Author: dailyguardian.ae

For Emirati mother Amina, Thursday is very special. She will be organising her daughter Arwa’s first ever birthday party. It is the first time that the 8-year-old, born on February 29, will be celebrating her birthday on its actual day along with her friends. “She was born in 2016,” said Amina. “In 2020, the threat of Covid was already quite prevalent so I had to cancel all the celebrations I had planned for her in nursery. This year, she is finally getting to celebrate her birthday.” For leap day babies, or leaplings, being born on February 29, may mean four…

Performing a controlled, soft landing on the moon isn’t easy. Three missions attempted to reach our nearest neighbor in recent weeks. Two of the landers — one from Japan’s space agency and another from Texas-based Intuitive Machines — touched down on the lunar surface but toppled over, creating challenges for their respective mission operators. A third moon-bound mission, from Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, suffered a propellant leak shortly after launch that prevented it from even attempting a landing. The most recent visit, by Intuitive Machines, made history on February 22 when it became the first commercial company to achieve a soft lunar…

Aside from salary, a company’s benefits package is the top factor that attracts employees to a new job role in the UAE and the wider region. Over 60 per cent respondents to a pan-Gulf study said a generous benefits package is the most important aspect in an organisation for them. Hays’ GCC Salary Guide for 2024 found that the three benefits that professionals value the most are air ticket/travel allowances (43 per cent), child education allowances (38 per cent), and flexible working (34 per cent). However, while only 5 per cent of employers claim not to offer benefits, a significant…

India on Tuesday introduced four crew members for its maiden ‘Gaganyaan’ space voyage, as it aims to become the world’s fourth country to send a crewed mission into space just months after a historic landing on the south pole of the moon. Gaganyaan, or “sky craft” in Hindi, is the first mission of its kind for India and will cost about 90.23 billion rupees ($1.1 billion). It involves the launch of a habitable space capsule over the next year to an orbit of 400 km (250 miles) and its return via a landing in the Indian Ocean. Indian Prime Minister…

The AI bots are going nuts again. Microsoft Copilot — a rebranded version of Bing Chat — is getting stuck in some old ways by providing strange, uncanny, and sometimes downright unsettling responses. And it all has to do with emojis. A post on the ChatGPT subreddit is currently making the rounds with a specific prompt about emojis. The post itself, as well as the hundreds of comments below, show different variations of Copilot providing unhinged responses to the prompt. I assumed they were fake — it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen similar photos — so imagine my…

Property owners who have a portfolio worth of Dh2 million or more may soon be able to get Golden Visas without having to apply for it. That is according to officials at the UAE’s Federal Authority for Identity Citizenship Customs & Port Security (ICP) stand at UAE Innovates exhibition. “Residents who have property worth Dh2 million or more in the UAE will not have to apply for a Golden Visa,” said a spokesperson on Tuesday. “The land departments of each emirate will be linked to the ICP portal and when renewing the visa, they will be automatically able to see…

AMD just released the best RDNA 3 graphics card we’ve seen yet in the form of the RX 7900 GRE. The GPU, originally released in China several months ago, sets its sights squarely on Nvidia’s RTX 4070 — and AMD comes out on top most of the time. I’ve tested both GPUs extensively — read my RTX 4070 review and RX 7900 GRE review for a full breakdown — and I’m here to compare them point-for-point. AMD comes out on top for raw performance, but there are a couple of key details to keep in mind before making your final…

The world’s first 5G eBike has been launched which allows riders to have video chat with family and friends and also alerts them about oncoming vehicles to avoid collision. The fully electric bike can reach up to 45km per hour. However, the speed limit can be capped according to the rules and regulations of cities and countries. Its AI avoidance detection system, which is based on Android, leverages a sensor with a 140-degree field of view placed on the rear of the bike. The sensor provides continuous surveillance of the rider’s environment, delivering instant audible and visual alerts to enhance…

Apple has abandoned its efforts to build an electric car, according to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday that cited people with knowledge of the matter. The tech giant has been working on the ambitious project for about the last 10 years, though during that time, it never spoke publicly about it. News of the decision to wind down efforts on the so-called “Apple Car” was delivered on Tuesday byChief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, an executive in charge of the project, to the 2,000 or so people working on it, Bloomberg said in its report. It’s not clear…

Showing no ill effects from a devastating five-set loss to Jannik Sinner at the Australian Open final last month, Daniil Medvedev produced fine tennis on his return to competitive tennis. The 2021 US Open champion, who has played six Grand Slam finals, recorded a straight sets win over Alexander Shevchenko at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Tuesday. The world number four got his title defence at the hardcourt ATP 500 event up and running, overcoming Shevchenko 6-3, 7-5. Medvedev admitted that he could not have hoped for a better place to play tennis after the Australian Open final…