Technology

  PARIS / AP An Austrian luxury hotel is ditching electronic room cards for old-fashioned locks and keys after having its systems frozen by blackmail-hungry hackers. The management of Romantik Seehotel Jaegerwirt, in the Austrian Alps, said that they’ve been repeatedly targeted by cybercriminals. One recent infection with ransom software on December 6 resulted in a complete shutdown of hotel ...

  Bloomberg Abby Rogers, a 15 year-old from California’s Bay Area, recently took extreme measures to help a buddy in Michigan. The friend had her phone confiscated by parents and biked to a local library where she got on a computer, sent Rogers her Snapchat user name and password, and begged for a big favor. Every day for two weeks, ...

  Bloomberg Late last year, just in time for Christmas shopping, Rachel Rhoads got a nice surprise. One of her secret savings accounts had grown to $900 behind her back. Rhoads, a 37-year-old Los Angeles-based sales director for a jewellery line, has an account with Digit, a financial technology company with an algorithm that tracks users’ income and spending patterns. ...

  Bloomberg Starbucks Corp. will begin letting customers order via voice on their iPhones and Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa system, a bid to bolster its tech capabilities even as the rapid evolution brings headaches to the coffee chain. The new capability works with the barista feature on the Starbucks’ app, which relies on artificial intelligence to interact with customers. Customers can ...

  WASHINGTON / AP The FBI defended its decision to withhold documents on how it unlocked an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California, shooters, saying the information could be exploited by “hostile entities” if released to the public. The Justice Department earlier this month released heavily censored records in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit ...

  SAN FRANCISCO / AP The Pixel phone, Google’s answer to Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy, is off to a promising start — but might have done even better had Google managed consumer demand as smartly as the device’s sleek design. Although Google hasn’t released sales figures, industry researchers say the Pixel has been a hot item since its October ...

  Dubai /Emirates Business GCC doctors will be able to review patient medical records in 3 seconds or less, if healthcare providers adopt the latest technology in the next three years. In the face of rising healthcare costs, GCC national transformation plans such as UAE Vision 2021 and Saudi Vision 2030 call for investment in the latest medical technology solutions ...

  Bloomberg Most consumers have yet to figure out how to pay for their daily lattes using their smartphones. But that hasn’t stopped automakers from adding digital wallets to cars, too. In-car payments, long just a pipe dream on the research floors at big automakers, are finally ready to make their real-world debut. Honda Motor Co. showed off a prototype ...

  Dubai /Emirates Business Qualcomm Incorporated announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. commissioned and released a landmark study, The 5G Economy, examining the potential economic and social impact of 5G around the world. The study was conducted jointly by research firms IHS Markit, PSB and leading economist Professor Dr. David Teece, director of the Tusher Center at the Haas ...

  Bloomberg Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp., which all posted quarterly results recently, reinforced what’s become a truism in technology: the biggest growth is in businesses that deliver computing over the internet. Microsoft topped projections on the strength of rising customer sign-ups for its cloud offerings like Azure, which saw revenue almost double. Intel sales rose more than ...