Three months ago, after 10 months of negotiations, Canadian tech giant Mitel Networks Corp. announced that it would buy video conferencing solutions provider Polycom Inc. for close to $1.9 billion. Now it appears that Polycom has had a huge change of heart. Today private equity firm Siris Capital Group LLC said it has agreed to acquire Polycom for $2 billion in cash and take it private. Previously, […]
Quantum computers promise to enable faster, far more complex calculations than today’s silicon chip-based computers. But they also raise the possibility that future computers could retroactively break the security of any digital communications that exist today, which is why Google is experimenting with something called “post-quantum cryptography.” While quantum computer development remains in its early stages, some such computers are already in operation. In theory, future generations […]
Tech giant Google made a bid to expand its cloud services offerings to big media companies yesterday with the announcement that it has acquired Anvato. The company provides a software platform that automates the encoding, editing, publishing, and distribution of video content across multiple platforms. The Mountain View, Calif. startup has already won over some major media companies on its own, including NBC Universal, Fox Sports, and […]
A Nintendo video game logo is seen at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, in Los Angeles, California, United States, June 17, 2015. Reuters/Lucy Nicholson TOKYO Shares in Japan’s Nintendo Co surged on Friday as consumers flocked to try out its new Pokemon GO smartphone game, raising hopes that the company’s long-awaited shift into mobile gaming will pay off. Seeking to protect its console business, the Japanese […]
ABU DHABI // One of Britain’s most wanted fugitives is believed to be hiding in Dubai. British police want to question Shane O’Brien, 28, in connection with the stabbing death of 21-year-old Josh Hanson outside a bar in London last October. O’Brien was initially believed to be in the Netherlands but police said the latest information suggests he travelled to Dubai. “While our information links O’Brien to […]
The logo of Facebook is seen at the Cannes Lions Festival in Cannes, France, June 23, 2016. Reuters/Eric Gaillard The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is examining Facebook Inc over its transfer of various rights associated with its worldwide business to a holding company in Ireland, according to court papers. The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco seeking to enforce […]
Three people, including a 15-year-old Emirati and two Asians, died in two separate crashes in Ras Al Khaimah on Thursday, police said. The Emirati died after the vehicle he was driving swerved and crashed into a lamppost, then caught fire, at 2.45pm, RAK Police said. In another crash, two people from unspecified Asian countries died after their vehicle swerved and crashed into a wadi. They were found […]
Researchers have created a robotic mimic of a stingray that’s powered and guided by light-sensitive rat heart cells. The work exhibits a new method for building bio-inspired robots by means of tissue engineering. Batoid fish, which include stingrays, are distinguished by their flat bodies and long, wing-like fins that extend from their heads. These fins move in energy-efficient waves that emulate from the front of the fin […]
When early terrestrial animals began moving about on mud and sand 360 million years ago, the powerful tails they used as fish may have been more important than scientists previously realized. That’s one conclusion from a new study of African mudskipper fish and a robot modeled on the animal. Animals analogous to the mudskipper would have used modified fins to move around on flat surfaces, but for […]
|By Matein Khalid| The merger of Abu Dhabi banks First Gulf Bank and NBAD creates the largest bank in the Middle East, a regional colossus with $170 billion in assets, competitive funding cost in the global interbank/capital markets and a market value greater than Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) and Deutsche Bank. This is the biggest game changer event in UAE banking and finance since the […]
Pivotal, the developer of the Cloud Foundry open source cloud development platform, is teaming up with Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. Announced today, the partnership means that Ubuntu is now the preferred operating system for Cloud Foundry. Cloud Foundry was originally developed by VMware and is now owned by Pivotal Software, a joint venture by EMC, VMware and General Electric. Canonical and Pivotal […]
Despite some setbacks with an earlier program aimed at getting more people online, Facebook is pushing ahead with a new effort to provide wireless Internet access to remote parts of the world: the OpenCellular wireless access platform. Designed to support a variety of connection options from 2G to LTE, the OpenCellular system will be open sourced so telecom operators and other organizations can more easily build locally […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — As the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan approached, jihadist propagandists told their followers that it was a good time to kill people. The spokesman for the Islamic State said in late May that jihadists should “make it, with God’s permission, a month of pain for infidels everywhere.” Another extremist distributed a manual for using poisons, adding, in poor English: “Dont forget […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The coordinated militant attack on the eve of Eid is the biggest challenge yet to Saudi Arabia’s internal security since it crushed an al-Qaeda insurgency a decade ago, according to Bloomberg. With no claims of responsibility, suspicion has fallen on Islamic State, which has vowed to overthrow Gulf rulers they see as betraying Islam. One of the bombings on Monday, near the Prophet’s Mosque […]
BAGHDAD — As celebrations for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan stretched past midnight into Sunday in central Baghdad, where Iraqis had gathered to eat, shop and just be together, a minivan packed with explosives blew up and killed at least 143 people — the third mass slaughter across three countries in less than a week. The attack was the deadliest in Baghdad in years — at […]
ABU DHABI // The most academically gifted pupils in the country were rewarded for their hard work at a ceremony at the Emirates Palace hotel on Wednesday. One hundred and fifty high achievers from public schools received certificates from Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, at the Best Achievers Awarding Ceremony There was jubilation at the ceremony, organised by Abu Dhabi Education […]
The Interpreter By MAX FISHER When three suicide bombers attacked Istanbul’s main airport on Tuesday, killing at least 41 people, Turkey began a ritual that it has refined with so many recent bombings: looking for hints as to which of the country’s two major terror threats was responsible. Over the past year, Turkey has endured at least 14 major terrorist attacks, killing more than 200 people. The […]
Enterprises that depend on Symantec’s antivirus products to protect their networks may want to rethink their strategies. According to Google’s Project Zero, Symantec’s flagship enterprise security product is riddled with vulnerabilities that could be putting millions of companies at risk. The bugs affect all Symantec and Norton branded antivirus products, the Google team said. “These vulnerabilities are as bad as it gets,” Google researcher Tavis Ormandy wrote […]
A mobile phone shows a Facebook page promoting Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, in this photo illustration taken April 13, 2015. Reuters/Mike Segar As the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, Facebook Inc is going out of its way to show its neutrality – an increasingly urgent matter for the social network as evidence of its power continues to emerge. Recent studies have shown the site has […]
SAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc on Wednesday offered a rare glimpse into how it ranks and shows content in its News Feed, part of an effort to provide more transparency about its operations as the social network’s cultural and political influence continue to grow. The disclosures, though lacking in detail, are notable in part because they come in the wake of a May news report alleging liberal political […]
BERLIN/LAGOS When German e-commerce investor Rocket Internet launched Jumia in 2012 as a would-be African Amazon, it was optimistic that a rapidly expanding middle class would quickly shift from street markets to shopping online. Four years on, falling sales for sites like Jumia and slower growth from Nigeria to Russia and Brazil is casting doubt on Rocket Internet’s ambition to become the world’s biggest Internet company outside […]
ABU DHABI // Shoppers have complained of high parking fees at Al Wahda Mall as customers shop during Ramadan and ahead of Eid. One shopper, Sanober Shah, said she was “shocked” to have to pay Dh100 after spending seven hours at the mall, where she has shopped for years. “As far as I knew, the first three hours of your cark parked there are free, then you […]
Two days after reporting that 655,000 healthcare records were found for sale on the dark web, the site DeepDotWeb said today that another insurance database with at least 9.3 million patient records is being shopped around by an anonymous hacker. Over the weekend, a hacker using the name “thedarkoverlord” was offering for sale records taken from databases managed by three healthcare organizations in Missouri, Georgia and the […]
UAE. Deloitte’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) practices highlight the increasing trends for connectivity and mobile phone usage across the board in Deloitte’s latest report entitled: Global Mobile Consumer Trends. Both intensity in usage and ownership rates are increasing―in some categories more than doubling―pointing to dramatically changing consumer behaviors, and a shift towards non-voice communications such as text and instant messaging (IM). Deloitte conducted a survey designed […]
