Apple (AAPL) will soon release its new iPhone and, for now, there’s no way to know whether the tech giant will reinvent the device or continue on its path of slow incremental improvements.
The forthcoming iPhone 8 will likely have the following features:-
- An OLED screen,
- A virtual home button,
- Inductive charging,
- A tap-to-wake feature,
- Facial-recognition unlocking, and more.
Read more about users preference according to Yahoo Finance survey.
Source: Yahoo Finance,
From April to June, tech's biggest companies all held their annual mega-events, laying out their grand visions for the next 12 months or so. Facebook kicked it off in late April with its F8 conference, followed by Microsoft Build, then the Google I/O conference, and Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference finished things off. Amazon doesn't really hold events, but it unveiled two new Amazon Echo smart speakers during that period for good measure. And things will get exciting again, sooner than you know it. This Fall, Apple is expected to reveal a 10th-anniversary iPhone, Google will likely reveal a revamped Pixel smartphone, and Microsoft is expected to hold another one of its regular late-October Surface computer press conferences.
In the meantime, there's not much to do but reflect on what we've learned so far this year about the future of tech. And beyond the hype and the hyperbole, we're starting to see the very earliest stages of a battle for the next phase of computing. Because while Apple and Google may dominate the smartphone market today, technologies like augmented reality present whole-new platforms where there's no clear winner. So Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook, having missed out on owning a mobile platform, are doing their damndest to hasten the end of the smartphone — and the end of Apple and Google's duopoly, while they're at it.
Source: World Economic Forum
Phase IV
GLM|LIC has started Phase IV of its research funding activities, with the overall objective of delivering a significant new body of evidence on growth and labor markets to help shape future policies in low-income countries. Capacity building through involvement of researchers in low-income countries is strongly encouraged.
Research projects can be proposed for the following research areas:
- Growth and Labour Market OutcomesActive Labour Market Policies, Labour Market Institutions and Labour Market FrictionsHuman Capital and Labour ProductivityMigration and Labour MarketsLabour Market Dimensions of Population Dynamics, Urbanisation, and the Environment
There are three cross-cutting themes that researchers are encouraged to address under any of the above research areas:
- The GenderFragile States and RegionImproving Data for Labour Market Research
The deadline for applications is October 16, 2017. The electronic application portal will be open until then. Projects should start in early 2018 and be completed by December 31, 2020, and have a value of at least €100,000.
Documents and Electronic Application Portal
Please see the below files for more detailed information about the Call and use the forms and template for your proposal:
- Instructions for Applicants
- Specifications Phase IV
- Applicant Statement Form
- Partner Statement Form
- Budget Form
- Project Proposal Template
An archive file including all documents is available for download here. A list of all countries defined as LICs for this call is available here.
Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma announced the creation of a US$10 million African Young Entrepreneurs Fund, during the Youth Connect Africa Summit co-hosted by UNCTAD and the Government of Rwanda. UNCTAD is working with Mr. Alibaba's Jack Ma to explore opportunities with African businesses to participate in global trade, as well as to raise awareness of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted by the international community in 2015. In addition to his role as an adviser to UNCTAD, Mr. Ma also serves as a UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocate. Mr. Ma underscored the importance of internet access in all nations, saying it was an even more important raw material for economies than coal and electricity were in the past. In light of that, Mr. Ma said that he planned to roll out a partnership with African universities to teach internet technology, artificial intelligence, and e-commerce.
Key Points
- African entrepreneurs should not be asking successful businesses, 'How can I distribute your products?' Africans should be saying, 'I have an idea I want to grow – how can you help me to grow it? How can you help me market it?
- Unlocking Africa's e-commerce is a key priority for UNCTAD, given the potential of online trade to power development.
- Not being connected to the internet today is worse than not having electricity 100 years ago
- The Internet & Big Data is the future. You can never stop it. You like it or don’t like it. But you will never stop it.
- Every time you have a technological revolution, it will kill a lot of jobs and it will create a lot of jobs.
Source: UNCTAD News
The second edition of the annual Africa 2017, a high-level forum offering participants an unparalleled platform for promoting trade and investment within Africa, will take place on December 7-9, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the organizers announced yesterday. This year’s event will kick-off with a Young Entrepreneurs Day (YED), which will bring together emerging and established entrepreneurs, business mentors, startup hubs, angel investors and venture capital firms to share ideas, network and help drive further the “business ideas of tomorrow”. The three-day conference will discuss key issues like policy reforms to improve business and investment climate, among others.
- The forum will attract business leaders and policy-makers from across Africa and worldwide, including Heads of State, the statement
- The forum seeks to stimulate investments into the continent and especially cross-border investments.
- This forum will enhance the economic and cultural integration of Africa and to spur investment into what is still one of the fastest growing regions in the world.
- The forum will be an unparalleled occasion to gather the architects of Africa’s future and drive further the transformative investment projects of tomorrow
Source: New Times
The pace of technology development determines the pace of replacement of old products. Here is a list of items according to Dr. James Canton and other experts consulted by NBC News MACH say are likely to go the way of typewriters and cassette tapes. Read more
- Metal Locks & Keys
- Parking Meters
- Cash
- ATMs & BANKS
- Desktop Computers
- TVs
- Telephones
With the rise of contactless card and mobile payments, there’s no denying that consumer spending habits are changing as technology continues to evolve, with contactless payments now making up over 50% of all card payments. The question that will be on many business minds over the next few months, however, will be “How will this impact my consumer relations?” Contactless Technology. It’s been less than a decade since Barclaycard introduced their contactless technology to the UK, but already we’ve seen a contactless adoption rise at a rapid pace, with contactless already making up 51% of card payments, a 90% boost in usage in the past year alone. Read more
The ongoing transition from nomadic cultures to settled lifestyles and intensifying agriculture has led to a steep drop not only in the use of fire on local lands but in the prevalence of fire worldwide, researchers found. Globally, the total acreage burned by fires each year declined by 24 percent between 1998 and 2015, according to a new paper in Science that analyzes NASA's satellite data, as well as population and socioeconomic information. The decline in burned lands was largest in savannas and grasslands, where fires are essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems and habitat conservation. Readmore
Researchers have examined the available literature for the effects of acute and chronic administration of cocoa flavanols on different cognitive domains. It turns out that cognitive performance was improved by a daily intake of cocoa flavanols. It has to be noted though, that the effects depended on the length and mental load of the used cognitive tests to measure the effect of acute cocoa consumption. In young and healthy adults, for example, a high demanding cognitive test was required to uncover the subtle immediate behavioral effects that cocoa flavanols have on this group.
The effects of relatively long-term ingestion of cocoa flavanols (ranging from 5 days up to 3 months) has generally been investigated in elderly individuals. It turns out that for them cognitive performance was improved by a daily intake of cocoa flavanols. Factors such as attention, processing speed, working memory, and verbal fluency were greatly affected. These effects were, however, most pronounced in older adults with a starting memory decline or other mild cognitive impairments. Readmore
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