Why Facebook just agreed to give its data to Russia’s biggest search engine By Leo Mirani @lmirani
The way to Dmitry Medvedev’s heart is through an oversize t-shirt. Reuters/Ekaterina Shtukina/RIA Novosti Russia and the former Soviet states at its periphery have remained steadfastly immune to the charms of Facebook.  The American social network figures nowhere in a list of top 10 websites by the number of unique users in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus or the Central […]
Read More →Teddy Afro concert cancelled
Bedele Special cancels sponsorship of Teddy Afro concert tour “It was a decision taken jointly with the artist. Our focus is on supporting events that bring entertainment and joy to our consumers,†Heineken stated after it announced it was pulling the plug on the sponsorship deal with Teddy Afro for what was to be a […]
Read More →Addis Ababa Residents make way for new stadium
The area between Bole Medhanialem and Imperial Hotel is being cleared to make way for the construction of a 60,000-seat stadium, estimated to cost 1.6 billion birr. Residents of the area, commonly known as “Chereqa sefer, have been relocated, as many houses had to be demolished for the construction. Many squatters have also been removed […]
Read More →Volvo Cars sales up in 2013 thanks to Chinese market
Volvo Cars, the Swedish subsidiary of Chinese automaker Geely, announced on Thursday a slight increase in its 2013 sales thanks to a spectacular growth in China. The Asian country became Volvo’s first market at the end of last year, during which the company sold 427,840 cars, 1.4 percent more than in 2012. “After six consecutive months of growing sales we can report a great full-year performance exceeding last year’s results,” Volvo Cars Marketing, Sales and Customer Service executive Alain Visser said. In the United States, still Volvo Cars’ strongest market for the entire 2013, sales were down by 10 percent compared to 2012.
Chinese firm Huawei shows Tron console at CES
China’s Huawei micro-console is called the Tron, runs on Android, contains a Tegra 4 chip, and outputs 1080p HD graphics for around $120. Huawei has already made a name for itself with a range of budget-friendly Android handsets that compete with rivals from more established brands; The Mac Pro tube-style casing of Huawei’s Tron accommodates a Tegra 4 chip, the same processor that powers the Nvidia Shield, Microsoft Surface 2, and Asus Transformer Pad Infinity. A sub-$120 price tag puts it in the same ball park as the Android-powered Ouya and its contemporaries such as the GameStick and GamePop, should Huawei’s distribution plans include territories outside of China.
Amid Shrinking Market Share, Apple’s 2014 Challenges Loom Large
In my mind, 2014 is shaping up to be Apple’s wildest year in the post-Jobs era. Last year, we saw a lot of incremental innovations from Apple but no thunderous new products. Sure, the new Mac Pro is insanely small, quiet and super sexy — not to mention manufactured in America, which is no small feat these days — but it’s also a niche product for professionals.
Read More →How to Speed Up a Sluggish Android Smartphone
One of the disadvantages of retaining a phone after the expiration of a two-year contract — as many of us do — is that those older phones have accumulated a few years’ worth of digital gunk. They’re clogged up like an aging sewer on the wrong side of town. Just like on a PC, bits of app and OS code become discombobulated — orphaned from the parent program.
Read More →Chinese man detained after dead tiger found in SUV
Police in China have detained a man over the death of a rare Siberian tiger discovered in the back of an SUV, a report said on Thursday. Pictures showing officers pulling the black-streaked tiger, wrapped in a plastic bag, out of a white vehicle went viral on China’s Internet after they were posted online. Trade in Siberian tigers, also known as Amur tigers, is outlawed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Hundreds of the animals, known scientifically as Panthera tigris altaica, once roamed the lush pine and oak forests of northeastern China.
China has world’s most outbound tourists: report
Nearly 100 million Chinese tourists visited foreign countries last year, and they are likely to extend their lead as the world’s biggest-spending travellers, state media reported Thursday. A total of 97 million Chinese tourists left the country in 2013, up 14 million from the previous year, the state-run China Daily reported, citing official data from China’s National Tourism Administration. China’s economy has boomed over the past decade, expanding the ranks of its middle-class who are hungry for foreign travel after the country’s decades of isolation in the last century. European Union and Asian countries have moved to ease visa application procedures for Chinese tourists in recent years, keen to cash in on their big-spending habits.
Taiwan’s Pegatron may get half iPhone 6 orders
Taiwan’s Pegatron Corp, an assembler of Apple’s iPhone 5C, is expected to win half of the orders from the US tech giant for its next smartphone model, a report said on Thursday. In order to meet the demand, Pegatron has started building a new plant at Kunshan, a satellite city near Shanghai where all its iPhones are assembled, the Liberty Times said without identifying its source. The paper said the Kunshan plant is scheduled to become operational in the middle of the year and start mass production late this year, when Apple is expected to roll out its iPhone 6. It said Pegatron expects its revenue to rise to Tw$950 billion ($31.5 billion) this year, from Tw$882 billion the previous year, thanks largely to Apple orders.
