Features

  Relexnews The concept of gender-segregated transportation such as women-only ride-share schemes and trains is gaining steam around the world, most recently with the launch of an ‘Uber for women’ and calls for ‘pink carriages’ on Australian public rail lines. Though women-only buses, rail and subway cars have been in place for years in countries like Japan, Malaysia, India and ...

  San Francisco / AP The robots are coming — to help run your life or sell you stuff — at an online texting service near you. In coming months, users of Facebook’s Messenger app, Microsoft’s Skype and Canada’s Kik can expect to find new automated assistants offering information and services at a variety of businesses. These messaging “chatbots” are basically ...

Hamburg / Reuters In-flight Wi-Fi may sound like a great way to keep in touch with friends and family or catch up on work, but services are often so slow, you’re better off sticking to the in-flight magazine. New satellite-based Wi-Fi services promise to change that, prompting a grab for capacity and customers by companies such as Inmarsat Plc, Viasat ...

Braunschweig, Germany / DPA What’s the use of old-style telephone books when all the numbers can be looked up on the internet? Untold millions of people must have thumbed through the thin pages of directories seeking a plumber or a travel agent for a holiday. But today you can find all that information on the internet. No longer do you ...

Kathmandu / DPA Khwaja Asad Shah sits in his cramped beads shop in the heart of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, surrounded by the glitter of colourful pieces of glass. “We’ve been here for eight generations,” says Shah, explaining that Muslim families like his arrived from Kashmir some 500 years ago. They came during the Malla era, 1484-1520, as masons and ...

Ritika Sharma / emirates business Every now and then you hear people comparing an insignificant deed with “man has reached the moon” expression. But how many times did you think it really was that big deal. Not often? Today is a day to not only acknowledge the fact that it indeed is a momentous accomplishment of mankind, but that the ...

Ritika Sharma / Emirates Business Dubai-based Kehkashan Basu is founder of a youth sustainability organisation named Green Hope UAE, winner of NRI of the year award, has been a speaker at 45 United Nations and other international summits and has travelled to over 20 countries. Guess what makes her extraordinary – she is just 15. This UAE teenager was a ...

Yangon / DPA Myanmar is taking help of technology to boost domestic tourism. An app developed by Jovago aims at making the process of booking easier for domestic travellers. The app is available in Burmese and features a selection of more than 700 hotels across the country. It is targeting partnering 95 per cent of hotels in Myanmar by the ...

Dhaka / DPA Would you believe that the cost of living in Dhaka is as high as that in the Canadian city of Montreal although the living amenities and conditions in these two cities are worlds apart? The intelligence unit of British magazine The Economist in its latest study on the global cost of living in 2015 ranked Dhaka city ...

Rome / AFP Italy’s floating city Venice is preparing to bring in a plan to ease congestion for locals on its ‘vaporetto’ water buses by creating priority queues for residents in a move likely to vex holidaymakers. The city council said the public transport company would soon announce a new boarding system for the vaporetto — “little steamers” — which ...