Opec’s production cut this week to bolster oil prices may strike many as a throwback to an earlier era, but it hinged on a very modern method of communication: a messaging group between the smartphones of Saudi Arabia’s delegation in Vienna and Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud. For a royal priding himself on being a tech savvy moderniser in the kingdom, the use of a popular encrypted messaging service may […]
Egypt, which has seen its influence wane, is seeking allies and relevance wherever it can find them, even if that means shelving concerns about Iran. Continue reading the main story While Russia’s goal seems to be to expand its influence and pave the way for the international rehabilitation of Mr. Assad’s government, the scrambling of alliances remains in motion and the results unclear. The new relationships are […]
Successful SMEs set to become part of the supply chain for Qatar Shell and Pearl GTL 03 December 2016 Doha: As part of a nationwide strategy to support Qatari small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Qatar Development Bank (QDB) and Qatar Shell will award contracts for five business opportunities; four will be awarded at a special ceremony on 5th December, and a fifth contract will be signed and announced […]
Researchers have developed a new method for producing hydrogen, which is fast, irreversible, and takes place at much lower temperature using less energy. This innovation is expected to contribute to the spread of fuel cell systems for automobiles and homes. (via WSJ)
Authored by William Blum, originally posted at Strategic-Culture.org, On November 16, at a State Department press briefing, department spokesperson John Kirby was having one of his frequent adversarial dialogues with Gayane Chichakyan, a reporter for RT (Russia Today); this time concerning U.S. charges of Russia bombing hospitals in Syria and blocking the U.N. from delivering aid to the trapped population. When Chichakyan asked for some detail about […]
Frequent tornadoes and thunderstorms that kill people and destroy property have become a matter of grave concern. In the United States alone, the insured losses caused by severe thunderstorms have been put at $8.5 billion from the period between January to June 2016. A new study has tried a linkage between climate change and the increasing incidents of tornadoes. Calling for a deeper study on some meteorological factors, […]
First, write out the numbers one to 100 in 10 rows. Cross out the one. Then circle the two, and cross out all of the multiples of two. Circle the three, and do likewise. Follow those instructions, and you’ve just completed the first three steps of an algorithm, and an incredibly ancient one. Twenty-three centuries ago, Eratosthenes was sat in the great library of Alexandria, using this […]
The Middle East is one of the largest importers of French dairy products in the world, according to the latest research from the country’s official cheese board, the Centre National Interprofessionnel de l’Economie Laitière (CNIEL). The research puts the Middle East ahead of China ($354 million), North America ($270 million), Switzerland ($137 million) and Australia ($30 million). Of the $8 billion of French dairy produce exported around […]
Machine learning is a powerful tool used for a variety of tasks in modern life, from fraud detection and sorting spam in Google, to making movie recommendations on Netflix. Now a team of researchers has developed a novel approach in using it to determine whether planetary systems are stable or not. Source
A digital battle is being waged over the huge amount of technical data that will be stored in autonomous vehicles Just like credit cards, smartphones or search engines, autonomous cars will carry a trove of information about their owners as they make driving more comfortable, raising new concerns about privacy. Automakers are engaged in a fierce race to develop the first driverless car, which experts say should […]
Spending more time in the great outdoors early in life offers some form of protection against visual problems later in adulthood. Findings of a new study have revealed that additional exposure to sunlight can help ward off nearsightedness later in life. For the new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association – Opthalmology, Katie Williams, from King’s College London, and colleagues involved 371 individuals with […]
Disaffected Hillary snowflakes at colleges and universities all around the country, many of whom surely cried themselves to sleep last night, woke up this morning to some of the best news they’ve received in weeks. According to a new study by the University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy, white people are dying off faster than ever in the U.S. Moreover, the biggest declines are […]
An algorithm is just a series of instructions – a set of rules to solve a problem. You can perform one in your head or with a pencil. But if there is one thing computers are brilliant at, it’s following rules, and the most important algorithms today are all performed by computers, and written in programming language that computers can understand. Type anything into Google and powerful […]
Donald Trump risks opening up a major diplomatic dispute with China before he has even been inaugurated after speaking on the telephone on Friday with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan. The call, confirmed by four people, is believed to be the first between a US president or president-elect and a leader of Taiwan since diplomatic relations between the two were cut in 1979. Although it is […]
This photo provided by Heritage Auctions shows Thomas A. Edison: Keys to His Menlo Park Laboratory on display. Six keys in all from the famous inventor’s Menlo Park home and work place will be auctioned Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016 in Dallas, along with five lightbulbs, including two that he created. Heritage Auctions will open the bidding on the two lots. (Heritage Auctions via AP) Thomas Edison’s door […]
01 December 2016 Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with MIMOS, the country’s research and development centre in ICT, to jointly develop a capital market advanced analytics platform. By collaborating with MIMOS, SC will be able to leverage new technology to process a higher volume of data from a variety of sources beyond the traditional data sets, facilitate the usage of RegTech […]
At a conference on investing in non-performing loans in Milan last week, attendees were asked to vote on whether an Italian government scheme to help sell the debt was the “best way forward”. Just 3 per cent agreed. The response follows a year of wrangling over proposals to tackle the €360bn of problematic loans plaguing the balance sheets of Italian banks, which have lost half their stock […]
Researchers have recently developed a new ultra-low-friction sliding contact mechanism that uses chilled water to remove heat from a key component of a next-generation collider. (via WSJ)
5G subscriptions are forecast to reach 20 million by 2022 in the Middle East and North East Africa, according to new research from tech giant Ericsson. Its Mobility Report for the Middle East and North East Africa also said mobile subscriptions are growing steadily across the region. They are expected to reach 690 million by the end of 2016, making up to 8 percent of the global […]
Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz’s decision to step down is unlikely to hamper growth at the world’s biggest coffee chain as his successor Kevin Johnson is well suited to take the helm, analysts said. Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) said on Thursday that Schultz would step down as CEO on April 3 to focus on new high-end coffee shops, handing the top job to Chief Operating Officer Johnson, a […]
A worker holds part of a pair of trousers at PT Trisula Garmindo Manufacturing in Bandung, West Java province September 17, 2013. In PT Trisula International’s hangar-sized factory outside the western Indonesian city of Bandung, hundreds of workers stitch together clothes for some of the world’s top brands. Amid the clatter and hum of their machines are hopes for a renaissance that can restore Indonesia’s place among […]
An ice storm, an email suggesting regime change and the mechanics of thinly traded futures markets have emerged as central points of contention in the market manipulation trial of one of the world’s biggest traders in financial derivatives. Donald Wilson and DRW, the trading group he leads from Chicago, are fighting civil charges they distorted the price of an interest rate futures contract. They went on trial […]
The notion of machine-powered facial recognition is one that predates today’s actual technology for it by many years, thanks to robot POV shots from sci-fi films such as The Terminator and Robocop. But while many advances have been made, facial recognition software is far from infallible, as researchers from Carnegie Mellon University recently found. Here are the details from a report in Quartz: Researchers showed they could […]
Credit: Yale University On the wall of Aaron Dollar’s office is a poster for R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), the 1920 Czech play that gave us the word “robot.” The story ends with the nominal robots seizing control of the factory of their origin and then wiping out nearly all of humanity. Dollar, fortunately, has something more cheerful in mind for the future of human-robot relations. He sees […]
