Oracle has disclosed its expansion program in the Middle East for 2016 which involves setting up a data center and new offices in Abu Dhabi and internet cities in Amman and Riyadh. It also plans to increase its workforce to offer better service for the customers across the Middle East and Africa. The vibrant nature of the cloud market in the Middle East region and the ever growing cloud business therein has led the Californian tech giant to approach with larger investments.
Industry
California Drought Has Affected U.S. Wine Industry
Four years of drought in California is recorded as one of the most severe. The drought has taken effect on U.S. wine industry, as the amount of grape harvested is reduced significantly.
Some Tech Startups Will Be Rabbits in 2016, Said Venture Capital Analyst
Unicorn is a term defining a startup company with over $1 billion valuation. Now, there will be other group of tech startups defined as "rabbit" to differentiate them from unicorns-overhype that become unicorpse.
Firefox 44: Mozilla Introduced Updated Browser, Allows Push Notifications Even From Unloaded Sites
Mozilla has introduced a new version of its browser on Tuesday that allows push notifications even from unloaded sites. The new feature is super useful for websites like email, weather, social networks and shopping, which are usually frequently browsed for updates. This saves battery life and system resources. Through introducing the updated browser, Mozilla also keeps its earlier commitments, pledged along with other browser makers, for dropping RC4 support in 2016.
US oil explorers anticipated to report a loss of $14 billion
US oil explorers are expected to report a combined loss of about $14 billion for the year 2015, as a result of the sharpest oil price slump in a generation. Bankruptcies and disappointing debt exchanges have led the oil explorers to cut thousands of staffs, trim dividends, and abandon drilling projects to preserve capital and resist insolvency.
Latest News
The Drone Racing League already announce its first season that would take place in Miami this year. The league will involve only skilled pilots to compete in its six courses of races. The league hopes that they could be as big as NASCAR, Formula 1, or MotoGP.
Tech startup Slack Technologies hires Noah Weiss to lead the company's Search, Learning and Intelligence group. This indicates Sack Technologies interest to invest more on artificial intelligence.
Microsoft today unveiled a news application aimed at iOS users that is similar to Apple built in news app. However, the app is currently only available for the United States users.
The Japanese car maker again previewed its S-FR concept, first introduced on October last year. The new model has seen some changes and improvements compared to last year's. It is believed that the production will start this year and the affordable sports car would be available in the global markets.
McDonald's will shut 500 of its restaurants in 2016. The closures are aimed at maximizing the potential assets and leaving the weak-performing ones. McDonald's return has been declining. Fortunately, it has gained more increase during the three last months of 2015.
Amazon will spend more than $3 billion for Amazon Prime music and video content. With a 54 million members in the U.S., Amazon Prime wants to increase customers spending to boost its revenue following a downtrend.
This new model is believed to be a cheaper and smaller version to the current iPhone 6 generations. Some physical features would follow the iPhone 6 generations, but the size would be similar to iPhone 5 generations. iPhone 5SE could be an alternative for people who would like the latest features but prefer smaller devices.
Virtual Reality has started to attract more developers. Game Developers Conference revealed a survey showing that more game developers are working on VR prior to the event next March.
Many venture capitalists like Chamath Palihapitiya prefer to park their funds in Amazon as the online retailer is forecast to grow over a decade. The reason is that it's not because of e-Commerce operations, but its cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services (AWS). Many companies will eventually pay a fixed fee to Amazon as they increasingly rely on cloud computing services to run their services.
