The Lifetime Achievement Award handed to Samuel L Jackson during the opening ceremony of this year’s Dubai International Film Festival on Wednesday honours an improbably prolific 40-year career during which the actor has become as ubiquitous as popcorn. Above all else, moviemaking is a business, and on Jackson’s website, you can find a startling fact to explain the true meaning of the citation: “In recognition of his […]
In a glass cube inside a MK2 cinema near France’s national library in Paris, viewers can choose between HTC Vive, Playstation VR and Oculus Rift headsets, or they can go for “full body immersive” simulators The first wave of virtual reality cinemas, heralding what their creators claim will be an entertainment revolution, rolls out across the world this month. The first screening room in France opened Wednesday […]
‘Mashreq Bot’ is designed to simulate a conversation with customers using Artificial Intelligence on Digital Platforms Dubai, UAE – 8th December 2016 Mashreq, the UAE’s leading financial institution, has introduced its latest innovation – UAE’s First ‘Mashreq Bot’; an Artificial Intelligence agent – or chat-bot – programed to simulate an intelligent conversation with users. Customers can use the chat-bot to display Mashreq products and perform card-less cash […]
This article by David Haggith was published first on The Great Recession Blog: I risked losing my fellow anti-establishment readers in September by suggesting Trump may be an establishment Trojan horse. After seeing Trump choose Pence as VP and a Goldman Sachs exec as campaign finance manager, I was concerned the establishment knew a citizen’s revolt was brewing and made sure that even the road to revolt led back to […]
Softbank president Masayoshi Son walked out of President-Elect Trump’s office with a big grin on his face this yesterday, which can only signify one thing for me: a Sprint/T-Mobile merger is a done deal. Actual news stories don’t want to say this, because Trump and Son didn’t say it explicitly. According to the New York Times, Son “is projected” to spend half of his $100 […]
Microsoft has unveiled a new chatbot named Zo, but this time, she’s available on Kik, instead of Twitter, where earlier this year, her predecessor—known as Tay—went on a rather racist tirade before being shut down. I’ve never heard a clear explanation as to why Microsoft is making chatbots, and I have to assume the worst: They are on track to deliver ads. If you ever […]
Sony plans to unleash some of its iconic PlayStation titles on smartphones from next spring, in its most determined attempt yet to capture a bigger share of the $35bn global mobile gaming market. The move follows the runaway success of augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go, with rival Nintendo’s famous character demonstrating the power of Japan’s intellectual property when tapping into a global pool of smartphone users. […]
This is part of a series on the global rise of exchange traded funds Have we reached Peak ETF? And are we therefore at last in a “stockpicker’s market” where active fund managers skilled in bottom-up stock selection can feast on the mispricings and anomalies that the herd of exchange traded funds have left in their wake? It is beguiling to think that this could have happened. […]
Submitted by Daniel Cloud “Donald Trump is either too incompetent to understand that his foolish phone call threatens our national security, or he’s doing it deliberately because he reportedly wants to build hotels in Taiwan to pad his own pockets.” – (Democratic National Committee Spokesperson) Is that true? Did “incompetent” President-Elect Donald Trump’s “foolish” telephone conversation with Taiwan’s President Cai Yingwen actually “threaten American’s […]
AMBERNATH, India—Saturdays are typically busy at the sales office of Patel’s Planet, one of the many new apartment developments in the suburbs surrounding Mumbai where India’s fledgling middle class has been flocking in recent years. But last Saturday, it was virtually deserted. Prateek Patel, the cousin of the developer, complained that he hasn’t sold an apartment since early November, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shocked the country by announcing an unprecedented […]
Picture it: rumours of a renminbi devaluation keep growing. Residents rush to open accounts offshore as experts warn Beijing will get off on the wrong foot with a relatively new US administration if a big depreciation happens. Official denials are made regularly — until a devaluation of about 50 per cent follows in short order. That was China in 1994. Today the idea of a similarly brutal, […]
Lydia Polgreen, the editorial director of NYT Global at The New York Times, will be The Huffington Post’s next editor in chief. She follows Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, who had been at the top of the website’s masthead since its founding in 2005. So excited that my successor as EIC of HuffPost will be Lydia Polgreen, who I know will take HP to new heights. Here […]
By Phil Stewart and Amy Tennery | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK WASHINGTON/NEW YORK U.S. President-elect Donald Trump urged the government on Tuesday to cancel an order with Boeing Co (BA.N) for a revamped Air Force One – a prominent symbol of the U.S. presidency – complaining that costs were out of control. It was the latest example of Trump using his podium, often via brief Twitter messages, to rattle […]
A man holds up his mobile phone showing a M-Pesa mobile money transaction page for the photographer at an open air market in Kibera in Kenya’s capital Nairobi (Reuters/Noor Khamis). This post features a conversation with Georgia Levenson Keohane, executive director of the Pershing Square Foundation, adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School, and author of Capital and the Common Good: How Innovative Finance is […]
NEW DELHI—Jayaram Jayalalithaa, the powerful chief minister of the state of Tamil Nadu whose fervent following was matched by few other Indian politicians, died late Monday after she failed to recover from cardiac arrest. The daughter of an actress in Tamil-language films, Ms. Jayalalithaa’s first career was in show business. She was featured in more than 100 movies, which catapulted her to fame before she turned to the political arena […]
By Ahmed Rasheed and Patrick Markey | BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq Iraqi army units surged towards the centre of Mosul on Tuesday in an attack from the city’s southeastern edges that could give fresh impetus to the seven-week-old battle for Islamic State’s Iraqi stronghold. Campaign commander Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah was quoted by Iraqi television as saying troops had entered Salam Hospital, less than a […]
There are differences in the way men and women observe visual information, reports a team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London. From the way the people scan the faces, it is possible to tell if the participant was a male or a female with accuracy of 80 percent, notes the researchers. ( Cindy Ord | Getty Images for Garrett Leight California Optical ) A team […]
Good morning. Here’s our daily summary of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. It’s so quaint that politicians still get pissed at the press and utter some version of Mark Twain’s, “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” That was underscored again Monday by Donald Trump, who tweeted, […]
“We’ve found that [Facebook’s] Workplace has been an easy sell to people because they can use the same platform inside and outside the business,” says CIO Graham Benson. Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto Rentalcars.com is one of the first companies to use Workplace by Facebook, the recently launched enterprise social media platform. The service has now been live for staff for two months, according to Graham Benson, CIO at […]
newslide Jimmy Kimmel to host Oscars Late night television presenter Jimmy Kimmel has been give Oscar hosting honours for the next instalment of the Academy Awards in February. It will be a first for the comedian, who has hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC since 2003. Kimmel was praised for his work as host of this year’s Emmy awards. Kimmel tweeted, “Yes, I am hosting the Oscars. […]
Indian politicians, celebrities and the public turned out to say goodbye to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa Tuesday. Crowds thronged the streets as her supporters massed to try and pay respects and get a glimpse of her body, lying in state at Rajaji Hall in Chennai. As politicians made arrangements to attend her funeral, they also took to social media to pay tribute to the leader. Prime Minister […]
It’s been a bad year for newspapers. Money from print advertising is tanking. Layoffs have affected newsrooms large and small. And The President-elect isn’t shy about abusing journalists on Twitter. But today, just a few weeks before Christmas, the clouds parted a bit as New York Times CEO Mark Thompson spoke at the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference in Manhattan. He dispensed a couple of encouraging […]
By Se Young Lee and Yun Hwan Chae | SEOUL SEOUL The heads of South Korea’s top conglomerates including the Samsung and Lotte Groups were questioned on Tuesday in an unprecedented parliamentary hearing into the political scandal that appears poised to bring down President Park Geun-hye. A parliamentary panel is investigating whether the conglomerates, known as chaebol, were pressured by Park or a friend and aide to […]
Good morning. Here’s our daily summary of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Fake news is not the sole province of slimeball digital practitioners in faraway lands enabled by the righteous souls at Facebook and Google. There’s also — as has ever been so — the government. “Police investigating a notorious gang in […]
