April, 2019

• 13 April

  Amazon workers are listening to what you say to Alexa

  

  Bloomberg Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening. Sometimes, someone is. Amazon.com Inc employs thousands of people around the world to help improve ...

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• 13 April

  Dubai’s Vista buys Uber-like private jet service JetSmarter

  

  Bloomberg Vista Global Holding, which competes with Warren Buffett’s NetJets in the pay-by-the-hour private plane market, agreed to buy US-based JetSmarter, adding a service that sells empty seats on chartered aircraft. While the Uber-style model will extend the group’s product offering in the $11 billion on-demand corporate flights sector, JetSmarter is mainly attractive for industry-leading digital technology and an app ...

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• 13 April

  Elon Musk-linked team outlines system to monitor brain activity

  

  Bloomberg A team of scientists, some of whom have worked for Elon Musk, outlined a way to rapidly implant electrical wiring into the brains of rats. The process, described in an unpublished academic paper, is an important step towards a potential system to plug human brains directly into computers. The paper’s five authors have been employed by or loosely associated ...

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• 10 April

  Mubadala opens New York office as Abu Dhabi fund expands in US

  

  Bloomberg Mubadala Investment Co opened an office in New York as the Abu Dhabi wealth fund builds on its presence in the United States. “Today we have offices in San Francisco, we have offices in Rio De Janeiro, we have offices in Moscow, we have an office in New York City which we just inaugurated, and Hong Kong by the ...

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• 10 April

  Network International rises on $1.4 billion London IPO

  

  Bloomberg Network International shares surged in London trading after the payments processor raised 1.1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) in an initial public offering that’s the biggest listing in Europe so far this year. Network International jumped 22 percent to 532.20 pence in London. The Dubai-based company sold 200 million shares for 435 pence each, according to a statement on Wednesday. ...

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• 10 April

  Dana Gas production up 6% in first quarter

  

  SHARJAH / WAM Dana Gas has announced that its average production for Q1, 2019 has increased by 6 percent year-on-year to 68,700 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) from 65,000 boepd in Q1 2018. The first quarter production increase was led by the KRI (Kurdistan Region of Iraq), which leapt to 32,750 boepd in Q1, 2019 from 26,300 boepd ...

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• 10 April

  Al Mazrouei: Opec won’t jump the gun again, market needs balance

  

  ABU DHABI / WAM Suhail bin Mohammed Faraj Faris Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Industry, affirmed that there is a “high probability” of achieving balance in the oil market by the end of 2019. “The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Jeddah next month will look into the prevailing market conditions and decide to continue the output cut deal ...

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• 10 April

  Germany’s economy is running on low wages

  

  As the German economy reverts to a slow and steady growth trend after a short-lived boom, it can rely on an unusual resource that helps to protect it from declines: A bigger low-paid workforce than even most economists realise. Last week, Markus Grabka and Carsten Schroeder of the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin reported on this phenomenon. They ...

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• 10 April

  India’s car market could use a jump

  

  Heading into an election, India’s enthusiasm for cars and motorbikes has all but evaporated. It’s unlikely to return anytime soon, despite all the grand promises to improve the lives of masses. Passenger car sales, which have been sliding since last summer, fell another 6 percent last month while those for motorbikes – the larger and more profitable market – collapsed ...

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• 10 April

  Debenhams achieves the worst result for everyone

  It could have all been so different. Debenhams Plc, is expected to be taken over by its lenders in a restructuring after they rejected a 200 million-pound ($261.6 million) lifeline from Sports Direct International Plc. The equity, including the 30 percent stake held by the sportswear retailer, will be wiped out. The shares were suspended early on Tuesday. After operating ...

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