Berlin, Germany | AFP | German industrial giant Siemens on Monday said it would buy US software firm Mentor Graphics for $4.5 billion, building out its offer to high-tech manufacturing industries. Oregon-based Mentor employs more than 5,700 people and produces software used to design electronics products, especially integrated circuits. The …
Read More »Skygazers gear up for extra bright ‘supermoon’ tonight
Jakarta, Indonesia | AFP | Skygazers were heading to high-rise buildings, ancient forts and beaches Monday to witness the closest “supermoon” to Earth in almost seven decades, hoping for dramatic photos and spectacular surf. The unusually big and bright Moon will appear at its most impressive just as night falls …
Read More »President-elect Trump back to tweeting with abandon
Washington, United States | AFP | Donald Trump during the presidential campaign tweeted with fierce abandon and at all hours. Would he feel restrained by last week’s presidential election victory to give his thumbs a rest? It seems not. The newly minted Republican president-elect let loose his latest Twitter barrage …
Read More »F1: I’m hunting you down, victorious Hamilton warns Rosberg
Sao Paulo, Brazil | AFP | Lewis Hamilton warned Nico Rosberg he was “hunting” a fourth world title after describing his stunning triumph in Sunday’s wet and chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix as one of the easiest of his 52 career victories. The 31-year-old Briton won in Brazil for the first …
Read More »Trump credits social media with election win
Washington, United States | AFP | President-elect Donald Trump credited his provocative use of Twitter and other social media with helping him win the US elections, saying it gave him a way of “fighting back.” In an interview that airs in full on Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Trump said …
Read More »Progress, but uphill slog for women in tech
Lisbon, Portugal | AFP | They are under-represented in the industry and sometimes made to feel unwelcome in geek-infested workspaces, but women are making their voices heard at Europe’s largest technology marketplace. Organisers of this week’s Web Summit in Lisbon said nearly half its 53,000 attendees were women, helped …
Read More »Iraqi forces battle car bombs with commercial drones
Salahiyah, Iraq | AFP | On the Mosul front lines, Iraqi forces have found a new tool to counter the Islamic State group’s suicide car bombs: small commercial drones. “It’s a car bomb!” Mohammed Salih alerted his forces after checking the live feed from a drone his men were flying …
Read More »Oracle seals $9.3 bn NetSuite acquisition
Washington, United States | AFP | US software giant Oracle said Saturday that it has sealed its $9.3 billion acquisition of cloud computing company NetSuite. Oracle said that a majority of shares — 53 percent — owned by eligible stockholders in the vote had been tendered. The acquisition is to …
Read More »‘Bots’ step up for 2016 election news coverage
Washington, United States | AFP | If you’re reading about the US election, some of that news is likely to come to you from a “bot.” Automated systems known as “bots” or “robo-journalism” have been around for years, but they are playing a bigger role in coverage this year amid …
Read More »Huge cyber attack disrupts internet in Liberia
Monrovia, Liberia | AFP | A massive cyber attack targeting Liberia’s single broadband link has taken the country’s internet intermittently offline for the last week, web security experts said Friday. The characteristics of the attack point to the same type of cyber weapon that crippled several major websites based in …
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