Did you know you can donate your phone’s unused processing power to solve science’s biggest questions? Whether you want to help cure cancer, better understand climate change or find aliens, there’s an app for you. When you’re not using your Android phone, you can use these apps to donate its computing power to scientists looking into the big questions… for free. If just 1,000 people use the […]
UAE. Cyber breaches and insider threats are the fastest-growing risks and are driving investment in Forensic Data Analytics (FDA) according to MENA executives. This is according to EY’s 2016 Global Forensic Data Analytics Survey, Shifting into high gear: mitigating risks and demonstrating returns. The threats and breaches include malicious insiders stealing, manipulating or destroying data. Sixty-nine percent say that they need to do more to improve their […]
UAE. The start of 2016 signalled another loss of growth momentum at UAE non-oil private sector firms, with business conditions improving at the weakest rate since March 2012. Underpinning the slowdown was a relatively subdued rise in new work, which was linked in turn to a near-stagnation in new export business. Growth rates for output and employment also eased, though stocks of pre-production items increased more quickly. […]
On the seventh floor of a Doha tower block, in a room filled with display cases containing old coins, clocks and Koranic manuscripts, 82-year-old Hussain Alfardan sits fingering a pearl necklace he says is worth $2 million. “These pearls are yakka, the highest grade of natural pearl – each piece is rare. Today the pearl is the number one stone in the world. The most expensive stone, […]
Sales of robots worldwide hit a record high in 2014 with numbers topping 229,000, a report said, highlighting that smart machines could be performing 45 per cent of manufacturing tasks in a decade. Last year also marked the third consecutive year of increase with 29 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth, added the new research report titled “Thematic Investing: Robot Revolution: Global Robot & Al Primer” from Bank […]
Video Bashar al-Jaafari, the Syrian government’s chief negotiator, blamed the opposition for the postponement of the talks, calling them a failure. By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE and SOMINI SENGUPTA February 3, 2016 GENEVA — The United Nations on Wednesday temporarily suspended the fledgling talks aimed at ending the war in Syria and called on the countries fueling the conflict to do more to yield results, as Syrian government forces sharply escalated an offensive […]
Israeli investigators on Wednesday near the body of a Palestinian who was killed after he and two others attacked border police officers in East Jerusalem. By ISABEL KERSHNER February 3, 2016 JERUSALEM — Three Palestinian men armed with automatic rifles, knives and pipe bombs attacked Israeli border police officers in East Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing one officer and wounding another. The three assailants were fatally shot by officers at […]
If the customer is “at the center of everything,” so, too, should be a company’s system for managing customer relationships, according to a recently published white paper. In other words, customer relationship management software (CRM) needs to be more than just a way to handle queries about products or fielding feedback from clients. It needs to be used as a central platform for connecting people, processes and […]
CRM giant Salesforce is adding some lightning to its customer success platform. The latest iteration of Salesforce Lightning aims to raise the bar on customer relationship management by with a platform that taps cloud, mobile, social, IoT (Internet of Things) technologies and data science. Salesforce launched Lightning in 2015 as a multi-tenant, next-generation metadata platform that enterprise workers can use on any device. It quickly gained traction, […]
Oil bulls distressed that last week’s rally fizzled can find some comfort in forecasts for a bigger and longer rebound by the end of the year. Analysts are projecting prices will climb more than $15 by the end of 2016. New York crude will reach $46 a barrel during the fourth quarter, while Brent in London will trade at $48 in the same period, the median of […]
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waits to speak at a campaign town hall in Davenport, Iowa January 30, 2016. Reuters/Rick Wilking NEW YORK The millions of Twitter users following Donald Trump shouldn’t expect a “follow back” from the Republican presidential front-runner anytime soon. Trump’s campaign account @realDonaldTrump has nearly 6 million Twitter followers, the most of any candidate running for president. But he is picky about […]
The slump in the price of gold has brought investors all over the world closer to their much-loved asset. As gold, a known haven asset, became comparatively cheap in 2015, central banks showed a keen interest. Increased volatility in the world markets has caused the central banks to invest their money in haven assets. Central banks as a whole have added 175 tons of gold to their official reserves. The Chinese and […]
The global oversupply of crude will decline this year even after Iran adds an expected 500,000 barrels a day in oil output, United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said. Oil prices are fluctuating on speculation about the potential impact of more Iranian crude entering the market this year after the lifting of economic sanctions, Al Mazrouei said on his Twitter account. Iran has pledged to boost […]
Perhaps taking aim at the well-entrenched presence of other tech giants in the education market, Apple confirmed Thursday that it has acquired LearnSprout, a San Francisco-based startup that specializes in education analytics and used for tracking the performance of students. The purchase of LearnSprout should give Apple some ammunition as it tries to challenge the existence of Microsoft’s software programs and Google’s Chromebook in the classroom. Apple […]
Drivers in the U.S. oil hub of Houston can fill their tanks for less than the cost in Abu Dhabi and Dubai for the first time since 2008 as falling crude prices push Middle East exporters to cut government fuel subsidies. The price of the cheapest grade in the United Arab Emirates, of which Abu Dhabi is the capital, is 1.51 dirhams per liter ($1.55 a gallon) […]
Saudi Arabia may further ease restrictions on foreign ownership in the economy and overhaul one of the world’s most restrictive visa systems as the kingdom seeks to draw investors to help reduce its reliance on oil exports. The world’s biggest oil exporter is considering allowing foreigners to own 100 percent of a company in at least four more industries, Mohanud Helal, secretary general of the Economic Cities […]
An Apple logo is seen at the Apple store in Munich, Germany, January 27, 2016. Reuters/Michaela Rehle Apple Inc (AAPL.O) shares fell more than 6.5 percent on Wednesday, the biggest percentage drop in two years, after the company reported its slowest-ever rise in iPhone shipments and forecast that quarterly sales for the current period would post the first drop in 13 years. At least 16 analysts cut […]
|By Matein Khalid| The collapse in Brent crude oil below $30, a 20% fall in the Tadawul share index in January 2016’s global equity bloodbath, the cut in fuel subsidies and geopolitical risk escalation in the Middle East has spawned speculation in financial markets that Saudi Arabia will devalue the kingdom’s riyal, now pegged at 3.75 against the US dollar. Senior princes of the royal family and […]
Plans for a 1,350-mile railroad running the length of the Persian Gulf from Kuwait to the Indian Ocean are in doubt after the United Arab Emirates halted contract awards amid a review of spending as oil proceeds shrink. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Rail has suspended the tender process for stage two of the project, which is due to take the line west to the U.A.E.’s border with Saudi […]
Thanks to Apple’s introduction of the WKWebView rendering engine beginning with the iOS 8 version of its mobile operating system, Google said it has been able to update its Chrome Web browser so it can perform far better on iPhones and iPads. Rolling out today, version 48 of Google Chrome for iOS is faster, more responsive and far more stable than previous generations of the browser, according […]
The trend of cyberattackers targeting retail and fast-food chains is continuing in 2016. Nationwide fast-food chain Wendy’s is the latest to announce it is investigating a possible credit card breach stemming from its POS (point-of-sale) system. “Reports indicate fraudulent charges may have occurred elsewhere after payment cards were legitimately used at some restaurants,” Wendy’s spokesman Bob Bertini told Reuters. “Until this investigation is completed, it is difficult […]
SAN FRANCISCO/MUMBAI As China sales show signs of cooling, Apple Inc(AAPL.O) is touting India’s appetite for iPhones, betting that rising wages and an expanding middle class will pull consumers away from the cheap alternatives that currently dominate the market. In an earnings call in which the company reported meagre iPhone growth and forecast its first revenue drop in 13 years, the Indian market stood out as a […]
The world’s biggest oil producer is spending as much now as it did before the crash in crude prices, signaling no surrender in Saudi Arabia’s battle with rivals. Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is maintaining investment in oil and natural gas projects and has formulated a new strategy in response to cheaper crude as it studies options to sell shares in its parent company and downstream refining and chemical […]
UAE. To coincide with the annual Arab Health Exhibition & Congress this week, six major investment opportunities in the GCC’s health care market in 2016 have been predicted by EY as being areas of high demand and growth in the region. According to the EY ‘Investment Big Bets – Healthcare and Life Sciences in the GCC’ report launched today, specialized centers of excellence (CoEs), home health care […]
