1 Saudi data show slowing economy (Gulf News) Saudi Arabian
money supply and bank lending figures show the economy of the world’s biggest oil
exporter has started to slow as low global energy prices force the government
to clamp down on spending.
M3 money supply grew just 3.9 per cent from a year
earlier in October, the slowest expansion since November 2010, when Saudi
Arabia was emerging from the global financial crisis, according to central bank
data released late on Thursday. Annual growth in September 2015 was 8.5 per
cent.
Growth in narrower measures of money supply, M1 and
M2, also slowed sharply to multi-year lows. Growth in bank lending to the
private sector fell to 5.0 per cent, again the lowest rate since November 2010,
from 7.1 per cent. The government has until recent weeks been able to keep the
economy growing strongly by boosting Saudi oil output; the October data suggest
this strategy may have reached its limits.
Facing a budget deficit of over $100 billion this
year, Saudi finance officials have said they are trimming spending in some
areas to economise, and the cutbacks have started to crimp money supply.
2 Black Friday sales move online (BBC) Online purchases
appear to be surging in the US and UK during Black Friday as more consumers
shun standing in line. This has not stopped US stores reporting massive queues
outside their shops, although in the UK there were smaller crowds than a year
ago.
New York's giant Macy's store said thousands of
people queued to get in. In the UK, consultants Experian and retail group IMRG
said that online sales were on course to pass £1bn on a single day for the
first time.
Last year's Black Friday saw shoppers in the UK
fighting over bargains, websites crashing and delivery companies struggling to
cope. The discount day originated in the US, where it takes place the day after
Thanksgiving, traditionally kick-starting the Christmas shopping period.
In the US, some retailers started offering deals
early and several stores have turned the event into a weekend of discounting. The
National Retail Federation, based in Washington, estimates that about 135.8
million Americans will shop during the four-day holiday compared with 133.7
million last year.
The US shopping bonanza has spread, not only to the
UK and other parts of Europe, but also countries such as Brazil and India. It
is still dwarfed by China's Singles Day - the world's biggest online shopping
event. On that day earlier this month, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba
reported sales worth 91.2bn yuan ($14.3bn; £9.4bn), a 60% increase from last
year.
3 Li-Fi, 100 times faster than Wi-Fi (Christian
Science Monitor/Khaleej Times) When the first version of the Wi-Fi protocol was
released in 1997, it boasted wireless speeds of up to 2 megabits per second.
Now, there's Li-Fi, a potential successor to Wi-Fi that's capable of
transmitting data at 1 gigabit per second, about 100 times faster than today's
average home wireless connection and 500 times faster than that first
incarnation of Wi-Fi.
Li-Fi uses LED bulbs switching on and off billions
of times per second to transmit strings of data. Think of the way a Morse code
operator would tap out a message, then speed up the process by several orders
of magnitude.
Though the communication takes place in the visible
spectrum, meaning humans can see the light that's being emitted, the flickering
happens far too fast for our eyes to notice it. In other words, to humans, a
Li-Fi light bulb appears like any other, but actually transmits lightning-fast
Internet at the same time.
Velmenni, an Estonian tech company that has
installed Li-Fi in its offices, says that the technology has achieved speeds of
up to 224 gigabits per second in the lab and 1 gigabit per second in real life,
where transmissions must contend with other factors such as movement and
interference from other light sources.
There's a catch, though: Because light can't pass
through walls or other obstacles, a Li-Fi access point can cover only a single
room. That means multiple smart LEDs will be needed to cover an apartment or a
house with speedy wireless coverage. But on the other hand, wireless interference
will be greatly reduced.
Li-Fi might also be more secure than Wi-Fi. Because
the wireless signal doesn't spill outside rooms or buildings, it's much harder
for an intruder to set up nearby and gain access to the network.
Li-Fi was invented by Harald Haas from the
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, back in 2011, when he demonstrated for the
first time that by flickering the light from a single LED, he could transmit
far more data than a cellular tower. Think back to that lab-based record of 224
gigabits per second - that's 18 movies of 1.5 GB each being downloaded every
single second.
Li-Fi will probably not completely replace Wi-Fi in
the coming decades, the two technologies could be used together to achieve more
efficient and secure networks. The technology is still in its infancy today,
but within the next few years, flickering LEDs could let us transfer gigabytes
in the blink of an eye.
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