Digitising in Dubai

The National, Juma Al Majid’s quest for universal knowledge brings the world’s treasures online "Based in Deira, Dubai, the centre is situated close to the airport. Planes buzz low overhead, casting large shadows on the ground. In the digitisation room, copiers are at work at 11 desks, aiming for a target of 2,000 pages a day. Klieg lights illuminate each glass-topped machine, while workers take and return books from the wheeled carts next to them. The room, though stuffy with the heat of bodies and activity, hums with purpose."

Law and Order: Dubai

BBC News, Click, Law and Order: Dubai Tech and surveillance in Dubai: "Click is in Dubai meeting the newest members of the police force, police Bots."

Dubai font

Guardian, Microsoft creates its first city typeface for Dubai

I like the look of the font, very clean and modern. Haven't test driven it fully yet.  It is available for download here.

Dubai: ITU World Conference on International Telecommunications

RFE/RL, Dubai Meeting On Internet Governance "Internet freedom advocates say they fear the debates will be closed to all but government representatives, and that the ITU will merely present its conclusions at the end of the conference without input from the private sector, technical experts, or civil society." Also see ITU, World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12)

'Islamic' game rating system launched

The National, Islamic system will rate video games, 30 Nov 2010: "The rating a game receives will be determined by rules drawn up by the Iran National Foundation of Computer Games, in concert with Dubai-based Index Holdings. They have spent the past two years discussing the guidelines with Islamic clerics."

Some of those discussions would have been enlightening ... I'll be interested to see how some games I'm familiar with (it's a very short list) will be rated.

Also take a look at Iran National Foundation of Computer Game (sic), which has some examples of recent games. There's also a useful article Presenting 18 Iranian games in the main Middle East computer game Expo

'The rise of Muslim innovators'

Christopher M. Schroeder, washingtonpost.com, The rise of Muslim innovators,

"This month's Celebration of Entrepreneurship 2010 was hosted not in San Francisco or New York but in Dubai. The participants weren't familiar U.S. Internet names but a new generation of entrepreneurs representing every Islamic country in the Middle East. The visionaries behind the gathering weren't famous Western tech journalists or futurists but Pakistan-born Arif Naqvi, founder of the Middle East private equity firm Abraaj Capital, and Lebanese Jordanian entrepreneur Fadi Ghandour, who built the region's largest logistics and transportation services company. Absent were debates on politics, religion and historic obstacles. The only question on everyone's mind was "Why not us?""

"Dubai Police to track Internet paedophiles"

Amira Agarib, Khaleej Times, Dubai Police to track Internet paedophiles, 6 Oct 2010, "The long arm of the law has extended online to target child abusers. The Dubai Police are closely monitoring chat rooms and blogs to arrest paedophiles who exploit children.

"This was stated by Lt. General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, Commander in Chief of the Dubai Police, on Tuesday. He was speaking during a forum on protecting children from IT crimes, held at the Dubai Police Academy."

Dubai BlackBerry theory

arabcrunch, Dubai Chief Police: BlackBerry Ban is Due to “Israeli” & US Spying On The Country, 3 Sep 2010 "In a meeting at the house of Dr. Saed Salamn head of Ajamn network Dhahi Khalfan Tamim Dubai Police chief said that United States of America is the first beneficiary from absence of BlackBerry surveillance in his country, and said that USA has an interests in Spying in his country."

Dubai

BBC News, Dubai - a city of hi-tech contrasts, 14 May 2010

Dubai SMS

BBC News, Dubai jails Indian pair for 'sexy texts', 17 Mar 2010 "Steamy text messages have resulted in a three-month jail sentence for an Indian man and an Indian woman in Dubai."

Dress code issues

Bassam Za'za', Gulf News, Man claims fiancee hid beard under niqab, 10 Feb 2010 "An Arab ambassador said he decided to call off his wedding immediately after he discovered that his wife-to-be, who wears a niqab, was bearded and cross-eyed.

"The ambassador claimed that the bride's mother deceived his mother, when she went to see his Gulf national wife-to-be, by showing her pictures of the bride's sister"

Financial meltdown Dubai - blogger reaction

meedan.com/huffingtonpost.com, Arabs lament Dubai woes as UAE stock markets slump in debt crash, 1 Dec 09 includes blogger reaction: "Also in Al-Hayat, Daoud Al-Shariyan called for greater transparency in Dubai to calm nerves and reassure investors.

He said: "His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE vice president, UAE Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai, should have expected this media coverage of his country when he spoke in front of the second conference of investment companies and international investors in Dubai, being careful to clarify two points which Dubai has suffered from since the beginning of the global economic crisis.

""The first is that Dubai is not alone, and its success is an extension of the success of Abu Dhabi.

""The second: the recognition that silence has created an information vacuum that has allowed rumors to spread; he called for this to be avoided in the future.""

Twitter in Dubai

The National, Tweeters to meet in real world and help charities at Twestival, 7 Sep 09, "Twitter users will be going offline and meeting in the real world at the weekend when the capital and Dubai host twin festivals in aid of local charities." Let's hope the shock of the real world will not be too much for some...

Freej

Brian Stelter, NYT, Dubai Superheroes: Little Old Grannies Who Wear Veils, 2 Sep 09 "This month the three-minute spinoff episodes, titled “Freej: Book of Riddles,” have the grandmas under a curse after buying a dusty book at a souk. Each chapter of the book includes a puzzle, which viewers can try to solve by text-messaging answers to the television network."

See the Official Freej site

Xeroerror

The National, Cyborg hero forged in the heart of Dubai, 28 May 09 "Step aside, Terminator: a new time-travelling cyborg out of Dubai Media City is due to burst on to cinema screens in the UAE’s first computer-generated film."

See the xeroerror blog for more links and info.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum

Comments on the net, amongst other things:

First Media e-Session with the Prime Minister-Part I: Interview with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, UAE Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum answers rather a lot of questions, with more to follow.

""This is the second time that I have responded to your questions online; the first time was eight years ago, when Internet communications were still in the nascent stage -- although, I must say, Dubai and the United Arab Emirates had already made noteworthy progress in this field. During that initial online interview, my objective was to stimulate the interest of the Emirati community in the Internet when the use of the online communications was relatively limited.

"Today the usage of the Internet across the UAE has come to be taken for granted; in fact, the Web has been adopted so extensively in both the public and private sectors that e-communications are the norm rather than the exception. We see that a large segment of our society, especially young people, believe that the Internet is the most important source of information, education and entertainment."

And here is a selection of (positive) responses:

Business 24-7, Responses to Sheikh Mohammed's interview

Gulf News, Online community praises Mohammad, 20 Apr 09 which includes a photo

Smartphones

Gulf News, Smartphones drive growth in Mideast handset market, 1 Mar 09 "Research firm Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that the Middle East handset market will be worth $8.18 billion (Dh30.2 billion) this year, an increase of 7.92 per cent compared to $7.58 billion last year.

..."Vendors are increasing their involvement in open mobile terminal software, which is a core foundation in the development of smartphone devices. Open source will play a key role in bringing smartphones to the mass market.

"A number of mobile open source foundations have been created within the last two years; including the Symbian Foundation, the Open Handset Alliance, and the Linux in Mobile foundation."

No Phone

Khaleej Times, Technical Glitch Throws Phone Network Out of Gear in Dubai, 11 Nov 08 "Etisalat and du mobile and fixed phone users faced network disruptions in Dubai for a large part of the day on Monday. It was not clear how many users were affected by the disruption, which was blamed on “technical issues”." No doubt there were significant downtime issues/stresses.

IPv6

The National, Dubai meeting to decide future of the internet, 27 Oct 08 "A body that oversees the regional distribution of internet protocol (IP) addresses – the unique numbers that identify every device connected to the internet – will make a decision on migrating to a new addressing system that can cope with the explosive growth of the global network.

"The current IP address format means that only 4.3 billion unique addresses can be generated, a supply widely predicted to be exhausted by late 2010. The new format, known as IP Version 6 (IPv6), allows for considerably more: 79 billion billion billion times as many as the current system."

Silicon UAE

The National, UAE ripe for Silicon Valley-type boom, 15 Oct 08 "The report, which was commissioned by Dubai Internet City, said that small, innovative companies targeting the government, financial and telecommunications sectors could all thrive in the current environment.

"“The technology industry in the region is the fastest growing market in the world,” said Malek al Malek, the executive director of Dubai Internet City. The special investment zone has become the largest collection of technology businesses in the Middle East, with its model being emulated across the region."