Time to pick the trends that will make the industry interesting—or not—next year. This is the time of year when the tech pundits discuss what happened last year and what will happen next year. Usually they miss the points from last year and mess up those for next. But let’s see if I can do any better. The Internet […]
AVATAR can detect changes in physiology and behavior during interviews with travelers. AVATAR can detect changes in physiology and behavior during interviews with travelers. Credit: Aaron Elkins When you engage in international travel, you may one day find yourself face-to-face with border security that is polite, bilingual and responsive—and robotic. The Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real Time (AVATAR) is currently being tested in conjunction […]
Huawei makes fantastic, high quality smartphones, tablets, and smart watches. The TalkBand products were an interesting combination of activity tracker and Bluetooth headset, but I was not impressed with the quality of those devices. Thankfully, the Huawei Fit matches the quality of Huawei smartphones. I’ve been wearing the Huawei Fit for more than a week and it is one of the best activity trackers I have ever […]
Carrie Fisher’s death is being mourned by all sections of the arts and entertainment community, from fellow actors to rock stars and authors. Here, we reflect on five ways the actress and writer changed the face of popular culture. She invented Girl Power Fisher once self-deprecatingly characterised her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars as a lot of “running down corridors”. Of course, she represented much […]
Photo Construction this week in the settlement of Har Homa in Jerusalem. Credit Atef Safadi/European Pressphoto Agency JERUSALEM — Israeli leaders postponed plans on Wednesday to move ahead with new housing in East Jerusalem, just hours before Secretary of State John Kerry was scheduled to deliver a much-anticipated speech outlining an American vision for peace with the Palestinians. The Jerusalem city planning committee, reportedly acting at the […]
When the direct trading link between stock markets in Shenzhen and Hong Kong opened this month, local dignitaries were easy to spot at the launch events. Less conspicuous were international investors ready to take advantage of what was billed as a big opportunity to buy into Chinese equities. The link offers foreign investors greater access to shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, home to some of China’s up […]
The remaining population of the cheetah in the wild hints that the world’s fastest mammal is heading toward extinction. Only 7,100 Cheetahs Left In The Wild A new study that looked into the number of the speedy big cat estimated that there are only 7,100 of these animals left in the wild. The findings prompted calls for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to re-categorize the […]
Nearly half of all new mobile device and app activations across the United States during the week leading up to Christmas and the beginning of Chanukah were for the Apple iPhone, according to analyst firm Flurry. Flurry reported that during the week, 44 percent of all new phone and tablet activations involved Apple devices, while just 21 percent were across Samsung smartphones and tablets, with the latter […]
CBC’s I-Team tackles a wide variety of stories in any given year. There are hidden camera shoots, accountability interviews, court cases, long hours on the phone with tipsters who want to remain anonymous, dozens upon dozens of freedom of information requests, and data-mining on all manner of topics. This year, the investigative team tackled everything from health and safety issues in the nail salon industry to doctors who […]
At this late date, weeks ahead of the inauguration of Mr. Trump, who openly lobbied on Israel’s side against the United Nations resolution, it is unclear what Mr. Kerry hopes to achieve from the speech, other than to leave a set of principles that he believes will one day emerge as the basis for talks, if and when they resume. Continue reading the main story Mr. Kerry, […]
By Lesley Wroughton and Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will lay out his vision for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a speech on Wednesday, days after the United States cleared the way for a U.N. resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements. The speech, less than a month before President Barack Obama leaves office, is expected to be the administration’s last […]
LOS ANGELES // Actor Carrie Fisher, who found enduring fame as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars, has died. She was 60. Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, said her mother had died on Tuesday just before 9am. Fisher was “loved by the word and she will be missed profoundly”, Ms Lourd said. Fisher had been in hospital since Friday when she suffered a heart attack on board […]
By Yashaswini Swamynathan Wall Street was higher on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average resuming its climb toward 20,000 and the Nasdaq hitting a record as technology and health stocks rose. The blue-chip index has been riding on a post-election rally, feeding on optimism that President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for deregulation and infrastructure spending would bolster the economy. The index, which came within 13 points of […]
The Gionee M2017 Chinese smartphone is now official and it packs some impressive specs, including 7,000 mAh battery power and 6 GB of RAM. The 7,000 mAh battery capacity is the main selling point of this device, and is achieved through two 3,500 mAh battery units. It remains unclear just how Gionee managed to cram two batteries and get them to communicate with each other, but it likely […]
DUBAI // A chance encounter with a badly disfigured stray cat during a visit to a park spurred a family to help find new homes for the emirate’s unwanted animals. Sajid Shafique, his wife Iram and their daughter Miriam came across the scruffy feline on a trip to Creek Park. It was in such a bad condition that they decided to nurse it back to health. “It […]
In order to meet this demand for fresh content — a demand created by the process that supplies it — Jukin scales idle browsing to industrial proportions. A researcher, on average, watches 200 clips daily. That’s a thousand videos each week, or 50,000 per year, give or take. The company’s research is aided by proprietary software called Riff, which generates feeds based on niche viral keywords. Maybe […]
The low-for-long era is over. Central banks, fiscal activism and populism pricked the bond bubble in 2016. Next year will be a lot worse for bond investors, and the aftershocks of the burst will spread across many other assets. Since the crisis, investors have been buying bonds for capital gains and equities for yield, trusting in the holding hand of easy monetary policy. However, today the central […]
I am retiring from the Poynter Institute on New Year’s Eve. As my wife and I watch the ball in Times Square slide down to 2017, our fervent smooch will not just mark a new beginning. It will be the first celebration of almost 40 years well-spent. When my retirement was announced — along with the news that I would continue to work on some important projects […]
By Andrew Osborn and Peter Hobson | MOSCOW MOSCOW Russia has found the main flight recorder from a military plane that crashed into the Black Sea killing all 92 on board, the Defence Ministry said on Tuesday, amid unconfirmed reports that authorities had grounded all aircraft of the same type. The recorder, one of several reported to be on board, contains information that could help investigators identify […]
LONDON The world’s fastest land animal, the cheetah, is in danger of extinction because it is running out of space, research led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has found. After a sharp decline in numbers there are now just 7,100 cheetahs in the world, or 9 percent of the historic range, the ZSL, Wildlife Conservation Society and Panthera study found. In Zimbabwe, the study found, […]
Since achieving global fame in 2000, Coldplay have elicited devotion and derision in equal measure. The question, then, is whether the British four-piece are one of the best bands of their generation – or the most overrated? Rob Garratt and Saeed Saeed state their cases. They are overrated Coldplay produce quintessentially mundane muzak for the masses. They are utterly innocuous, bitterly anodyne and completely forgettable audio dishwater, […]
Toshiba warned the market that it could book an impairment loss of “several billion dollars” at its troubled US nuclear division and reconsider its presence in that industry as accounting issues returned to blight one of Japan’s biggest industrial names. With Toshiba’s financial position becoming more clouded by the announcement, its chief executive, Satoshi Tsunakawa, told a press conference on Tuesday night in Tokyo that the company […]
Farah later said he was surprised that a “multibillionaire” would make so much time for a side project like this. But single-minded persistence is the essence of self-investigation. Trump, for instance, also continued to insist on the guilt of the Central Park Five — five teenagers, four black and one Latino, whose convictions in the 1989 rape and beating of a jogger were later overturned — long […]
The eurozone’s biggest stock markets are closing in on double-digit gains for the final quater of 2016, as a combination of resurgent banks shares and a weaker euro entice investors into a region that has disappointed for much of the year. On Tuesday’s return from the Christmas break, Germany’s Xetra Dax 30 advanced 0.1 per cent in early afternoon trading, and is now up more than 9 […]
