Just when you thought the drama was over. Apple is taking the iCloud hack that revealed naked selfies of celebrities seriously, adding new security tools to keep its cloud safe. But there’s still fallout from the early-September iCloud hack. Indeed, headlines report a new wave of naked photographs of celebrities leaked online. This wave includes movie star Gabrielle Union, pop star Rihanna, Disney Channel star Vanessa Hudgens, […]
Hedge funds extended this year’s longest exit from bullish gold bets as slumping prices and investor outflows since June erased $6.7 billion from the value of exchange-traded funds backed by the metal. The net-long position in New York futures and options fell for a fifth straight week, with speculators boosting short bets to the highest since June, U.S. government data show. Investors sold 7.75 metric tons of […]
DIFC Investments LLC, which owns properties in the Dubai International Financial Center business park, said it plans to raise about $700 million from an Islamic bond sale to repay debt and fund development as borrowing costs decline. The state-controlled company, which is planning to issue the sukuk before the end of October, will use the proceeds to repay the $650 million outstanding on a syndicated loan, DIFC […]
Apple’s latest additions to the iPhone family — the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus — went on sale in stores Friday amid reports of lines stretching 10 blocks long at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York. In addition to many other new features, the two new devices sport larger screen sizes than previous models, including the 4-inch iPhone 5 (shown above, left). The […]
Do U.S. Internet users want the so-called “right to be forgotten” that’s been a hot topic in Europe? And is such a scenario plausible stateside? It appears those questions have very different answers. Europe’s highest court ruled last spring that individuals had the right to ask that certain online data deleted so that third parties could no longer trace them. Despite the ruling, several questions on the […]
In an effort to make open source security tools more user friendly, Google and Dropbox announced Thursday that they have teamed up with the Open Technology Fund to form “Simply Secure.” The goal of the new non-profit organization is to “help craft usably secure technologies and make them available for everyone.” This is the second time this week a major technology company has launched an open source […]
The next generation of Google’s Android operating system will have data encryption turned on by default, according to The Washington Post. This move puts Google in the same company as Apple, which this week unveiled a new privacy strategy that makes it harder for anyone but an iPhone’s owner to access content on such devices. Default encryption for Android and iOS essentially takes Google and Apple out […]
Worried about the privacy of your calls and text messages to friends and family? Well, BitTorrent is publicly releasing a version of Bleep, its new peer-to-peer messaging system aimed at eliminating any potential snooping middlemen. BitTorrent, the San Francisco-based company behind the peer-to-peer protocol of the same name, began pre-alpha, invite-only testing of Bleep in late July. On Wednesday, senior product manager Jaehee Lee announced in a […]
With iOS 8 now available as a free upgrade for many iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners, here are a few tips to keep in mind before you take the plunge. First, make sure your device is eligible for the update. Here’s of the list of devices covered: iPhone 4s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPod Touch 5th generation, iPad 2, iPad with Retina display, iPad Air, iPad […]
City skyscrapers stand on the waterfront seen from a construction site of residential apartments on Palm Jumeirah artificial island in Dubai. Bloomberg News A rebounding Dubai property market has caught everyone’s attention again. Following a colossal crash in property prices in the wake of the financial crisis, not many had expected a recovery so soon afterwards, or so swiftly. The total amount invested in the emirate’s property […]
The start of the United Arab Emirates’ first consumer credit-rating bureau last week will help banks better deal with bad loans six years after one of the world’s worst property crashes. “Banks will intensify their analysis of their existing portfolios,” Marwan Ahmad Lutfi, chief executive officer of the Al Etihad Credit Bureau said in an interview in Dubai today. The reports will allow banks to decide how […]
Chinese-backed hackers infiltrated the computer networks of airline, shipping and information technology companies responsible for transporting personnel and weapons for the U.S. military, a Senate investigation found. There were 20 such breaches from June 2012 to May 2013, giving the hackers insight into military logistics and a foothold that could be used to disrupt operations, according to a report today by the Senate Armed Services Committee. While […]
In a move to beef up its Intercloud strategy, Cisco is acquiring a privately-held company called Metacloud. The firm deploys and operates private clouds for global organizations with an OpenStack-as-a-service model. Metacloud’s model stands out in the industry because it both delivers and remotely operates production-ready private clouds in a customer’s data center. Cisco figures the platform will accelerate its strategy to build the world’s largest Intercloud. […]
The online review site Yelp and mobile game company TinyCo have both settled separate charges with the Federal Trade Commission that they improperly collected information from children under the age of 13 through their mobile apps. Both settlements were for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998. Under its agreement with the FTC, Yelp will pay a civil penalty of $450,000 and must […]
A rush by Dubai’s retail investors to take part in the initial public offer of Emaar Properties’ malls unit put pressure on the emirate’s stock market on Tuesday, while successful fund-raising for the Suez Canal expansion lifted stocks in Egypt. Emaar said late on Monday that institutional investors had committed to buying all the shares offered to them in the flotation of its shopping malls business, only […]
A new solid state drive (SSD) from Micron Technology promises to be the company’s highest performing drive to date. The M600 SATA SSD, shown here, will boast improved power efficiency, better performance, and increased durability and lifespan. The drive also comes with 256-bit hardware encryption and will be available with capacities ranging from 128 GB to 1 TB. The new drive is being positioned on the high-end […]
Like a private jet minus the wings, the ultra-luxury 2015 Bentley Mulsanne Speed is packed with a 530-horse V8 motor tuned to produce an ungodly 811 lb-ft. of torque, more than any muscle car on the market and maybe enough to actually take flight. Tweet This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, […]
|By TAP Staff| Emaar Properties said the IPO of its shopping malls business unit has been sold out to institutional investors on the first day itself. The leading developer aiming to raise as much as AED 5.8 billion ($1.58 billion) from the offer of shares in Emaar Malls Group (EMG), which is expected to be the Gulf’s biggest stock sale since 2008. On offer are 2 billion […]
Boom and bust – two words that are regularly heard when the property market in the United Arab Emirates, especially Dubai, is discussed. But that theme appears to be changing. At least that’s what some industry experts are indicating. The property market, after rebounding sharply since early 2013 from the global financial crisis-induced crash, is now showing signs of stabilising – with the pace of growth in […]
Savola Group, a Saudi Arabian food producer, hired JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) to advise on a potential bid for the operator of KFC restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. Non-binding bids for the $4.3 billion Kuwait Food business, known as Americana, are due next month, the people said, asking not to be identified as the […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Banks with experience arranging Islamic bond sales may stand to benefit from the potential opening of Saudi Arabia’s debt market to foreign investors, according to the investment banking unit of Mashreqbank PSC. (MASQ) “There’ll be a lot of potential for non-Saudi banks to get involved on the advising and arranging side,” Abdul Kadir Hussain, who oversees about $700 million as chief executive officer of Mashreq […]
Militants from the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) taking aim at captured Iraqi soldiers Photo: AP In the wake of David Haines’ beheading, we have republished this piece explaining why Isil carry out their atrocities As Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria butcher thousands of “infidels” and carry off their women and children into slavery, many in the West are inclined to see […]
Secretary of State John Kerry and Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, in Cairo. By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK September 13, 2014 CAIRO — Secretary of State John Kerry received broad assurances but no public commitments from Egypt on Saturday as he continued his tour of the Middle East to try to assemble a coalition behind an American campaign against the extremist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq […]
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI and KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA September 13, 2014 The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria released a video Saturday of the third beheading of a foreign hostage, a British aid worker. The execution was a clear message to Britain, a vital ally of the United States as it builds an international coalition to target the militant group, which has made stunning advances across Syria and northern Iraq in recent months. […]
