Small businesses have been urged for years to take their operations digital and for many it took a pandemic for them to enjoy the benefits of going online. New research by Mastercard found smaller firms have been among the hardest hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it prompted just more than half of them to...
Category: <span>Latest</span>
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Blake Shelton slams backlash over ‘Minimum Wage’
Blake Shelton says anyone criticizing the lyrics of his new single, “Minimum Wage,” knows nothing about country music. The Voice coach debuted his “classic-country love song” on New Year’s Eve, which was met with mixed reviews on social media. With lyrics like, “Girl, lookin’ at you lookin’ at me that way / Can make a...
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Australian Open players frustrated by quarantine after positive cases
Several Australian Open tennis players have expressed frustration at being confined to their hotel rooms for two weeks after people on their flights tested positive for coronavirus. Dozens of players will not be able to train as much as other competitors in the lead-up to the tournament, which begins in Melbourne on 8 February. At...
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Trump administration slams China’s Huawei, halts shipments from Intel and others
The Trump administration notified Huawei suppliers, including chipmaker Intel, that it is revoking certain licenses to sell to the Chinese company and intends to reject dozens of other applications to supply the telecommunications firm, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The action – likely the last against Huawei Technologies under Republican President Donald Trump...
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Confidence in Chinese vaccines has taken a hit amid mass jabs
Mass public vaccination programs using a Chinese coronavirus vaccine are underway across Indonesia and Turkey, where tens of millions of people are expected to receive doses of the CoronaVac shot made by Beijing-based company Sinovac. On Wednesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo was shown receiving the country’s first CoronaVac shot, after the government authorized it for...
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US statehouses fortified ahead of Biden inauguration
US statehouses were fortified as small groups of protesters – some of them armed – have gathered where tensions are high after the deadly riots at the Capitol in Washington. Protests are being held outside capitol buildings in Texas, Oregon, Michigan, Ohio ahead of President Joe Biden’s inauguration. But many other statehouses were quiet on...
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India begins world’s biggest Covid-19 vaccine drive
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Covid-19 vaccine programme, which aims to vaccinate more than 1.3 billion people against Covid. He paid tribute to front-line workers who will be the first to receive jabs. India has recorded the second-highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world after the United States. Millions of doses of two...
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Victoria reopens borders to Sydney as ‘red zones’ remain in place
Scores of Victorians left stranded in Greater Sydney by Victoria’s new travel permit system will be allowed to return home from Monday night, after large swathes of the city were downgraded from ‘red’ to ‘orange’ zones. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton today revealed the change to the state’s ‘traffic light’...
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China’s Huawei backtracks after filing for patent to identify Uyghur faces
Chinese technology company Huawei is backtracking on a patent application it filed for a facial recognition system intended to identify Uyghurs from other Chinese ethnicities. Filed in July 2018 by Huawei and the government-affiliated Chinese Academy of Sciences, the patent application said the “identification of pedestrian attributes is very important” in facial recognition technology. “The...
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Anne Hathaway hates her name: ‘Call me anything but Anne’
Every time Anne Hathaway appears at a movie premiere and people shout her name, she has flashbacks to her childhood. “The only person who calls me Anne is my mother, and she only does it when she’s really mad at me, like really mad,” the Oscar-winning actress said on Tuesday’s episode of The Tonight Show...