It’s known that two minds are better than one, and three minds are better than two. Well how about when ten minds come together, what happens then? – Something revolutionary that’s for sure! I love it when people put their minds to good use and create something so practical, and so beneficial. I met and sat with a brilliant man, Ali Abulhasan, whom along with 9 other friends of his created a web app (TAP) that will make all our lives much easier. The three main points of Tap are:
Tap is a web app tool made for businesses and consumers in Kuwait.
For consumers, Tap provides fast, simple way to pay through smartphones, all in one place and absolutely free
For businesses, Tap provides an entire ecosystem that offers instant mobile presence for businesses to market, sell and get paid
I was given a full run through the app and it was so user-friendly, and brilliant in its own special way. Tap is open for registration now. The web app will be active starting May 6, 2013.
Did you guys check SONY press event for PS4? I was watching the event live streaming late last night because I wanted to know whether PlayStation 4 is worth the long wait or it will simply be a last stand for SONY’s gaming business since many are speculating that future of gaming consoles is already at stake because they will likely be overran with the latest smartphones and tablets devices that can run high resolution games with decent graphics and cost less for downloading games than buying blu-ray discs.
SONY CEO says that developing PS4 has started back in 2008 and rumor has it that PS4 will be released in November 2013 for around £270 (that’s KD135 roughly), if rumors are indeed true then that’s one dreamy deal because I remember PS3 was a lot more expensive when it first came out (KD200+).
So let’s talk about the specs shall we? SONY didn’t unveil neither the full specs nor how the actual console looks like and I hated them for that but the confirmed specs include 8GB of GDDR5 memory, high-end GPU and an 8-core processor with 2 teraflops of performance (I expected faster), unnknown HDD storage but my expectation is 256GB+ and I wish if they use SDD instead of HDD. The joypad looks identical to the leaked pictures a few days ago and it resembles the older PS3 joypad with a share button added, so nothing major here.
SONY says PS4 will include many new features such as multi-tasking; gamers can now pause/resume midgame and can download in the background while playing or when system is off, another smart feature I read about is that you can download a game and start playing it while the download is still progressing. Also SONY is trying to focus on social networks in their PS4 with a social app for sharing players screens and videos, also you can hand-over the control of your game to a remote player by clicking share button, interesting. However the feature that I liked is that PS4 will have no boot-up time, so once you press the power button you will be directly taken to the home screen. So far so good? Well not with me because PS4 will not run PS3 games, so you can kiss the backward compatibility goodbye! Not a smart move from SONY if you ask me.
So am I impressed with PS4 thus far? Well the complete picture isn’t clear for me yet to give a fair judgement but we have to wait to get more answers and bear in mind that Microsoft Xbox 720 is also underway. If you have more insights on PS4 please do share with us, read my previous PS4 post [link]
Back in November 2011 I posted about a new project to provide home ADSL Internet service totally free of charge [link] to anyone in Kuwait, I was told that the project ‘Elm Net’ has just signed a deal with QualityNet and will provide people with free Internet service with speed of 2Mbps in two months. They have a booth at InfoConnect Expo and what people should do is sign some papers to get the free service. Though I was told that users will have to install and use a special Internet browser with large advertising banners on sides and bottom of the screen (see below) which reduce the browsing space so I think this may cause annoyance to some people; so normal Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or FireFox won’t work.
I just read on several websites that Microsoft seriously plans to completely shutdown Windows Messenger on March 15 after 13 years of service and replace it with Skype which they also own. Now this is sad, Messenger has always been my favorite chatting platform since early years of college, I’m talking late 90′s, but it got abandoned by many in recent years since twitter, facebook, instagram, What’sApp…etc. came into the social media scene, I personally stopped using it. I’m not yet sure if this news is 100% true but I think it makes sense since Windows Messenger has become almost obsolete. So who’s going to miss MS Live Messenger?
Samsung did a great job with smart phones especially with their release of Galaxy series such as Galaxy S and Galaxy Note, I know many who switched from iPhone to Android (I’m one of them) because of these phones. Now Samsung is expanding Galaxy series to photography world with two new smart cameras under the name Samsung Galaxy Camera which were designed with phone concept in mind.
There are two models; Samsung Galaxy Camera which is a point-and-shoot, and the NX210 smart camera (more like DSLR), I was lucky enough to get my hands on both cameras to test some of their features and options to get a first impression.
Samsung Galaxy Camera: Since I got my Samsung Galaxy Note II, many on Instagram are saying that my shots look greater even though I haven’t taken photography classes but it’s merely because the Galaxy Note 2 camera is great (except in some dark scenes) and the new Galaxy Camera is a lot better. So let’s talk about the specs shall we? First the camera is 16.3 megapixels backside-illuminated CMOS sensor that produces images with 4,608×3,456 resolution. I liked the 21X optical super zooming and the 23mm wide angle lens, it’s fast since it’s powered by Quad Core 1.4 Ghz processor and supports HSPA+ for Internet connection. The display is HD LCD with 4.8″ multi-touch screen which is the same size as Galaxy Note 2 screen. We can see the specs are great to begin with with but does this mean great photos?
Did I mention that the camera uses Android 4.1 Jelly Bean software? Browsing the menu was easy because it’s exactly similar to the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II phones menu (minus phone functions of course), it gets little clunky sometimes but overally good. I know that the high megapixels doesn’t necessarily mean best photos but Samsung Galaxy Camera produced nice images, the shutter speed runs from 16-1/2,000 second and maximum sensitivity is at ISO 3,200. Photos aside, the camera records HD 1080p videos and has a slow motion mode with 120 frames/secs.
I had slight problem with the focus at times but I was able to capture clear shots (see above). The exciting part in my opinion is the integration of the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean; you can browse the Internet, share/send photos over Instagram, email, What’sApp via Wi-Fi or 3G, also you can edit photos and videos with apps that you can download from Google Play store.
Design & Price: The Samsung Galaxy Camera comes with 10GB of built-in flash storage out of which 4 GB is available, it has Micro SD card and Micro USB sockets and HDMI output. Design-wise it’s sleek and can fit in the pocket, currently both cameras are available at BEST Electronics in Al Rai area and they said the price for Samsung Galaxy Camera is KD149 and for smart DSLR is KD249.
It’s known that two minds are better than one, and three minds are better than two. Well how about when ten minds come together, what happens then? – Something revolutionary that’s for sure! I love it when people put their minds to good use and create something so practical, and so beneficial. I met and sat with a brilliant man, Ali Abulhasan, whom along with 9 other friends of his created a web app (TAP) that will make all our lives much easier. The three main points of Tap are:
So let’s talk about the specs shall we? SONY didn’t unveil neither the full specs nor how the actual console looks like and I hated them for that but the confirmed specs include 8GB of GDDR5 memory, high-end GPU and an 8-core processor with 2 teraflops of performance (I expected faster), unnknown HDD storage but my expectation is 256GB+ and I wish if they use SDD instead of HDD. The joypad looks identical to the leaked pictures a few days ago and it resembles the older PS3 joypad with a share button added, so nothing major here.
There are two models; Samsung Galaxy Camera which is a point-and-shoot, and the NX210 smart camera (more like DSLR), I was lucky enough to get my hands on both cameras to test some of their features and options to get a first impression.
Samsung Galaxy Camera: Since I got my 
Did I mention that the camera uses Android 4.1 Jelly Bean software? Browsing the menu was easy because it’s exactly similar to the Galaxy S III and 
I had slight problem with the focus at times but I was able to capture clear shots (see above). The exciting part in my opinion is the integration of the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean; you can browse the Internet, share/send photos over Instagram, email, What’sApp via Wi-Fi or 3G, also you can edit photos and videos with apps that you can download from Google Play store.
Design & Price: The Samsung Galaxy Camera comes with 10GB of built-in flash storage out of which 4 GB is available, it has Micro SD card and Micro USB sockets and HDMI output. Design-wise it’s sleek and can fit in the pocket, currently both cameras are available at BEST Electronics in Al Rai area and they said the price for Samsung Galaxy Camera is KD149 and for smart DSLR is KD249.
