San Francisco, United States | AFP | An egg icon that for years marked profiles of new Twitter users was gone Monday, a victim of “trolls” who often hid behind them to launch anonymous online attacks. For seven years, anyone who created a Twitter account automatically got an egg icon as …
Read More »Streaming now makes up most US music industry revenue
New York, United States | AFP | Streaming for the first time accounted for most recorded music revenue in the United States last year, bringing the industry its fastest growth in nearly 20 years, figures showed Thursday. While the breakneck expansion is welcome news for a long-beleaguered music industry, overall revenue …
Read More »Twitter makes room for more characters in tweets
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Twitter on Thursday began rolling out changes to let people pack more into tweets, subtracting from the character count names of those being replied to in posts. The latest software modification at the one-to-many messaging service comes about a year after Twitter set out …
Read More »Trump shakes up White House staff after setbacks
Washington, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff is leaving her post, a senior US official said Thursday, in a significant White House shake-up after a series of political setbacks. “Katie Walsh has accepted a position with an outside organization,” an official told AFP, signalling the …
Read More »Trump, trade, and the middle powers
COMMENT: Trump’s rejection of international trade rules by executive order and renegotiation foreshadow likely trade tensions By Oonagh Fitzgerald and Hector R. Torres Donald Trump’s presidency is posing fundamental challenges to the rule-based international trading system that has buttressed global growth for decades. But while America’s protectionist maneuverings threaten a …
Read More »Trump love not enough to bring back coal
New York, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump pledged Tuesday to revive America’s coal industry by rolling back regulation, but energy experts expressed doubt his moves would significantly boost prospects for the controversial energy source. Trump, flanked by coal miners and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, a …
Read More »Samsung eyes rebound with Galaxy S8 phones, virtual assistant
New York, United States | AFP | Samsung on Wednesday unveiled its new Galaxy S8 smartphones, incorporating the virtual assistant Bixby, as the market leader seeks to rebound from a chaotic handset recall and a corruption scandal. The South Korean giant’s mobile chief DJ Koh told a New York event …
Read More »Electronics ban on flights not a longterm solution: IATA boss
Montreal, Canada | AFP | British and US bans on laptops and tablet computers in flight cabins are not sustainable in the long term, the head of the association representing airlines said Tuesday. “The current measures are not acceptable as a long-term solution to whatever threat they are trying to …
Read More »Spy fiction? Byzantine Russia tale envelops Washington
Washington, United States | AFP | Secret meetings, phone taps, Russian oil money and mysterious intelligence dossiers: the swirling scandal over Donald Trump’s ties to Moscow has all the makings of a classic spy novel — whose ending has yet to be written. But the maelstrom engulfing Washington over Russia’s …
Read More »Trump son-in-law Kushner to face Russia investigation panel
Washington, United States | AFP | Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top aide Jared Kushner will appear before a Senate panel investigating Russian interference in the US election, the White House said Monday. Kushner, 36, was Trump’s main intermediary with foreign governments during the 2016 election campaign and now plays that …
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