, this result was obtained by studying a group of red giants in two old open clusters in the Milky Way. (via WSJ)
VR headsets are storage hogs. Who knew? The key to an immersive and non-sickening VR experience are graphics that are detailed and smooth. Today’s 1080p systems are OK, but far from ideal. For ideal we have to go to 4k since the displays are so close to our eyes, with none of the frame dropouts or tearing that make people sick. While 4k content requires 4x the […]
Getty Images/iStockphoto More companies are moving applications into the cloud, but the pain of the migration is holding them back from doing more. Nearly nine out of ten companies are now using cloud-hosted applications or services, a number that has been steadily rising in recent years: in 2010 less than half said they were using such services. But further examination of the data from tech industry group […]
For the first time ever, new research examines data from the 2007-2009 financial crisis to show how the US Federal Reserve can effectively assist banks in times of financial uncertainty. (via WSJ)
It’s the end of the line for Windows 7 on the latest PC designs. Anyone running an older version of Windows on new hardware received a rude shock this week when the latest Patch Tuesday updates rolled around. Instead of receiving the latest security updates for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, those customers saw an error message instead. Unsupported Hardware Your PC uses a processor that isn’t […]
A silicon optical switch newly developed is the first to transmit up to 10 gigabits per second of data at temperatures just a few degrees above absolute zero. The device could enable data transmission for next-generation superconducting computers that store and process data at cryogenic temperatures. (via WSJ)
Brazil’s coffee farmers, struggling with the effect of last year’s drought, have turned to another black commodity — pepper. In a desperate search for an alternative source of income, an increasing number of growers in the state of Espirito Santo, the key producer of the lower-quality coffee robusta beans, have switched to black pepper, whose price more than tripled between 2009 and 2015. “Four years ago, we […]
DevOps is a great concept — but many enterprises are still struggling to get out the starting gate with it. Photo: CERN Press Office That’s the key takeaway from a recent survey of 2,045 IT managers and professionals, released by Quali, an IT automation solutions provider. While most people in enterprises would say at this point that they have DevOps underway in some shape or form, achieving […]
A security researcher has published a way to gain the highest level of a network’s access — without needing a password. Alexander Korznikov said in a blog post that a privileged user, such as a local administrator with system rights and permissions, can use built-in command line tools to hijack the session of another logged-in user who has higher privileges. He said that if that other logged-in […]
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis will travel to Egypt next month, the Vatican said Saturday, giving him another opportunity to promote better relations between Catholics and Muslims. Francis has accepted an invitation to visit Cairo on April 28 and 29 from President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Roman Catholic bishops, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox church of Alexandria and the grand imam of Al Azhar mosque, the Vatican […]
