The National Security Agency (NSA) is hacking into corporate servers and attacking global ISPs as part of its effort to map off the entire Internet according to a report Sunday in Der Spiegel, a German daily, citing new documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The spy agency is also placing under surveillance the CEOs and other employees at telecom companies it considers vital to the infrastructure […]
As the issue of cell phones and distracted driving grows more divisive in many countries, a city in China has created a tongue-in-cheek way of discouraging distracted walking. The municipality of Chongqing has created a phone-free pedestrian lane on its sidewalks. Chongqing, a municipality of 29 million in southwest China, is trying to figure out how to break pedestrians of the habit of walking while looking down […]
More and more places in Hong Kong now accept Chinese yuan Photo: ALAMY Lord Patten was the last governor of Hong Kong, and still, it seems, has a keen interest in its affairs. He has written a piece for The Financial Times, extolling his views on Britain’s “moral and political obligation” to its former colony. But his words, like his actions as governor, reveal that he never understood […]
Google is bringing its two operating systems — Android and Chrome — closer together with the release of its first four Android apps for Chromebooks. Announced last Thursday, the new Android apps for Chrome OS include the language education app Duolingo; Sight Words, a vocabulary learning app for children; the workplace productivity tool Evernote; and the video creation and sharing app Vine. “These first apps are the […]
[embedded content] ‘The most advanced wireless speaker system ever developed.” The creators of the Core didn’t just say it, they believe it. And since their Indiegogo campaign is 5X overfunded in less than a week, others are convinced, too. The compact speaker achieves life-like, better than stereo sound by “leveraging a combination of wave field synthesis and beam forming, to create an acoustic bubble in the room.” […]
Customers pre-ordered more than four million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets in just the first 24 hours, according to Apple, around double the number the company saw for the iPhone 5s and 5c a year ago. Apple is on track to top 10 million units sold over the entire launch weekend, if the tech giant can keep up with the level of demand. The smartphones first […]
Mojang, the small Swedish firm behind the wildly popular video game Minecraft, is being acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. The sale is set to be closed late this year, with the acquisition expected to be break-even in fiscal year 2015. One of Mojang’s founders, Markus Persson — known as “Notch” — said in a post on his personal blog on Monday that he would be leaving […]
By Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Tommy Wilkes NEW DELHI/MUMBAI Mon Sep 15, 2014 6:12pm IST 1 of 4. Visitors look at Android One Based mobiles after its launch in New Delhi September 15, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Anindito Mukherjee NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) – Google Inc(GOOGL.O) launched in India on Monday a $105 smartphone, the first device from its “Android One” initiative which is aimed at boosting sales in key emerging […]
UAE. Two-thirds (66 percent) of millennial high-frequency travellers rate “unique rewards” as an important factor when choosing a hotel loyalty program, compared with just 43 percent of their older counterparts, according to a new Deloitte study, “Winning the Race for Guest Loyalty”. “Our study indicates that customers are waiting to see which program will provide them with the greatest relevant rewards before they commit to a brand, […]
INTERNATIONAL. With momentum building for international military action against Islamist extremists in Syria, the United States reiterated Friday it will not coordinate with strongman Bashar al-Assad in the effort. “The answer to the security challenges is not the Assad regime,” State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters. “They have created this security vacuum. We are not going to be working with them in this fight,” she […]
|By TAP Staff| Just over a year ago, China’s Xiaomi was little more than a mid-sized smartphone-maker with an odd name (Xiaomi means “millet”), trailing household brands such as Samsung, Lenovo, Coolpad and others. During the first six months of 2014, however, this four-year old company sold 26m smartphones, propelling it to pole position in the Chinese market. Next year, Lei Jun, its founder and CEO, expects […]
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. […]
President Obama on Wednesday in Washington. Mr. Obama says he is aware of the “political price” he pays for being deliberate. By PETER BAKER September 13, 2014 WASHINGTON — Just hours before announcing an escalated campaign against Islamic extremists last week, President Obama privately reflected on another time when a president weighed military action in the Middle East — the frenzied weeks leading up to the American invasion of […]
President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden Photo: AP Were it any other US president in recent memory, delivering a rousing White House address promising to “vanquish” the bloodthirsty militants of the Islamic State from the face of the earth would be dismissed as the “easy part”. Recall Joe Biden, the vice president with half an eye on a run for the top job in 2016, […]
|By TAP Staff| Asia is giving expression to its growing disenchantment with the prevailing West-centred gold pricing mechanism by setting in place its own benchmarks that reflect the region’s market dynamics. China and Singapore are preparing to launch physical bullion contracts with an eye on gaining pricing power of the metal at a time when the global benchmark is under scrutiny. CME Group, the world’s leading derivatives […]
Google has kicked off yet another program aimed at helping to develop the next big thing in tech: Google Cloud Platform for Startups. The program offers early-stage tech companies $100,000 in credit for Google’s Cloud Platform services, along with 24/7 support and technical architecture review help from Google’s engineers. The new offering was announced Friday by Urs Hölzle, Google Fellow and senior vice president of technical infrastructure, […]
When Saudi Arabia lowered its oil prices last week, analysts declared that the No. 1 oil producer was more focused on maintaining its share of a well-supplied global market than on keeping prices at $100 a barrel or higher. AFP/Getty Images “It is fair to say that the kingdom is not in a rush to cut production soon,” said London consulting firm Energy Aspects in a note […]
The new iPhone 6 isn’t simply bigger, Apple claims, it’s better in every way. The two new models, called the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are larger, yet thinner than the iPhone 5, and supposedly more powerful and more power efficient. Apple describes the iPhone 6, which CEO Tim Cook debuted in Cupertino today, as having a smooth metal surface that seamlessly meets the new Retina […]
Two new bigger iPhones, the long-rumored Apple Watch, iOS 8, and a new Apple Pay service introduced at the company’s launch event Tuesday gave fans lots to fawn over. Most of the new products announced by CEO Tim Cook at the event, broadcast live from the Flint Center in Cupertino, California, will be available later this month. But on the Apple Watch, Cook remained coy, saying only […]
By Leila Abboud PARIS Mon Sep 8, 2014 12:50pm IST A computer user poses in front of a Google search page in this photo illustration taken in Brussels May 30, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Francois Lenoir/Files A panel appointed by search engine Google will hold the first of a series of meetings on Tuesday to debate the balance between privacy and the free flow of information after a May […]
By Paul Carsten BEIJING Mon Sep 8, 2014 11:12am IST A picture illustration shows a WeChat app icon in Beijing, December 5, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Petar Kujundzic/Files BEIJING (Reuters) – Apple Inc has a lot for which to thank people like Deng. A Beijing-based quality analyst, she gave only her surname as she’s embarrassed by how much money she spends playing mobile games on WeChat, a hugely popular […]
By Surojit Mahalanobis Coal mining issues are getting murkier increasingly in the country. Like the previous Congress led-government, the incumbent NDA too seems groping into holed-up challenges and cannot find much light beyond the tunnel. The opportunity is unique this time in the NDA government as the main party BJP is now armed with the single largest mandate, enough to institute its bold decisions, albeit through […]
