Category: Round Up

Emirates has set a new record with over 1 million Wi-Fi connections made on board its flights in March alone. During the month, 1,037,016 Emirates customers connected to the internet during their flight. The connections were mainly made over mobile devices with over 94 per cent of users connecting with a smartphone –twice as many connections were made on an iOS mobile phone as compared to an Android mobile, and about 2 per cent with a tablet. The remaining connections were made with laptops and other devices. Wi-Fi connectivity is available on over 98 per cent of the Emirates fleet, ... Read more

Dnata has introduced new airport fee, which provides ground-handling service for airlines operating at Dubai International Airport. Passengers flying out of Dubai International Airport may have to pay extra charges for baggage which require manual handling, reports Gulf News. A new fee has been introduced for manual handling of baggage that do not conform to standard size and weight at Dubai International Airport. The new fee is introduced by Dnata, which provides ground-handling service for airlines operating at Dubai International Airport. For example, Air India charges Dh45 per piece for such baggage, but the fee may vary for other carriers depending ... Read more

Cappadocia, the historic land in Turkey attracts more foreign arrivals, attracted by its vibrant natural tourism products. The city is blessed with unique landscape featuring the fairy chimneys, natural rocks and valleys. According to tourism statistics, about 2.5 million tourists have visited Cappadocia on average with 100 per cent hotel occupancy stats. It was a huge milestone for Turkey, calling it as the “golden year” with this remarkable achievement on tourism. Meanwhile, during 2016 a series of terrorist attacks have ruined Turkey’s integrity upon foreign arrivals. With challenges ahead, the authorities have initiated a strong come back through international fairs ... Read more

This Saturday marks Isra’a Wal Mi’raj, a national holiday in the UAE. It’s been officially confirmed that Dubai will be dry from Friday, April 13 at 6pm until Saturday, April 14 at 7pm. UAE bars and restaurants will have a dry day/night during this period, to mark the second holiday of the year. Al Isra’a Wal Mi’raj is an Islamic holiday which is observed annually on the 27th day of the Islamic month of Rajab, according to the Hijiri calendar. And, this year, the holiday falls on Saturday, April 14. The holiday is based on the sighting of the moon, so ... Read more

The American National Travel and Tourism office announced that they will not discharge the data regarding international arrivals to the country. According to a statement issued by the department of tourism, the matter has been raised as part of a technical glitch. Meanwhile, the US Customs and Border Protection has also raised similar statement, as they won’t release new records until the records in question are properly counted, identified and categorized. The citizens of US weren’t counted correctly, while transiting through the checkpoints. “Therefore, those travellers were removed from the visitor count of overseas travellers arriving into the United States, ... Read more

Chile is planning to ease visa regulations for Venezuelans fleeing Maduro. In light of the “grave democratic crisis” gripping Venezuela, President Sebastian Pinera said he was creating a so-called visa of “democratic responsibility” which Venezuelan citizens could obtain through the Chilean embassy in Caracas. The move seeks to streamline the process of getting a visa for all Venezuelan nationals. Before, Venezuelans had visa-on-arrival access to Chile as tourists where those with a specific need could then apply for a student visa, a work permit or for permanent residency. But under the new system, such visas will be available to all Venezuelans, regardless of ... Read more

The South African low-cost airline, FlySafair bagged the title of Best Airline in Africa and the Indian Ocean in the 2018 TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice awards. The airline is also awarded the Best Economy Class award in the same region. The awards highlight the world’s top carriers based on the quantity and quality of reviews and ratings for airlines worldwide gathered over a 12-month period. FlySafair is the only local airline to have made it onto the coveted list and shares the top spot for the region with Air Austral, a French airline, and RwandAir from Rwanda. “FlySafair is extremely proud to have ... Read more

Xavier Driancourt VFS Global is appointed the official body to process the French visa applications for the Algerian citizens at the Consulate General in Algiers, informed France’s ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driancourt. VFS was chosen through a public tender, which was launched in late 2017 in an attempt to ensure “a better service for visa applicants,” said Driancourt. The move also aims at placing a flexible visa online appointment booking system for all applicants, especially with the notable increase in the annual number of visa applications. According to the French consulate’s data, some 410,000 visas were granted last year, of which ... Read more

Motorola, the American multinational telecommunication company, had launched Polaroid Insta-Share Printer exclusively at the US market. The instant printer is dedicated to print pictures with a press of a single button. The device comes with Insta-Share Printer Moto Mod, that can be docked to a mobile for printing. The compatibility of Moto Mod is made for Moto Z series smartphones. Meanwhile, Motorola hasn’t added any kind of Bluetooth connectivity or cable to attach the printer to other Mobile smartphones. The printer uses zero-ink paper to print photos at a size of (2×3-inches). The printer works best with the Polaroid app in ... Read more

American space agency, NASA is about to build experimental supersonic aircraft called the X-plane for a budget of over $247.5 million. The aircraft, in reality, would generate a cruise speed of over 990 mph, which is faster than sound and can fly at an altitude of above 55,000 feet. According to reports released by NASA, the project would be a reality to put supersonic travel to commercial flights, which becomes a reality by the end of 2021. “Our long tradition of solving the technical barriers of supersonic flight to benefit everyone continues,” said Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator, NASA. The aircraft’s ... Read more

If you are in Bengaluru and want to try out the suburban trains for a change, this multilingual app is going to help you find everything you need to know about the metro, suburban train systems. RailJini, which will cover aspects pertaining to suburban train travel, was launched earlier this week. The app will give exact train timings, update passengers on delays, send locations, and also allow them to send their location if required. The app will work in English, Kannada, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.   More features, like Metro timings, information and last-mile connectivity (allowing you to book a cab ... Read more

A short while after the Ministry of Defense website started leading to an error page and Chinese characters started appearing on it, the websites of Home and Law Ministry have also gone down. The websites of Ministry of Home Affairs (mha.gov.in) and Law Ministry (http://lawmin.gov.in/) went down flashed: “The requested service is temporarily unavailable. Sorry for Inconvenience. It would be available soon” and “The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later” messages respectively. The Defence Ministry tweeted to say, “Issue with the MoD website has been taken note of. Appropriate action has been initiated.” Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman assured ... Read more

Russian cloud-based messaging service app, Telegram is going to face a legal lawsuit from the Russian state security services. The company is facing charges as it refused to give access to the secret messages of their loyal users to the government. Telegram is rated as the 9th most popular messenger in the world. Over 200 million active users are reportedly using the service under the protection of strong encryptions. Meanwhile, the Russian government’s Federal Security service approached Telegram to give access to some of the messages related to a terrorist attack. But telegram hesitated the request sighting their user privacy. ... Read more

Khadi soap When you are India and want to take back some wonderful Khadi sarees, dress materials and artefacts, you don’t have to search for the authentic khadi store anymore. To ease the process, the Minister of State for MSME, Giriraj Singh has launched a mobile phone application for locating 4,000 Khadi stores in the country. “There are more than 8,000 Khadi stores in India, the rest of stores will also be available on the store locator by the end of this month,” said Vinai Kumar Saxena, Chairman KVIC in the board meeting today. The Chairman further said that KVIC expects to surpass ... Read more

As many as 14 e toilets would be installed across 11 locations in Pune, for which the Municipal Corporation has sanctioned a sum of over Rs 1.99 cr to build the e toilets. The toilets will work as a vending machine in which users can drop coins to make use of the facility. The new project was launched by MP Anil Shirole. The modern e-toilets has additional features that include napkin dropper, baby diaper changing rooms, mobile charging points and voice-assisted command systems. Moreover, each toilet is technically connected over a network, that enhances real-time monitoring of the hygienic status of ... Read more