Author: dailyguardian.ae

Dubai’s real estate sector, which accounted for more than half of the GCC’s transactions worth $171.6 billion in 2023, will continue to dominate the region’s buoyant property market in 2024, realty analysts said. The region’s real estate supply in most segments could quickly get sensitive to market wide headwinds in 2024, but frontline developers with strong liquidity, particularly in Dubai and Riyadh, should be able to calibrate swiftly to bring the right product types to the market, analysts at Kamco Invest said. Residential developers in Dubai and Riyadh “who possess dominant brand equity, an attractive product mix, and market sensitive…

“I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.” So wrote the immortal humorist P.G. Wodehouse in his brilliant novel The Code of the Woosters. Wodehouse, as a stylist, revelled in breaking the canons of the English language, and in this sentence he had done just that. He had poked fun at an unpaired word. “Unpaired words” are those that, on the surface, appear to have a clear counterpart — an antonym — according to conventional English language patterns, and yet don’t. What’s peculiar about them is their prefixes and suffixes suggest the presence of…

After a year of different iterations and programs promising the best in AI-generated art, the easiest way to access your next text-to-image masterpiece might now be to Google it. The brand’s Labs AI experimental hub has been available since the spring, and one of its most recent features allows you to input a query to generate an AI image directly into Google Search and have that image populate into results. Enabling Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) allows you to accept AI-generated results in your search and in pages while browsing. Setting the feature up is simple and can be done on…

The Emirates Draw recently announced its grandest cash prize ever — Dh200 million. This remarkable sum has captured the imagination and aspirations of people from diverse backgrounds. The prize can be won in the draw’s Mega7 category, and participants can join until 8.30pm on December 31. To get the jackpot, one has to match all the seven numbers that will be drawn on Sunday. This begs the question: What would you do if you hit this amount of money? Khaleej Times spoke to three individuals with different perspectives to learn what they would do if fortune smiled upon them and…

Sets of technologies that are empowered by artificial intelligence (AI) will dominate the technology stage in 2024, a senior official said. “We believe that AI is the defining technology of our time, and we are optimistic about what AI can do for people, industry, and society by revolutionizing the way we keep our organizations secure and make them more creative and productive,” Ihab Foudeh, General Manager, Microsoft Middle East, told Khaleej Times in an interview. More and more organisations in the region, most notably in the public sector, are already embracing these new technologies and tapping into large computation power…

Every now and then, Andrey Rublev adjusts his hair and tilts his head before making a point. This soft-spoken Russian never shies away from speaking up for what he believes in. Who can ever forget his act of defiance when he wrote ‘No War Please’ on the camera lens moments after winning the Dubai Tennis Championships final last year? It was a message from the son of a former Russian professional boxer that resonated with every sane mind. A few months after his Dubai triumph, Rublev made no fuss about missing out on Wimbledon due to the All England Tennis…

by yasser usman As the velvet drapes close on 2023, I turn my gaze towards Hollywood, not with a tinge of nostalgia, but with a spark of hope. For this year, it felt like Hollywood finally took a collective breath, stepped outside the comfort zone of spandex-clad saviours, and rediscovered the magic of storytelling in all its diverse, magnificent forms. This year was about the emergence of two indisputable truths: a significant shift in storytelling towards depth and originality, and a resounding chorus of female excellence that shattered barriers and redefined the game. Before we step into the new year,…

India may be forced to forfeit a Davis Cup play-off hosted by rivals Pakistan, with the local tennis association saying on Thursday that the team was waiting on government approval to travel. The All India Tennis Association (AITA) asked the sports ministry for approval to travel to Pakistan after a request to shift the fixture to a third country was rejected by the International Tennis Federation tribunal. “The proposal is still pending with the ministry and we are awaiting a decision,” AITA secretary-general Anil Dhupar told AFP. Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.…

Nearly four decades after The Color Purple originally hit theaters, a new adaptation of the film is now playing. Both versions of the movie adapt Alice Walker’s powerful story about Black women in the early 20th century, but the new adaption is also a musical based on a hit Broadway play. The Color Purple‘s strong Christmas Day opening against Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Wonka also suggests that moviegoers are already embracing the latest incarnation of the story. American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino has the leading role of Celie Harris-Johnson, who Whoopi Goldberg originally portrayed in the 1985 film.…

Dubai Customs on Thursday said it thwarted a bid to smuggle 234.68 kilogrammes of narcotics, specifically hashish, in a wooden ship that raised suspicion upon arrival to the harbour. Dubbed ‘Wheelhouse’, the operation was carried out at the Dubai Creek and Deira Wharfage Customs Centre. Dubai Customs task force ‘Siyaj’ subjected the vessel to meticulous inspection, utilising the state-of-the-art Periscope technology designed for examining confined spaces. The device provides high-resolution images in darkness, facilitating contraband detection. The illicit substances were discovered ingeniously concealed within the ship’s wheelhouse. Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.…