Only a minority of the world’s pipelines can be cleaned with pigs like this one. Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto Around one-third of the world’s gas pipelines can be inspected using ‘pipeline pigs’. These cylindrical devices have figured in three James Bond movies, in one case being modified to secretly transport a person across borders. Back in the real world, the problem is that the other two-thirds of the […]
ABU DHABI // National Service recruits and volunteers have come away from military training with greater discipline, patience, appreciation for those serving in the Armed Forces, and life-long friends. After months of physical and technical training at Armed Forces’ National Service centres across the country, Emirati conscripts said the time in service had had a profound effect on their physiques, attitude and outlook. Hadi Al Badi, a […]
By Ian Simpson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. scientists will stage an unprecedented protest on Saturday, a March for Science provoked by steep cuts President Donald Trump has proposed for science and research budgets, and growing disregard for evidence-based knowledge. The march in Washington, timed to coincide with the Earth Day environmental event, will put Trump’s questioning of climate change and proposed cuts to federal science programs at […]
There were five huge boxes sitting at the loading dock of The Poynter Institute yesterday, waiting for the FedEx truck to pick them up. They are filled with more than 125 file boxes containing the literary effects of Donald M. Murray, in my opinion the most influential writing teacher America has ever known. The precious content of those boxes — including 100 of Murray’s experimental daybooks — […]
DETROIT A federal judge in Detroit on Friday sentenced Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) to three years’ probation and independent oversight for the German automaker’s diesel emissions scandal as part of a $4.3 billion settlement announced in January. The plea agreement called for “organization probation” in which the company would be overseen by an independent monitor. The sentencing was one of the last major hurdles to VW moving past […]
About six months ago, we bought a drone to help us cover stories at the Yakima Herald-Republic, a daily newspaper in Yakima, Washington. We’d seen other people’s drone footage of fires and floods and protests, and wanted to get our own. We knew that a drone had a lot of potential to contribute to our news coverage, but we didn’t know exactly what rules apply to journalists, […]
By David Morgan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump on Friday promised a big announcement about tax reform next week and ordered an administration review of Obama-era tax rules written to discourage U.S. companies from relocating overseas to cut their tax bills. “We’ll be having a big announcement on Wednesday having to do with tax reform. The process has begun long ago, but it really formally begins […]
Elon Musk has been working on a human-computer brain interface called Neuralink, aiming to link human brains to artificial intelligence. Neuralink aims to hook up the human brain to AI through micron-sized devices and the potential applications hold great promise. For instance, AI could serve as an extension of the human brain and help with certain brain injuries stemming from a stroke, cancer lesions, or other health […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for April 22, 2017, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. Ellen Fortini rounds up 10 things to do today in the UAE. Want to see your event listed here? Email us with the details and contact information at [email protected] newslide Al Ain Concert Get tickets […]
(Image: Samsung) Read any review of Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 and there’s one consistent theme that appears: The position of the fingerprint sensor is seriously flawed. Must read: Apple’s big $1,000+ iPhone gamble Let’s take a look at what the reviewers have been saying. Let’s begin with Walt Mossberg over at The Verge: In my tests, the Galaxy S8 had the least reliable, most frustrating, biometric security […]
It turns out several leading US banks do not require case-sensitive passwords, which could make it easier for someone to access your account. A thread on Reddit on Friday pointed out that Wells Fargo, the third largest bank in the US, doesn’t require its customers to enter a case-sensitive password. Other users confirmed the issue, whereas other banking customers began checking their own accounts and noted that […]
Within the US fixed income market, investors are sending a clear message about the prospect of higher interest rates. In recent weeks, investors have pushed back against a string of leveraged loan transactions, with a handful of deals pulled as money flows into the sector have shrunk. The stumbles underline a diminished appetite for richly valued, floating rate loans, seen as providing investors with some protection from […]
Honeywell International Inc (HON.N) said on Friday its commercial aviation after-sales business was benefiting from robust air travel, while its energy division was getting a lift from stable oil prices, sending shares to a record high. The diversified U.S. manufacturer’s shares rose as much as 3.6 percent to $128.30 in afternoon trading. Honeywell, which made an unsuccessful bid for rival United Technologies Inc (UTX.N) last year, also […]
April 21, 2017 by: Anjli Raval, Oil and Gas Correspondent Oil was set for the biggest weekly drop in a month as market confidence in Opec’s ability to overpower a resurgent US shale industry wavered. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell below $50 a barrel on Friday — down $1.32 to $49.39 — by 6.45pm in London. The global Brent marker dropped $1.24 to $51.75 a barrel. […]
By Eyanir Chinea and Efrain Otero | CARACAS CARACAS Eight people were electrocuted to death during a looting incident in Caracas, a firefighter said on Friday, amid violent protests against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by opponents accusing him of seeking to create a dictatorship. The accident occurred when a group of looters broke into a bakery in the working class neighborhood of El Valle, according the firefighter, […]
The UAE’s museum offerings are maturing and modernising. January marked the opening of Etihad Museum in Dubai, which tells the story of the birth of the UAE through films, documents and interactive experiences. And preparations are well under way for the Louvre Abu Dhabi to open later this year, with plans for a gallery dedicated to younger visitors. Outside the UAE, too, museums are looking to engage […]
© Seb Jarnot I arrive at La Méditerranée, a traditional fish restaurant in a literary quarter of the Left Bank, Paris, at 7pm to find its blue doors firmly bolted. Charlotte Rampling has just confirmed our reservation, but our dining slot appears to have fallen foul of that particularly French timetable that decrees that no civilised person would ever want to eat before 8pm. In a panic, […]
Feb 13, 2017 11:59 am IST An earnest band of Indian activists is asking rich people to boycott money, so there’s more for the needy. A motley mix of bankers, Bollywood stars and bikers have pledged their support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s November move to ban almost 90% of Indian currency to fight counterfeiting, tax evasion and terrorism. A story from The Wall Street Journal investigated […]
Usually the news is a pretty depressing business. Every now and then there’ll be something mildly positive squeezed in between articles about death and political turmoil, but for the most part it’s a near-constant stream of misery. The local news is different, though. Hidden in the corners of small British news sites and in the back pages of local papers are stories that are, quite simply, glorious. […]
Most applications of deep learning use “convolutional” neural networks, in which the nodes of each layer are clustered, the clusters overlap, and each cluster feeds data to multiple nodes (orange and green) of the next layer. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT In the past 10 years, the best-performing artificial-intelligence systems—such as the speech recognizers on smartphones or Google’s latest automatic translator—have resulted from a technique called “deep learning.” Deep […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for April 21, 2017, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. Ellen Fortini rounds up 10 things to do today in the UAE. Want to see your event listed here? Email us with the details and contact information at [email protected] newslide Abu Dhabi Kids’ fun Take […]
The London Metal Exchange, facing falling trading volumes and tougher competition, plans to ask its members to evaluate wide-ranging reforms that are intensifying a robust internal debate over its future. The 140-year institution is set to outline proposed reforms in the coming weeks, evaluating almost all aspects of its business, including whether it should become more similar to rivals such as the CME Group, the world’s largest […]
Photo An image from a video, released on Thursday through a Muslim Brotherhood channel, appears to show Egyptian soldiers summarily executing unarmed detainees in the Sinai Peninsula. Credit Mekameleen TV, via Youtube A video has emerged that appears to show members of the Egyptian military shooting unarmed detainees to death at point-blank range in the Sinai Peninsula and staging the killings to look as if they had […]
By Warren Strobel and Arshad Mohammed | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The United States wants new commitments from Saudi Arabia to improve its targeting procedures to minimize civilian casualties in its part in the Yemen civil war as it weighs resuming sales of precision-guided munitions to Riyadh, U.S. officials told Reuters. An announcement of the weapons sale had been anticipated last month, but objections by mostly Democratic lawmakers and […]
