Zeid Nasser's Tech Blog

Revolution 2.0 is actually Awakening 1.0

2011-02-13T10:28:00.004+02:00

It’s being called Revolution 2.0. It was facilitated by Facebook pages that brought young Tunisians and Egyptians together, starting a national conversation and taking action. It was driven by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Twitter updates, which attracted the attention of the world to an evolution of a revolution.

This movement has been building up for years and you have to look at it as a step-by-step process of empowerment.

The Internet has been available in the Arab countries for nearly 15 years, but its penetration levels to almost every segment and social class only started a few years ago. With that Internet access came knowledge and communication, coinciding with the introduction of social media platforms- like Facebook, YouTube and others. It then took some time for Facebook to be Arabized, but a flood of Arabs joined immediately. The number of Facebook users in Arab countries is currently around 20 million. However, to this day, Twitter users in the Arab World are estimated to be less than 100,000, so it can’t be seriously considered a high-impact media on the populous, but what it can do is reach and mobilize the media and technology savvy Arab youth, a now highly influential segment.

For a few years, there was a lot ‘training’ and ‘testing’ involved; finding out how governments and authorities would react to opposition on the Internet. Censorship, website blocks and even turning off the Internet became expected responses, but those driving change kept raising the stakes and pushing up the levels of freedom of expression.

My friend, Wael Ghonim, played an important role in these events by starting the Facebook page ‘We are all Khalid Saeed’ – the young man brutally beaten and killed last year. Wael became a face of this revolution when he was kidnapped and jailed, and became a hero when he was released.

For all of us, who knew Wael as a regular guy, a tech and media professional like us, his disappearance caused an outrage. A massive online movement built-up online to search for him and demand his release. Tweets and Facebook updates about him were saturating social networks. Websites and blogs across the world picked them up, followed by global news organizations and then a whole wave of ‘where is Wael’ emerged that made the headline news in every country in the world. His employer, Google could no longer remain silent and had to provide comment. His release was also heavily covered.

The members of the Middle East technology and media community who ‘connected’ over the past few years through meetings at conferences or doing business together, realized that they could do so much more when ‘one of their own’ needed help.
And, every one of Wael’s Facebook and Twitter friends felt they had played their small part in the Egyptian uprising.

But, the real heroes were not the people sitting behind a keyboard tweeting! They were those who responded to the digital call for action, but reacted in the real world and put their lives in danger and got real injuries. In the end, it became clear technology, as it always has been, was nothing more than a tool in the hands of a willing people. There are no digital replacements for human sentiments and causes.

On New Year’s Eve, I was interviewed by Al Jazeera, who also spoke to other guests on a panel regarding the topic of technology and economy in the Middle East in 2011. A couple of the guests were older - and old fashioned- people who said they had lost faith in Arab youth, saying they were too busy paying attention to ‘trivial matters’.

My response was that there was already clear and encouraging movement, across the Middle East, by young entrepreneurs and activists who were driving economic and social change, creating new jobs and building a new, better future for Arab youth using tools and knowledge that previous generations did not have access to. It was probably the last thing on any of our minds that this Arab youth would be creating new political systems too!

The media can call it whatever they want: Revolution 2.0, the Digital Uprising or whatever. The reality is that millions of Arabs are thrilled, not because of the technology involved, but because it feels like ‘Awakening 1.0’.

zanasser@gmail.com

int@j announce MENA ICT Forum 2010

2010-07-23T16:44:00.002+03:00

It’s back. Jordan’s premier information technology event, has been announced and will be held on 10 October, 2010. It has been re-named the MENA ICT Forum.

Organized by the Information Technology Association of Jordan (int@j) for the 5th
time, the event will be held under the patronage of His Excellency Mr. Marwan Juma, Minister of ICT, previously head of int@j and well-known for his hard work for Jordan’s ICT sector.

At the event announcement, His Excellency said: “The MENA ICT Forum aims at establishing a leading position for Jordan to serve as a regional ICT hub and an internationally recognized exporter of ICT products and services.

Ayman Mazahreh, president of int@j and a long serving int@j board member, said that: “The MENA ICT Forum is the venue of choice for high-level decision makers from both the private and public sectors on local, regional and international levels.”
MENA ICT Forum will be supported by the USAID and Jordan Economic Development Program (SABEQ).

Laith Al Qasem, Chief of Party, said that “Jordan has a golden opportunity to enter the world of outsourcing due to the huge natural potential that lies within it. On both the public and private sector levels Jordan has launched its new campaign “Turn to Jordan…Your Smart Shore Destination”.

Having attended every ICT Forum in the past, I look forward to seeing what’s on offer this time round, especially with the more regional approach adopted.

The general program sounds good. The opening session will discuss Jordan’s journey and key accomplishments since 2000, followed by the “MENA at a glance” session with real life case studies and the current status of Arabic online content. The event will conclude by an interactive and informative session that articulates recommended practical steps to capitalize on various opportunities guided by investment incentives and legislative environments.

There is also a possibility that we, Jordan’s Internet entrepreneurs, may be contributing to the ICT Forum this year through the efforts of the newly founded Internet Cooperation Council (ICC) which aims to assist the country’s tech start-ups and investors and to build on Jordan’s reputation as a hot-bed of technology creativity and success. We’ll be telling you more about that soon.

In the meantime, we should all wish int@j the best of luck and we should all contribute through feedback, participation and spreading the good word about Jordan’s potential as a global ICT center.

zanasser@gmail.com

It’s official: PCs have been replaced by personal gadgets

2010-06-13T19:44:00.003+03:00

You are probably tired by now from hearing about Apple. But for industry watchers like us- writers and analysts who have followed computing for three decades- we cannot ignore the milestones being crossed and the turning points being witnessed in this era!

Here’s the latest milestone, that sheds some light on the reality of the growth in mobile computing versus desktop/laptop computing.

Newsweek has reported that, within six months, Apple's revenues from the iPhone and iPad will be more than double its revenues from the entire Macintosh computer product line. Imagine how a company founded in the late seventies to produce personal computers, then going through a cycle of ups and downs, has completely re-invented itself as a producer of slim mobile gadgets, which are now the new form of computers.

After all, what does a personal computer do nowadays? It’s an Internet-connected machine we use for email, telephony, information, social networking, gaming and some light business applications. What if you could add options like a size that fits into your pocket or a small handbag, including a music player and 5 megapixel camera. How can a desktop or laptop computer compete with that for personal use?

Don’t get me wrong. Fully-featured PCs with wide screens, expansion slots, peripherals and big keyboards are still needed for both business and entertainment; but the majority of people today seem to be doing just fine utilizing touch-screens or mini keyboards on smaller devices. As a result, many are ditching their computers.

Combine the impact of of the recent efforts of Apple, Blackberry, Nokia and others and you begin to see the convergence of computing, telephony and photography is complete.

In the poorer countries of the world, smart phones- which we are mobile computing gadgets- are the more widely available computing platform, are cheaper and therefore help bridge the digital divide. Just look at the number of mobile phone subscribers in Africa, compared to home or office broadband Internet subscribers. Clearly, a shift is happening in the way ‘we compute’.

For now, I cannot yet comfortably write and lay out this column on a smart phone, but I could probably do it with an iPad equipped with the right software: A complete device the size of a book, thinner than my monitor and without the need for a separate keyboard, mouse or cumbersome computer case. Amazing!

People keep saying change is coming. Well, it has already arrived. Let’s learn to deal with it!

zanasser@gmail.com

Quit Facebook Day ...

2010-06-06T19:58:00.004+03:00

Monday May 31st was designated as 'Quit Facebook Day' by a movement championed by two ex-Facebook users from Toronto, Joseph Dee and Matthew Milan, who insist that Facebook doesn't have the user's best intentions at heart and does not offer fair choices.

They built a website (QuitFacebookDay.com) to inform people about their movement and managed to get commitments from approximately 27,000 users to quit Facebook.

They have also attracted media attention, as the hot topic of the past few weeks has been the changes that Facebook introduced to its privacy settings, which are ‘opt-out’ based. This means the new privacy settings are the default for all users, and you actually need to go through a series of steps to opt-out of them.

A group of computer enthusiasts from Califorinia say that there as many as “170 options and 50 clicks to actually lock down your Facebook profile."

As a result there is a growing general consensus that Facebook management seeks to serve advertisers worldwide with little regard for its users’ wishes.

The new settings enable marketers to get more information on the Internet habits of Facebook users, and provide even more sophisticated targeting of these users.

Clearly, millions of well-informed users across the world would be concerned regarding this ‘sharing’ of their personal information and interests, and it’s up to them to decide whether or not to use Facebook.

According to a recent poll in the U.K. regarding privacy concerns, 30 percent of users said they were "highly likely" to quit Facebook, while another 30 percent said it was "possible" they would quit and 16 percent said they have already stopped using Facebook!

But, is this just a ‘storm in a tea cup’? Are 27,000 users far too few compared to some 400 million using the service? Facebook seems to think so. Officials said that more than 10 million people have joined since the privacy settings were changed last year, and half of all of Facebook’s users have adjusted their settings.

So what’s next in the ‘Facebook Privacy Battle’? Quit Facebook Day has passed, but the debate is not going away any time soon. Surely, Facebook needs to consider valid points like making it’s new setting opt-in - permission based- by default rather than opt-out.

And, although Facebook is a company and it provides us with a valuable service, it should introduce less intrusive revenue generation technologies, or at least run wide-ranging tests and focus groups before it unleashes service updates that leave millions of users worried, and stirring up such a fuss.

If Facebook is everyone’s new home page, or even our new operating system, then Facebook management should accept that we all have a say in the direction it takes.

zanasser@gmail.com

Google 'Petra Logo' on occassion of Jordan's independance day

2010-05-25T20:13:00.002+03:00

Apple blocks Adobe technologies, a war ensues

2010-05-16T20:53:00.003+03:00

It’s the main technology story in the news: Apple refuses to open up its iPhone/iPad platform to Adobe Flash and related technologies.

Upon first hearing this fact, you tend to feel that Apple is bullying Adobe for no apparent reason. After all, Adobe provides all sorts of tools that improve the experience of web users. Without Flash, we couldn’t watch YouTube videos, and without it we can’t see the wonderful animations and sounds that grace websites and have turned web design and development into an art.

Without Adobe technologies, we cannot use one of its latest products, Air, which enables real-time communication and updates that are best demonstrated through TweetDeck (for Twitter desktop management).

So. Why on earth would Apple block Adobe technologies?

The answer comes from Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, as follows: “Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes, more often than not, it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.”

Some people agree with the point he’s making about Adobe needing to refine its technology and fix some problems, but the general consensus is that Adobe technologies are useful and web services are better because of them, till a replacement becomes available.

So, the question is whether or not HTML5 is the answer. It is an open standard not created or owned by any company.

For now, it’s not an encouraging prospect. Web-TV-streaming giant Hulu.com claims that HTML5 isn't ready for coding and broadcasting video on the web. Hulu released the latest version of its player built using Adobe Systems' ActionScript, saying that HTML5 is “not ready for prime time”.

The issue that interests industry analysts and consumers is that Apple, the warm brand that used to resemble all that is creative and challenged the cold corporate big boys like IBM and Microsoft, has now become just as cut-throat!
Adobe has responded with a ‘declaration of love’ for Apple, in which it cheekily states that it admires Apple for its great products, but does not admire Apple’s crackdown on consumer choice. Ouch!

Apple is now being cast as ‘the big bad wolf’.

I wonder how the millions of holier-than-thou Apple fanatics will respond!

Here's Adobe's Letter:

Digital distractions and learning

2010-04-25T17:13:00.003+03:00

Nowadays, attend any conference or event, and you will note that several people have their laptops open in front of them, as if it were acceptable to stare into a screen, while a speaker presents on stage.

People busy fiddling with their mobile phones at any business meeting you attend seems to have become acceptable too!

This resembles a cultural shift in social behaviour, and frankly it seems appears that our attention is divided, while the people seeking our attention are being offended.

As a culture, the human race are now at a crossroads, and new rules emerging from universities in the United States and Europe demonstrate a realization that there’s a problem. Professors are now demanding that their students turn off their devices and put away the laptops.

In fact, some universities have decided to turn off the internet access in classrooms!

As it it turns out, the PC as an educational tool has now become a distraction. Different people will have different levels of discipline and attention. You simply can’t count on the majority of students to stick to academic uses of their computers and smartphones in a classroom.

A professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, knew her students weren't all paying attention in class. She carried out a quick study, simply by comparing the grades of students who used laptops in class with those of the students who didn't. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education in the United States, she informed the students after their first exam that they scored 11 percent lower than their counterparts without laptops.

It is absolutely understandable that teachers now have no tolerance for students surfing the Web or playing games in class. And maybe a ban should be extended to business meetings, training workshops and seminars. As for conferences, well, maybe they can be an exception if they’re all day affairs.

But schools, universities and training centers should go back to being places of focused learning.

Honestly, if you had a PC in front of you in a lecture, wouldn’t you be distracted by all the MSN chat, Gmail, Skype, TweetDeck alerts? Of course you would. Will you learn anything if you don’t pay attention? You probably won’t. Turn every digital device off, and turn on your brain. It’s the only device you’ll really need!

zanasser@gmail.com

Jordan ranks 44th in global ICT readiness report

2010-04-17T11:42:00.001+03:00

The Global Information Technology Report for 2009/2010 by the World Economic Forum is now available. It is based on a Networked Readiness Index (NRI), and it’s worth reading to see how prepared countries around the world are to use ICT effectively.
Apart from all the analysis, covering business, regulatory and infrastructure environment for ICT, the most interesting part is the ranking of countries in terms of ICT readiness, which sums up the report.

And, it is my pleasure to inform you that several Arab countries enjoy a respectable ranking.

The UAE, in particular, comes in at number 23, just before Ireland at 24 which is considered a very advanced technology economy!

And, to be honest, it is also a pleasure to see at least one Arab country ranking ahead of Israel, which came in at number 28.

So, what about Jordan? For all our good work in ICT over the past decade, Jordan makes it into the top fifty, coming in at number 44.

Not too bad in a list ranking 133 countries- which means we’re in the top third- but only reasonably impressive within a regional context as Bahrain and Qatar come in at 29 and 30 respectively, and Saudi Arabia coming in at 38 completes the group of four Arab countries ahead of us in the report.

The top three Arab countries get a special mention by a senior economist and co-editor of the report, who says "UAE, Bahrain and Qatar's superior capacity to leverage ICT as an enabler of sustainable, long-term economic growth in the Middle East region is a direct result of the focus placed by governments on knowledge-based economies with particular emphasis on education, innovation, as well as ICT access and diffusion."

We’re doing that in Jordan too, but maybe the extent of investment and the size of our economy relative to those Gulf countries puts us at a disadvantage.
As far as ‘ICT readiness’ is concerned, we’ve made strides in empowering the key stakeholder groups to use and benefit from ICT, and we will be climbing up the list.

For now, the most ‘networked’ Arab country is the UAE, and the least networked are Kuwait at number 76 and Syria at 105. So, Jordan sits in the leading group of Arab countries, but must and probably will do better in the near future.

zanasser@gmail.com

Access the full report here:

Hundreds of Millions worth of free publicity: iPad hysteria!

2010-04-05T10:02:00.002+03:00

Hysteria is the only suitable word to describe the iPad launch, on Saturday 3 April, preceded by heightened speculation since it’s ‘unveiling’ by Steve Jobs on January 27, which in turn came after years of speculation and teasing by Apple.

It’s a masterpiece of a product and a masterstroke of marketing, which encourages analysts and industry experts to believe that maybe someone will finally crack the tablet market, following several attempts from Microsoft, HP and others.
As was the case with iPod, Apple was not necessarily the first to introduce such a device, but it was the best to understand the ‘comprehensive, high utility, software-hardware integration’ approach needed. With iPod, Apple re-introduced the digital music player category, and controls more than three quarters of that market since.

The iPhone then followed, broke the stronghold of Nokia, Motorola and other established players and did what they could not do: introduce a whole new pocket computing platform, that also happens to be a phone; thanks to popularity of iTunes and the App Store.

So, the next natural step was to build a ‘bigger computer’ that utilized this now massively popular platform, and that’s what the iPad is. Or is it actually more?

News organizations and websites are all clamoring to evaluate the iPad’s features, with ‘exclusive reviews’, and the results are ranging from ‘pleased’ to ‘raving ecstasy’.

Engadget, the world’s top blog for gadgets and a definitive resource, has already declared that it’s a legendary device saying the iPad is “more than a product, it's a statement, an idea, and potentially a prime mover in the world of consumer electronics, but what was little more than rumor and speculation for nearly ten years is now very much a reality.”

Newsweek’s cover provides its verdict too saying: “What’s so great about the iPad...... everything!” We shall find out if that is indeed true.

As of yet, no launch date for the Middle East has been set, but hysteria is building up here too. A study by YouGov showed that 58% of respondents in the Middle East were likely to buy the iPad, which was more than the percentages reported in the UK and the USA.

Either YouGov have a strange sampling methodology, or we’re just Apple iPad crazy in the Middle East.

Soon, we’ll all be able to decide for ourselves!

zanasser@gmail.com

iPad arrives in Apple US stores amid huge demand

2010-04-04T08:20:00.002+03:00

Apple’s new iPad became available in all 221 US Apple retail stores and most Best Buy stores on Saturday, April 3. Starting at just $499, iPad lets users browse the web, read and send email, share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface. iPad is just 0.5 inches thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds—thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook—and delivers up to 10 hours of battery life.

“iPad connects users with their apps and content in a far more intimate and fun way than ever before,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We can’t wait for users to get their hands and fingers on it this weekend.”

Apple retail stores will offer a free Personal Setup service to every customer who buys an iPad at the store, helping them customize their new iPad by setting up their email, loading their favorite apps from the App Store, and more. Also beginning Saturday, Apple retail stores will host special iPad workshops to help customers learn more about it.

iPad is available in Wi-Fi models on for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, and $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April for a retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB. iPad will be sold in the US through the Apple Store.

Jordanians: Proud Geeky-techies, acquiring other skills fast!

2010-03-31T23:56:00.001+03:00

Attending any regional conference provides insights into Middle Eastern trends, but one of the most striking facts at ArabNet in Beirut last week was that Jordanians made up 40 percent of attendees - it actually looked like more than that- and made up the majority of start-up entries in the event competitions.

It’s not a surprise to us, but it is indeed another affirmation to the whole region that there’s something special about Jordan. It cannot just be a coincidence that category leading regional arab digital businesses like Maktoob, Jeeran, Info2Cell and so many others happen to come out of Jordan!

People always ask me: “What is it about Jordan that makes it a fertile ground for technology and web entrepreneurs?”

My answer has evolved over the years, and until recently it was the following: “Well, we have a good education system, people have to find ways to ‘make it in life’ and the open market economy atmosphere for several decades has helped!”.

Now, I am adding to it an annex as follows: “Also, the rise of private-public sector initiatives and NGOs to boost entreprenuership, coupled with the efforts of many generous and forward thinking mentors is making Jordan the place to be as an entrepreneur.”

Let’s all thank these organizations (Queen Rania Fund for Entrepreneurship, Endeavor Jordan, PSUT Incubator, YEA and others) and people (Fadi Ghandour, Maher Qadoura, Fawaz AlZoubi and others). The biggest contribution they make is to invest/incubate and provide skill-sets, such as management and marketing support.

On another note, I also feel success can be due to national characteristics and stereo-types which contribute to directions youth take in building businesses.

Our typically ‘serious’, ‘detail oriented’ and ‘stubborn’ characters means we are ideally suited to be ‘geeky techies’; and when our tech-media start-up has the potential for regional success, we usually need the help of our ‘more flexible’ Arab brethren to market it!

These stereo-types are changing, of course, as the region becomes a ‘common market’, and all Arabs are professionally trained to excel in various fields; but don’t underestimate our special talents, coupled with Jordan’s social stability, economic openness and our hunger to succeed.

Some say we’ve got the makings of ‘Silicon Valley Arabia’, I agree but feel we need to do more to truly earn that reputation and hold on to it by ‘breeding’, ‘retaining’ and ‘rewarding’ the talented Jordanians who drive it. Let’s capitalize on this organic success and truly become a powerhouse.

zanasser@gmail.com

Arab Net 2010, a success

2010-03-28T01:07:00.007+03:00

Attending Arab Net 2010 (arabnet.me) was quite an experience, as over 600 delegates came to Beirut from 25 to 26 March to discuss Arab web business ventures and the opportunities in this emerging industry.

Apart from the conference sessions, the event aimed to identify and award start-ups that can gain support from investors. In fact, all the "Ideathon" 10 finalists were approached by investors and all start-up finalists were approached by investors.

The event also showcased the power of social media, with live-tweeting in the hall, making the hashtag #arabnetme trend globally on Twitter in 4th place. Overall, there were more than 10,000 tweets.

Arab Net was also streamed live, generating over 200 simultaneous UStream viewers, and getting over 2,500 virtual attendees at live.arabnet.me.

More details on the conference content, panels and activities coming up soon.

Fadi Ghandour, ARAMEX founder & CEO, addresses the Arab Net delegates

Social Networking Panel

Online Advertising Panel

Arab Net 2010 winning start-ups

A war on VoIP in Arabia

2010-03-21T20:16:00.002+02:00

For many years now, telecommunications operators have been losing revenue to free voice over IP (VoIP) services, like Skype, and local regulatory authorities have stepped up their battle against such services, deeming them as illegal.

Although this is a relatively grey area in many Arab countries, several have now clearly crafted regulations to outlaw VoIP.

Apart from the now common-place crackdown on Internet cafes, regulation is crackdown covers both VoIP telephony through PCs and now through mobiles too.

In fact, last week, the Egyptian government declared mobile VoIP as officially illegal, unless provided by the licensed state telecom operator, which means a block on Skype and other known international SIP providers.

At the moment, it’s not clear which mobile operators have actually implemented the ban.

This follows a statement last week from The United Arab Emirates Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), saying that voice calls provided by popular VoIP client Skype are considered a 'regulated activity' and that anyone using the software will be 'legally liable'.

Basically, this means that Etisalat and Du can offer a range of VoIP services in the country, while unlicensed entities cannot.

This seems to be a more open approach, but it clearly bans Internet telephony operators like Skype. In fact, Skype.com is blocked in the UAE but people use it through their iPhone. The TRA says that anyone using the software will be "legally liable".

So, that means a partial-ban on VoIP services, but a total ban of unlicensed and usually free services.

The question is how can millions of users, in Egypt or UAE or anyone else, be monitored or penalized.

Surely, there has be another approach to solve this issue. Maybe some form of cooperation with VoIP providers whereby they agree to pay taxes or fees of some sort to local governments.

The war against voice over IP is just another chapter in the Internet era’s story, which requires a complete rethink on the part of ill prepared businesses and governments.

It appears that there is a realization that Internet driven communications cannot be stopped, but tactical decisions for now aim to ‘freeze’ the problem till a viable solution is found, but will there really be any solution other than accepting the new reality and embracing a complete ‘rethink’ of business models and government regulation.

Any chance of that happening soon? Any enlightened initiatives on the way? Most of us sincerely hope so.

zanasser@gmail.com

.com domain turns 25 years today, first domain registration was 15 March 1985

2010-03-15T09:53:00.002+02:00

On 15 March 1985, the first company to add dotcom to its name was a computer maker named Symbolics.

Today, 100,000 dotcom sites are registered every day and there are nearly 86m active sites. And the man behind the company looking after the dotcom domain is predicting changes in the way we use the internet.

For most of the late 1980s and early 1990s hardly anyone knew what a dotcom was, yet today it is part of the fabric of our lives and is regarded as the hallmark of the commercial internet.

In 1985, a total of six dotcom domain names were registered. Now, as well as the millions of active sites currently operational, there have been another 113m that have come and gone over the last quarter of a century.

Today, people go online to dotcom sites to shop, connect with people, engage with government, be entertained, learn new things, exchange ideas and plan holidays.

The million mark for dotcom domains was not achieved until 1997, well into the internet boom. And then came the dotcom explosion with nearly 20m names registered in the following two years.

But what of Symbolics, the first company to claim the dotcom domain? It went bust and was bought in 2009 by a company that buys and sells dotcoms for a living.

Read more.

Jordan on the virus map!

2010-03-14T22:40:00.002+02:00

Kaspersky Lab, the well-known anti-virus company, has published a report which reveals that a total of 17 per cent of Jordan’s computers were infiltrated by a variant of the Kido malware.

To quote the statement, “Kido has been mostly successful in Jordan at wreaking havoc in large corporation networks, due to its advanced network worm replication functions, that make it a nightmare for system administrators,” said Costin Raiu, Senior Anti Virus Expert, Head of Kaspersky EEMEA Virus Lab.
Well, although I have not heard complaints, and though one has to understand that such statements are motivated by selling more anti-virus products, we need to take a look at this alarming percentage!

The Kaspersky official goes on to say that Kido has been active in other Middle Eastern countries as well, and the most successful variant is Kido.ih.
What is surprising is that, according to Kaspersky, Kido’s authors have stopped active development of this family of malware, which makes this variant the last available, yet it continues to spread in Jordan!

What does that say about how up-to-date our software security is?

Kaspersky says “It is still spreading in the wild and causing problems for users,” which means Jordan is truly in the ‘wild and untamed’ virus zone.

And that’s not all, the malware report for Jordan also shows a proliferation of Sality, a virus that affects 14.32 per cent of all the country’s affected systems. This malware mainly attacks home PC users. It is passed through infected software, or it piggybacks on other malware. This makes its detection more difficult. It also has worm capabilities, which means it can spread through networks, by copying itself to other computers directly, taking advantage of the Windows Autorun feature.

Because of all these things, Sality is not only hard to catch once it infects a system, but also hard to disinfect.

The bad news does not stop there. Other malware affecting Jordanian users includes Mabezat, infecting 8.84 per cent of computers. It’s a tricky worm which operates by attaching itself to executables, while being polymorphic and spreading through network drives.

The report, which also covers other countries, is based on a study during December 2009.

The question is what kind of results would we be getting in a study of February 2010. Would it be better or worse?

Do enough people care to check their systems and update their anti-virus? They should. Let’s each start with ourselves, and maybe the frightening statistics above will drop.

zanasser@gmail.com

Google say that fastest growing operations are in MENA

2010-03-11T17:44:00.002+02:00

Speaking at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit, Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed the Middle East and North Africa region is the company's fastest growing region in the world, in terms of the number of users and revenue generated.

His keynote at the event focused on innovation in the media, stating that the future of the internet will be driven by mobile devices. While answering a question posed from an Emirati who asked why the company didn't have a presence in the UAE, Schmidt answered by saying that the country had the fastest growing operations for the company in the world.

Schmidt also said in his keynote address that half of all new internet connections are for mobile devices. "If you want to understand the future of internet don't think of it as pipes and tubes, think of it as a mobile device...," he told delegates at the event.

Explaining that the "new model is going to be in the inversion of the model we grew up with", he says that the strategy for media going forward will be 'internet first', where content producers, for example, will use the medium of the internet to build traction and get real numbers to then approach partners to raise additional funding.

But despite his obvious preference for online, Schmidt said he does not believe that the internet-based media will replace existing mediums and that it should instead be used a part of a broader strategy.

The Middle East only ‘graduated' in 2009, which is a term Google uses internally to signify that the infrastructure has been laid out and that it is now possible to start pursuing their mission here, which involves organising the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful.

Via [ ITP.net ]

3G arrives, what it means

2010-03-07T17:05:00.002+02:00

Orange Jordan has announced the country’s first third generation mobile network, called 3G+. This is a significant turning point for the evolution of mobile Internet access and content distribution in Jordan. Video calling, mobile TV viewing and Internet browsing at speeds of up to 14.4Mbps are now possible.

In an interview with a regional publication, several months ago, Orange CEO Nayla Khawam said that she hoped “that being able to offer 3G services would inject some value into a market completely and exclusively price driven".

So, the first thing worth looking at is Orange’s pricing strategy for the 3G service.

And here it is. Pay-As-You-Go customers can get one of three bundles. 100MB for JD3, 200MB for JD5 and 1GB for JD15. Not bad.

Pre-paid subscribers have a choice of a JD20 or JD40 package, both with unlimited mobile Internet, but varying call minutes and SMS offerings. The maximum offer for pre-paid subscribers is JD80 for unlimited ‘everything’, except international. That’s good, considering many people’s bill, without Internet, exceeds that.

To use 3G, you’ll need to get a new SIM card and your handset should also support the service.

The investment Orange made to introduce 3G was significant. Orange was awarded a 15-year license, in August 2009, for JD50 million (US$70 million), following a long process that started in 2008. 3G coverage will begin in Amman and some governorates, reaching full coverage of the country by August 2010.

For one year, starting at the date of introducing the service, Orange users will exclusively enjoy this 3G service. Afterwards, Zain and Umniah may obtain a 3G license if they meet the required criteria. So, if you’re not an Orange customer, you’ll have to wait.

It’s another exclusive for Orange, following the exclusive Apple iPhone deal. This evolving, differentiated offering by Orange is clearly giving the telecom operator more market penetration, probably at the expense of the current mobile market leader, Zain.

It’s worth noting that there’s a relatively slow uptake of 3G services in regional markets, although it’s been available for a few years.

For 3G to gain critical mass, and become a mainstream service, it’s prices will have to come down, and competitors will have to enter the 3G service market. However, maybe now the time is right and the thirst for high-speed mobile data services will surprise market watchers, at this early stage and even with only one operator delivering a 3G service.

If Orange provide market feedback and sales data in a few months, we’ll gladly report on it. It will be interesting to see if, finally, a significant number of Jordanians enter the world of high-speed mobile Internet.

zanasser@gmail.com

BlackBerry Messenger faces closure in Saudi Arabia, due to possible 'non-compliance'

2010-03-06T12:37:00.002+02:00

Saudi Arabia’s Communication and Information Technology Commission has asked Canada-based Research In Motion, the company that owns BlackBerry Messenger, to allow the telecoms regulator access to monitor messages sent by the mobile device, according to media reports.

The Arab News daily quoted the Al Watan newspaper as saying that the CITC wants to have access in order to monitor the messages in the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) network, threatening to shut down the service for noncompliance.

BBM is a special messaging service for BlackBerry phone users. For a monthly flat fee, BlackBerry owners can share messages, IM and multimedia with other BlackBerry owners, Arab News said.

There have been rumours that the BBM service will stop today (Saturday 6 March). The CITC was unavailable for comment on Friday.

Meanwhile, BBM maker Research in Motion (RIM) on Friday said it is investigating reports in the Arab press that Saudi regulators have asked the company for access to its unique messaging service for its BlackBerry devices.

"RIM operates in more than 170 countries around the world and respects the regulatory requirements of governments," the company said in a statement issued to Arab News.

"RIM is investigating the reported matter in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and will provide an update once further information is available to share," the statement added.

Via [Arab News ]

Skype becomes available on Nokia smartphones

2010-03-04T13:21:00.001+02:00

Skype, the popular and free Internet telephony service, is now available for Nokia smartphones running the Symbian operating system. It can be downloaded at the Ovi Store.

‘Skype for Symbian' will can be used by more than 200 million Nokia smartphone users. It will run on any Nokia smartphone using Symbian 1, the latest version of the Symbian platform available on over 20 models so far including the N97, N97 mini, X6, 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia 5530, E72, E71, E90, E63, E66, E51, N96, N95, N95 8Gb, N85, N82, N81, N81 8 Gb, N79, N78, 6220 classic, 6210 Navigator and 5320.

Skype will soon introduce this client to Symbian mobile devices from other manufacturers, including Sony Ericsson.

An ‘Outlook’ for Arab media between 2009-2013

2010-03-01T00:39:00.000+02:00

The Arab Media Outlook 2009-2013 published by the Dubai Press Club provides interesting predictions and an analysis of the region’s Internet landscape.
First, there’s the sobering fact that the range of broadband penetration across Arab countries is extremely disparate. It ranges from 0-1 percent in emerging markets like Syria and Sudan and to up to 84 percent in Qatar.

Imagine that. What a huge digital divide!

However, the report also shows that broadband penetration across the board is likely to rapidly grow in every Arab country and this growth will be driven by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two of the largest countries in the region, who together will make up 70 percent of total broadband subscriptions by 2013.
The fact our region is one of the youngest in the world is a principal factor driving this growth, and is resulting in an explosion in the use of online platforms.

Still, though, businesses are trying to catchup with this massive uptake, and are not following consumers online as they should. Online advertising expenditure is still around 1 percent, which is disproportional to the time spent online by the average consumer, but there are some encouraging signs. Newspapers have woken up to the new realities and the majority have plans to monetize online content and it appears that around 2 percent of their revenues are now derived from their websites.

The report covers 15 Arab countries (including Jordan) in detail, in addition to in-depth market research on media consumption habits in several of these markets. Jordan is well represented in this report, not just as a consumer market, but proudly as an online publishing leader with Maktoob and Jeeran both featured prominently as the leading Middle East portals being compared to international giants like Facebook and Baidu.

The information in the report, overall, is quite encouraging indeed. Although, the slow pace of broadband penetration still remains the major impediment for online growth, the chairperson of Dubai Press Club makes a positive statement saying “The growth in the popularity of social media, as analyzed in detail in the report, goes to show that a healthy balance between conventional media and the digital media is already struck by the Arab media consumers.”

This is a sign that our region maybe entering the maturity phase in digital media faster than anyone expected. It’s people who are driving the change, and surprising governments, businesses and analysts.

So, the media ‘outlook’ seems favorable. After all, for now and with these numbers, the only way is up!

Download it here.

zanasser@gmail.com

Jordan leads in patents but regional innovation and content is low, says Google

2010-02-14T17:30:00.003+02:00

Google claims that the state of innovation in the Middle East is ‘in bad shape’ compared to other regions across the world.

In a keynote speech at Google Day Arabia 2.0 in Dubai last week, Mohammad Gawdat, Google's managing director for Southern and Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa region, said that there was only a total of 3,224 patents filed from the MENA region in the last thirteen years.

Jordan leads the pack with more than 150, followed by Saudi Arabia and then Morocco.

According to 2009 Madar Research, only 56 million internet users in the MENA region search in Arabic though it is home to a population of 337 million. It's also estimated that less than 1 percent of all content online is in Arabic.

Google claims the region only ‘graduated' in 2009, which is a term used internally to signify that it is now possible to start pursuing their mission there. "The internet was not ready when we (Google) came to the Middle East," admitted Gawdat. He said that while the region may have a late start compared to other markets, it has the chance to ‘leapfrog' over them.

The Google Day Arabia 2.0 saw executives and government officials from across the Middle East come together to discuss the future of the Internet and prospects for innovation in the region.

Vinton Cerf, Google's VP and chief internet evangelist spoke at the event and predicted that currently dominant online populations such as the US and Europe will be overtaken by masses gaining connectivity from the Middle East, Africa and Asia in the future.

Nokia introduces "Comes With Music" service in Middle East, along with the new Nokia X6

2010-02-11T00:35:00.011+02:00

I had the pleasure of attending Nokia's regional event in Beirut announcing its "Comes With Music" service, that enables buyers of the new Nokia X6 phone to enjoy unlimited music downloads legally for a year, from the Ovi store catalogue.

For around $600, buyers get the touchscreen Nokia X6 capable of storing around 3,000 songs on its 16GB built-in memory, and can then select the music they want from a library of 4 million. The music files will be digital-rights-managed (DRM) and users can keep the music on their X6 phone, and consequent Nokia X-series devices, and can also keep a copy of it all on their PC too.

Nokia rolls out this service in 11 Arab markets: Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, UAE and Egypt in the first week of March 2010. The service has already been introduced in 14 other markets across Europe, Asia and South America.

Nokia has signed agreements with over 2000 music content owners, including Middle Eastern labels such as Rotana, Mazzika, Melody Music and others; so popular Arabic music is now available for download. This should please music fans across the region.

I had the opportunity to ask Ayman Chalhoub, head of retail sales for music at Nokia, regarding the means by which Nokia X6 owners can renew their unlimited music download service when the first 12 months run out, and the answer was that users can do so by buying a new Nokia device.

Although it seems a bit strange that users may have to buy a new device every year to continue to download music, it appears that it's still early to predict how Nokia's music distribution strategy in the MEA region will evolve, as the company gauges the success of its new approach and receives feedback from customers.

Steve Lewis, head of Nokia marketing for Middle East and Africa, commented on this matter saying that this 'one year free music download' strategy was found to be the most suitable approach for Nokia and its music partners in the Middle East for now, and that there could be more developments in this field. He emphasized the positive aspect of this strategy which was the accessibility it offers to a massive music library.

Echoing this idea was Jake Larsen, Head of Music, Middle East and Africa, who said that "The mobile phone will be the top music device," and went on to explain that Nokia has "forever changed the way that digital music is consumed" and that this will "significantly reduce music piracy".

These are bold statements, but Nokia's initiative is indeed a game-changer in the digital music industry.

As the whole music industry grapples with the transition to digital music distribution, various models from Nokia, Apple and others will be implemented, and it will be up to consumers to vote with their wallets on what approach delivers the most value.

For more information on Nokia "Comes With Music", click here.

zanasser@gmail.com
Photos courtesy of Shuffe|gazine

Mobile OS wars evolve

2010-02-07T15:47:00.002+02:00

Up until a few years ago, it looked like Symbian Series 60 was the key mobile phone operating system, and developers ran to it in droves creating applications. To this day it remains the leader, with studies showing that Symbian accounts for over 50% of the mobile OS market share.

But Apple’s aggressive iPhone strategy, coupled with the successful AppStore and iTunes, is clearly cutting into that lead, as are other players such as BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Google’s Android.

Nokia has responded by improving its offering, launching the Ovi application store and recently ‘opening up’ the Symbian code which it owns to developers, thereby making it an open source technology that can compete with Android which is gathering pace because it’s developers are adopting it.

And, on top of that, Nokia is experimenting with another mobile OS, Maemo on its N97 and N900. Maybe this means Nokia is moving on from Symbian and maybe not.

But it’s strange to see so-called industry analysts sounding the death knell for Symbian, while predicting- as if anyone could predict at this stage- that the future mobile OS war is a straight battle between the iPhone OS and Android.

Frankly, it seems to be a conclusion reached purely due to the ‘coolness’ factor of Apple and Google.

For example, the Android’s user base is smaller than Windows Mobile which Microsoft probably considers to be a somewhat of a failure!

The reality is that Nokia continues to dominate the mobile phone arena, still accounting for more than iPhone, BlackBerry and Android phones put together!
A significant percentage of those phones are Symbian OS smart phones, and when you add the Symbian devices also produced by LG, Samsung, Sony Ericcsson and others it becomes clear that the iPhone is ‘trendy’ but not dominant. Even in it’s category of new-age smart phones, the iPhone still lags behind BlackBerry devices- some studies report a two-to-one sales ratio in it’s home market of North America- and BlackBerry is beating it by even more than that in other regions.

So maybe Symbian, BlackBerry, iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile - in that order- are still all vying to win the battle for an industry standard mobile OS.
But who said consumers want one dominant standard? I know I don’t. It’s refreshing today to see Microsoft Windows, Macinstosh OS and Linux competing to please consumers in the personal computer world.

The mobile world made of smaller, pocket-size computers, should go that route too. Variety is good and now that Symbian and Android are open, we’ll see what Microsoft, Apple and BlackBerry will do next with their ‘closed code’, but highly integrated mobile OS offerings. It should be interesting to watch.

zanasser@gmail.com

Time for a calm discussion

2010-01-24T16:18:00.002+02:00

A frenzy arose from a recent supreme court ruling, whereby the Press and Publications Law would apply to Internet news sites and digital content in general.

This has stirred up a national discussion regarding regulation and censorship. It seems authorities want to exercise some measure of control and seek to introduce legal liability with regard to content published on the Internet, while activists don’t want any control whatsoever. Clearly, this is an unattainable position.

To begin with, this matter is not new. Back in 2007, the Legislation Bureau at the Prime Minister’s Office announced that Internet content would fall under the oversight of the Publications and Publishing Department. However, it appears that the department did not exercise its powers of supervision. And now, the issue has been re-activated.

Jordan, till now, has been a rather open Internet country. The OpenNet Initiative report (see drawing) classifies Jordan as “Selective” in Internet filtering and positively summarizes the state of Internet censorship in the country saying “Jordanians appear to enjoy essentially unfiltered access to Internet content. However, the Press and Publications Law’s broad provisions have been extended to online publications and may lead some writers to engage in self-censorship as individual writers and commentators seek to avoid heavy fines or criminal prosecution.”

A thorough discussion of electronic laws in general needs to be conducted, with the participation of all stakeholders, whereby the requirements of all parties are to be considered. A balanced solution that is acceptable and conducive to strengthening Jordan’s economic and social growth is the answer.

Otherwise, Jordan’s image as an Internet media hub in the region and a hotbed for Internet entrepreneurs will be affected.

This matter is one that faces other nations as the digital age evolves. Jordan is a country that typically adopts a moderate stance.

Through a calm and open exchange of views, authorities could enact laws that allow digital content to flourish. That could be an agreeable starting point of a discussion. But, will there be such a discussion?

zanasser@gmail.com

Google at center of attack on 33 US websites in China

2010-01-17T14:15:00.002+02:00

The biggest news this week was the ‘conflict’ that arose between Google Inc. and the Chinese government.

The story seemed simple enough, to begin with, when it was revealed that Chinese hackers stole valuable corporate secrets from its computer systems, but it then seemed to evolve in a disturbing direction when it emerged that it was part of a broad, sophisticated attack on at least 33 other firms too, including Juniper Networks, Adobe, Yahoo, Symantec, Dow and Northrop Grumman.

Immediately, the issue started to look like an international relations crisis, with Google at the center of it and the US government being forced to to tackle this matter with the Chinese government.

A fall-out began and Google threatened to pull out of China, where it has a large office, and said it would stop filtering Internet searches on its site in China.

Such a serious response comes with considerable business ramifications for Google and touches on very sensitive political issues such as human rights and cyber-espionage. The White House says it supports such moves, but it could undermine US-China relations.

The US government has responded by saying that it addresses cyberattacks separately from diplomatic relations with China and any other country, but also said that such separation is becoming more difficult in light of these recent events.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Chinese law "proscribes any form of hacking activity" and that "China's Internet is open and the Chinese government encourages development of the Internet."

But in a separate statement, the government said it should continue its policy of keeping certain types of information off the Web in China. Simply, Goolge response has whipped up a storm.

Surely now, it is clear to everyone that information flow on the Internet and related-cyberattacks are issues that need to be dealt with, and part of the world’s ‘growing pains’ in the Internet age. It’s a wonder this did not happen sooner. I believe that the way this crisis evolves and how it’s handled will create a whole new area of “Internet politics’ this century.

zanasser@gmail.com

Y2K bug makes a return ten years later!

2010-01-10T17:51:00.000+02:00

Those of you who followed the news at the turn of the century will recall the “Year 2000 Problem”, referred to as the Y2K bug.

Basically, the millennium bug was a problem which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits. There were fears that computer systems would breakdown without correcting the problem, and there were huge efforts worldwide to prepare. In the end, Y2K passed with little trouble.
Last week, the date change over from 2009 to 2010, wreaked havoc on some systems across the world.

The biggest problem happened in Germany, where an error left around one third of all cards issued by German banks unable to access ATMs or to make payments from New Year's day till the end of the first week in January!

Banks said this week that like the year-2000 problem, in which old software was not designed to recognize any date after 1999, the new glitch was caused by a software error that treats the year 2010 as if it does not exist. The total number of debit and credit cards knocked out was over 30 million, and it seems the banking system will have to incur the costs of replacing them. Australian bank reported similar problems, though less damaging.

Also, surprisingly, two of the world’s top software security companies, Symantec and Kaspersky, reported problems too. Symantec's network-access control (NAC) software that is supposed to check whether spam and virus definitions have been updated recently enough fails because of this 2010 problem.

Open source projects like SpamAssasin also faced date-related problems, increasing the spam score it gives to e-mails that come with 2010 date headers, making it more likely that those e-mails will be classified as spam, resulting in more false positives.

Even users of certain Windows OS mobile phones reported getting SMS messages time stamped from the future, the year 2016! Microsoft is now fixing that issue.
So, can IT specialists be excused for being a bit distracted by the tough economic situation in 2009?

There are no excuses, and it’s dissapointing that the Y2K hype that grabbed our attention for 2 years was forgotten ten years later. It’s human nature to forget and assume all is well. In this digitally-run society, it’s clearly a mistake.

zanasser@gmail.com

2010: The Year of Cyber-Threats

2010-01-05T19:07:00.001+02:00

Over the past 12 months, the way people use the Internet has evolved significantly and cyber criminals have changed their tactics accordingly, which has resulted in a majority of experts to claim that 2010 will be the year of elevated cyber-threats.

According to the 2010 Threat Predictions report by McAfee Labs, not only has the volume of threats escalated dramatically, but the delivery methods have become more sophisticated”.

Cyber criminals increasingly leverage the news of the day to attack unsuspecting consumers. Celebrity deaths, natural disasters, you name it .

The hubs for communication- Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites- will become major targets for cyber criminals. Although consumers know to be wary of Web links sent by strangers, they tend to trust Web links and e-mail messages sent by friends and family. Online attackers are learning how to exploit that trust, by delivering malware that appears to come from Facebook friends and Twitter followers e-mails. With 350 million users on Facebook, it’s a very rich target-rich environment.

McAfee also warns that URL shorteners, like those used to accommodate Twitter's 140-character limit, make the cyber criminal's task even easier.

Unlike many typical Web addresses that show Internet users the name of the site they're about visit, shorter URLs tend to display a string of letters and numbers that seem to have no rhyme or reason.

Another Internet security firm Symantec said in its recent report on 2010 threats, URL shortening services will become ‘the phisher's best friend’. The Symantec report says "Because users often have no idea where a shortened URL is actually sending them, phishers are able to disguise links that the average security conscious user might think twice about clicking on.”

However, the number one target for cyber criminals in 2010? McAfee expects it to be Adobe products, especially Flash and Acrobat reader.

Symantec also warned that malware for Mac and mobile devices will increase. As Macs and smart phones (such as iPhones, BlackBerrys and Android phones) increase in popularity, attackers will spend more time figuring out how to exploit them.

So, shape up and protect every electronic device and gadget you’ve got, and brace for a cyber-crime onslaught. Threats have always existed, but more digitization means more attention and immunization.

zanasser@gmail.com

Twitter reveals 2009’s trends, #Gaza high on the list

2009-12-27T16:02:00.004+02:00

As we wrap up 2009, and following our series of columns on the top trends, products and events of the past decade, it’s time to just look back at 12 months and seek indicators for what the first few years of the next decade could bring.

And what better tool is there than the ‘real-time trend barometer’ which is Twitter. Twitter is not just a social networking tool, it also played an important role in breaking, spreading and even forming big news stories this year. The micro-blogging service’s most-discussed topics of the year included the Iranian election and demonstrations, Obama’s inauguration, swine flu and even reality TV show stars!

A Twitter spokesperson, Abdur Chowdhury, writes in his blogpost launching the chart saying that “2009 Twitter’s Trending Topics helped us understand what was happening around the world showing us that people everywhere can be united in concern around important events. Among all the keywords, hashtags and phrases that proliferated throughout the year, one topic surfaced repeatedly. Twitter users found the Iranian elections the most engaging topic of the year. The terms #iranelection, Iran and Tehran were all in the top 21 of Trending Topics, and #iranelection finished in a close second behind the regular weekly favorite #musicmonday.”

Gaza was also high on the list. Even as we speak, the anniversary of the war in Gaza has prompted Arab Tweeters- also known as Tweeps- to remind the world about it by tweeting it, hash-tagging it, and changing their avatar photos too. This could, possibly, push #Gaza up on the Twitter trends list before the year is out. Twitter may have to change it's end-of-year chart!

Already, in the Arab World, Twitter has become a barometer of public issues, albeit among tech-savy and Internet enabled individuals. But, as Internet penetration increases, we’ll be seeing more Arabs on Twitter.

Last week, in an interview on Al Jazira news channel, I spoke about the power of the Internet to unite Arabs behind humanitarian causes, and to attract the attention of the world. There is strength in our numbers, and finally there are tools to help us shape global opinion.

As the decade draws to a close, social networking tools have become one of the best means to make a statement. We are entering a decade where the way we communicate will evolve in the direction set by the past few years, and who knows what other tools we’ll be using soon. Happy New Year 2010, and wishing you a good ‘Tens Decade’.

zanasser@gmail.com

Top “things” that became obsolete in the 'Noughties' decade

2009-12-20T15:52:00.002+02:00

Everyone expects that new technologies and products replace old products, and can radically shift the way we do things. That’s why, as the decade ends, we should take a look at the ‘things’ that have become obsolete in the decade referred to as the ‘Noughties’.

Photo Film: Digital cameras stole the show. It made sense. No film cost, the ability to download or upload photos instantly, and possibility to print photos if needed (a diminishing need at the moment). Kodak re-invented itself as a digi-cam and battery production company.

Music CDs: The CD killed vinyl records in the 90s, and MP3 music players and Internet distribution has almost completely killed CDs in the second half of this decade. The drop is CD sales, year-on-year is alarming.

Music & video stores: Next up, and already becoming obsolete in Europe and the US, are music shops. Video stores have also suffered due to online services like Netflix, coupled with high-speed broadband. These outlets are not quite obsolete yet, but this decade wiped out the need to leave your home for music or movies.

Public phones, fax machines and land-lines: Clearly, 100% of the adult population carrying a phone in their pocket, nobody needs the public phone booth anymore. And, email has managed to almost completely kill the fax machine. Land-lines are suffering the double effect of mobile phone penetration, and voice-over-IP. Free international calling at home or the office probably means you can soon disconnect your phone!

Maps, phone books, dictionaries, encyclopedias: These ‘data sources’ were indispensable in year 2000. Do you actually still use any of them now? Never heard of Wikipedia, electronic directories or GPS? Have you been in a cave for ten years?

Postal services (mail): Only old-fashioned banks and government institutions still insist on printing and mailing your statements or bills. But, in reality. The post office box is already abandoned by almost everyone. In more advanced nations, you get these ‘documents’ by email. Maybe someone needs to remind people in our region that it’s the age of the Internet.

Lying just outside this list, and currently ‘almost obsolete’ are newspapers, magazines and print media in general.

If there’s one bet I am willing to make, it’s that a review of the decade in 2019 will put ‘paper’ on top of the list. If we’re all still here, we’ll see for ourselves!

zanasser@gmail.com

Top 10 Gadgets of the Decade

2009-12-12T21:32:00.000+02:00

We continue our look back at what characterized the past decade. This list is a compilation adopted from several sources, and most of us will agree that these are the high-tech gadgets that shaped our lives in recent years.

iPod: It wasn’t the first digital music player when introduced in 2001, but it is now the ‘industry standard’. Along with iTunes store, the iPod popularized the mp3 player and changed the music and applications industry forever.

GPS Devices: Completely replacing folding printed maps. Starting in 2000, GPS evolved, led by Garmin and now voice-enabled devices sit on dashboards of cars all over the world, and GPS is available on mobile phones too.

The BlackBerry: Research in Motion's highly popular BlackBerry mobile device was first introduced as a two-way pager in 1999, but the now-common BlackBerry smart phone was introduced in 2002. It is considered the most efficient phone to send and receive e-mail and access the Internet.

Digital cameras: In the nineties, it took days to see photos you’ve taken with a camera. Nowadays, you can see them on a little screen and edit them on your digital camera seconds after taking them, within minutes the world sees them uploaded online.

Digital Video Recorder (Tivo): TiVo introduced the device in 1997, but it was in the 2000s that the ad-skipping DVR really took off. Now, other manufacturers offer a DVR-integrated television.

Nintendo Wii: The Wii pulled gamers off the couch and into the action, revolutionizing video game play with its wireless, motion-sensing controllers.

USB Flash Drive: More durable than discs, tiny and capable of storing mountains of information, USB sticks are now part of life.

iPhone: There are 40 million units in use of this impressive touch-screen device. Along with BlackBerry, the most successful smart phone of the decade.

E-Book Readers: Wave goodbye to printed books as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader are adopted by consumers. Sales of digital books tripled this year too.

Netbooks: Smaller and cheaper than typical laptops. These fully-functional mini-notebooks have boosted sales of PCs since their launch in 2008. Blurring the lines between bigger PCs and small portable digital devices, netbooks will be popular in the next decade.

zanasser@gmail.com

Dinner with Yahoo! founder, Jerry Yang

2009-11-22T15:24:00.006+02:00

It’s not everyday that you get to meet a founder of the world’s largest portal. In fact, in my case, it was the first time I ever met an ‘Internet-era legend’.

Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!, was in town as part of his Middle East tour following Yahoo!’s acquisition of Maktoob.com. It was expected that top Yahoo! executives would fly into the region, and they did.

But, undoubtedly, Mr. Yang’s presence generated a different level of excitement and interest in Cairo, Amman and Dubai last week. So, when I got an invitation to an ‘informal dinner with Jerry Yang’, it was an honor indeed.

I arrived early and had the pleasure of welcoming Mr. Yang, who warmly said hello and then gave me his business card, and that’s when I had to say “well, surely I know all about you sir, but thanks for the kind gesture of presenting your business card.” He carries the title of “Chief Yahoo!”. The other side of the card is Arabized, which demonstrates that Yahoo!’s has arrived in Arabia.

Clearly this was not an interview, but a relaxed and joyful evening, therefore the conversation drifted from light business talk to Arab food and customs. I must say that Mr. Yang was humorous, pleasant and he was curious to know more about our region and how Arabs go about their lives. Being originally Chinese, he mentioned to me how similar our cultures were.

I made a concentrated effort to explain to Mr. Yang why Jordan was an interesting country, that there were breathtaking sites to see and that he must come back to town again soon. He mentioned Petra and the Dead Sea, and seemed to know a fair amount of information about both. So it appears an Internet search on Yahoo! yields good results for these two destinations.

Towards the end of the dinner, I asked Mr. Yang if we could have our photo taken together and he kindly obliged. It also started a wave of photos with everyone else at the dinner. Mr. Yang kindly smiled through the whole thing.

Inspiring thinkers and ground-breaking business leaders are a pleasure to meet. As a technology journalist, and as a web entrepreneur, it felt like I was meeting one of my heroes.

A key thought Mr. Yang left me with was the importance of courage and creativity. He said most people you talk to about a venture, won’t necessarily think it’s a great idea, but that’s expected. If they thought it was, they’d think of it first and you wouldn’t be the only one who created it and succeeded!
Indeed, this is probably the story behind the success of Jordan’s best Internet ventures. It’s also the philosophy continuously driving success within organizations when they ‘dream up’ a new service or feature. It’s probably one of the things that made Yahoo! great.

Talking to Mr. Yang re-affirmed that big dreams, hard work and charismatic leadership work. They propelled Yahoo! to success and we can all learn from that.

zanasser@gmail.com

The debut of Microsoft’s “new efficiency”

2009-11-14T22:32:00.003+02:00

The Windows 7 launch road-show came to Amman last week, under the slogan of “The New Efficiency”. It generated considerable enthusiasm with hundreds of attendees. The presence of top Microsoft executives from Redmond and across the region underlined the importance of the occasion.

The press conference featured the guest of honor, Kevin Turner the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Microsoft. After hearing the opening remarks, I had the opportunity to ask Mr. Turner a couple of questions.

After commending Microsoft’s demonstration of commitment to the Middle East, I stated the general consensus is that Windows Vista was a dissapointment and said that we were all hoping that Windows 7 would be ‘the solution’, but will it be and why? And, what’s Microsoft’s view regarding the emergence of online office applications, some of which are free?

Mr. Turner first acknowledged that Vista had its problems and that it generated negative publicity for Microsoft, but he said that Microsoft has now built its greatest operating system in 35 years.

“We’re thrilled and pleased with Windows 7, and the feedback so far has been excellent. We expect to sell over 300 million copies of Windows 7,” he said.

Addressing the ‘online software’ question, Mr. Turner explained that Microsoft has its own strategy to deliver online applications, and was focused on the ‘cloud computing’ future. Regarding paid vs. free online software models, he said that “Nothing is actually free, as it may be supported by advertising, but the beauty of what Microsoft offers is the combination of software and services and the resulting savings gained by businesses.”

Next up was a public launch event, in which Mr. Turner spoke again and was followed by Samer Chidiac, from Microsoft’s Lebanon office, who summed it up well when he said: “People have told us that they ‘just want their computers to work’.”

The user desperation is quite evident in that statement, and the willingness of Microsoft to admit that fact is commendable. And, from the looks of it so far, Windows 7 is a product geared towards making computers ‘work again’ the way we want them to.

Maybe there will still be some security holes, and some glitches here and there, but it appears that ‘the new efficiency’ is coming with a leaner OS, faster start-up, more user-friendliness and much more.

Those of us who are Windows users want the new operating system to be great. We want to stop envying our Macintosh-using friends, before we end up jumping ship and joining them!

Windows 7 has a lot of expectations to live up to, and Microsoft is probably at a real cross-road at this point in time, when switching to other operating systems has never been easier. In the coming weeks, early adopters of Windows 7 around the world will deliver their verdict. Let’s wait and see.

zanasser@gmail.com

Arabic language web addresses to be available

2009-11-04T16:39:00.003+02:00

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) met in Seoul a few days ago to discuss the proposals to allow web addresses in non-Latin script, opening the way for Arabic and other web addresses.

This is big news, and could impact all Internet businesses in the Middle East, who will first have to acquire the names of their sites in Arabic letters, then decide wether or not to use these domains as their main site addresses, following many years of providing users with sometimes complex latin letter names like “kooora.com” or “D1G.com” or even just long words like “alarabiya.net”.

It is expected that there will be an approval for initial limited use of "International Domain Names" before the end of the year.

Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's president and CEO, said: “In Seoul, we plan to move forward to the next step in the internationalization of the Internet, which means that eventually people from every corner of the globe will be able to navigate much of the online world using their native language scripts.”

The regional manager for, Baher Esmat, spoke to the press saying that this move will be a a factor in bringing more people in the Arab world online.

ICANN's Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) program is expected to allow the use of characters from other languages such as Chinese, Arabic and Japanese for the complete internet address, instead of just parts of addresses as it is presently.

Baher added that IDNs won't be a solution to all the internet access problems in the region, but will deal with part of the problem and will enable more Arabic content online. Baher goes on to say that certain countries, where people use the Internet mostly in Arabic such as Saudi Arabia or Egypt, the governments are strong advocates for the language, and there would be a pressing need to have IDNs.

According to the latest figures by Internet World Stats, there are nearly 48 million internet users in the Middle East, representing slightly fewer than 3% of the world's online population.

Some commentators and analysts say this is like finally liberating the Internet, as ICANN ends the exclusive use of Latin characters for addresses tomorrow.
This action comes during the week in which the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of the internet's creation in a computer experiment by researchers at the University of California.

This week could also mark the actual birth of the “Arab Internet”.

zanasser@gmail.com

‘Phishing bust’ in Egypt and US

2009-10-11T18:18:00.000+03:00

An international phishing scam has been uncovered. It involves cyber criminals in Egypt and the US and Egypt.

Accordingly, authorities have made around 80 arrests, following a two-year investigation into this organized crime gang. Reports suggest that they have stolen around $1.5 million in phishing attacks on hundreds of US bank accounts, and it’s somewhat puzzling to note that the attacks originate from Egypt!

The Egyptian nationals arrested are 47 people, who have been charged with computer fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identify theft.

The remaining thirty-three suspects arrested came from California, Nevada, and North Carolina, and it is reported that the US authorities are seeking a further twenty people.

Here’s the story cirulating in the media: “The gang launched the phishing attacks from Egypt to gain account details of customers with two US banks. Once the accounts were compromised, money was stolen from legitimate customer accounts by transferring it into bogus accounts set up by the US part of the gang. The US gang members would then withdraw funds from these accounts and transfer the profits by wire transfer to Egypt.”

The FBI's Los Angeles office led the investigation, calling the operation ‘Phish Phry', and cooperated with Egyptian authorities in what is now considered to be the first joint cyber investigation between the US and an Arab country. Even the US Secret Service and Electronics Crimes Task Force were involved.

This bust is being hailed as ‘an organized response by law enforcement across international borders, which we have seen in this case.’

What worries international police is this emerging trend of cross-country crime, facilitated by the Internet.

Criminal groups can now recruit skilled programmers abroad to help commit organized theft. Hacking, fraud and identity theft, are quite common but utilizing Arab and Middle Eastern talents to carry out such attacks in America and Europe is a new development.

A statement by the FBI includes gratitude to law enforcement partners in the U.S. and the Egyptian government's dedicated cooperation.

This shows that, in the Internet age, borders cease to exist among countries, and that the only way to uphold the rule of law is cooperation.

This breaking story has placed the spotlight on growing Internet-related crime in the region, and you can expect to read more about this topic as international cyber crime evolves. It’s an eye-opener, and an opportunity to start monitoring Internet-related crime in our region.

zanasser@gmail.com

Twit-iquette

2009-10-04T17:17:00.001+03:00

Now that Twitter is taking off in Jordan, and across the Arab World, it may be a good time to establish some form of Twitter etiquette, regarding what to tweet and how many times!

Twitter is a tool that means different things to different people.
Teenagers create an account, follow their friends, get followed by them, and then report every minute detail of there lives so everyone knows what’s happening.
Young adults do a bit of that, but mostly Twitter about something they saw, or read or that happened to them. Many of them use it to congratulate one another on occasions and so on.

Users in the 21+ range do a bit of both of the above, but add in ‘marketing Tweets’ which are about their achievements, careers, products and services they offer. In that sense, Twitter is mainly a self promotion tool for them. They also look at it as a ‘networking’ and ‘introduction’ tool to show others that they are interested in knowing more about them- by following them.

So, with all of these different motives behind Tweeting, it’s no surprise my Tweet Deck applications keeps buzzing with incoming tweets.

Accordingly, I wish people stuck to a general guideline of Twitter etiquette, which won’t only be a relief for people tried of their countless, meaningless messages but will also help them maintain their public image.

For starters, don't say something that makes you look like an idiot. Only Tweet about topic you understand, and conduct yourself on Twitter as you would socially in the real world. After all, it’s a ‘social network’.

Don't overly criticize someone or something which will go on public record as your position, making you look like a total hypocrite when you change your position about that person or thing.

For example, government employees in the US are advised not to Tweet, or re-Tweet, news or analysis that may reflect their political position.
Journalists of the Washington Post have received clear instructions from management to “refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything that could be perceived as reflecting racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism. Because that would tarnish the newspapers journalistic credibility."

And, be careful who you follow because it reflects your interests and general principles.

So, as you can see, Twitter is not all fun and games.

It’s a communication tool which could cause serious damage to your image or that of the organization you represent. To sum up, think before you Tweet. It does not take the fun out of it, it just takes out the potential damage!

zanasser@gmail.com

On Facebook Golan Heights is either part of Syria or Israel, you choose!

2009-09-26T22:06:00.003+03:00

If social networks truly reflect societies, then they will get caught up in the debates and controversies that we experience everyday.

The most recent example has been Facebook’s struggle to sort out the “Home Country” of users logging in from the Golan Heights. Should they select Syria or Israel?

Up until recently, The Golan Heights was considered part of Syria on Facebook, until a pro-Israeli lobby group which goes by the conspicuous name of “honestreporting.com” started a group called "Facebook, Golan residents live in Israel, not Syria."

The group attracted 2,500 members in the first week. Shortly afterwards Facebook policy changed.

A CNN reporter got comments from a Facebook spokesperson about this, who said “We have enabled users in Golan Heights to choose either Syria or Israel in the listings. We currently have the same dual-listing options for the West Bank settlement, which is listed in both Palestine and Israel. We deal with the listings for disputed territories on a case-by-case basis, and with Golan Heights we decided a dual listing made sense in this instance."

Well, it seems Facebook has found it’s own solution to the 60-year long Arab Israeli conflict, and has adopted an approach of ‘let every person chose what he/she likes, and let’s all get along together on Facebook regardless of international law ...”
And the result? Delighted Israeli settlers such as Ofri Bazaz who says "It's very important on the Internet when somebody comes to my profile on Facebook they will see Israel and not Syria. I'm not Syrian."

Really.

Maybe Facebook should offer a profile entry that says “I’m an Israeli living in occupied Syrian territory.” You know, just to clear up this person’s problem!

What do the Syrians think of this story? Well, maybe they would be able to do something about it if Facebook was not blocked in Syria! According to the CNN report, this is due to it being ‘very popular with Syrian activists’.

It is dissappointing that Syrians who should be countering this pro-Israeli group can’t.

So, Facebook has officially gone against United Nations resolutions which clearly state that the Golan Heights are “occupied Arab territory”. Simply, due to some pressure from a pro-Israeli group. It seems Facebook and other social networks will unwisely accommodate the wishes of some of their users who are seeking to make political statements beyond the confines of these social networks. Well, then they will have to take the heat of these decisions.

Stay tuned for a follow-up story on ‘Arabs start Facebook group to keep the Golan Heights in Syria!”, or even better “Arabs decide Facebook management is either nave or simply pro-Israeli.”

zanasser@gmail.com

The Maktoob story: A source of pride

2009-08-30T16:14:00.000+03:00

The big news this week is the sale of Maktoob.com to Yahoo! Rumours had been circulating for years regarding this deal, but it’s now official and the Internet media scene in the Middle East will never be the same.

To begin with, we should all feel extremely proud of the Maktoob team, especially the founders Samih Toukan and Husam Khoury who launched Maktoob eleven years ago, following a few years of experimenting with web development and Internet projects under their previous company Business Optimization Consultants (BOC), which even launched one of the first recruitment sites in the Arab World, Job Finder.

In 1998 they spotted a niche for Arabic email services and announced Maktoob at a computer show in Amman (METS 98) where the founders wore Maktoob T-Shirts and asked people to sign-up for an account. I remember signing up and grabbing my email address zeid@maktoob.com which I’ve proudly used ever since, having beaten hundreds of ‘Zeids’ that would follow as Maktoob gained millions of email users in record time and its fame went beyond Jordan.

Maktoob (meaning ‘letter’ in Arabic) grew beyond its name to offer so much more Arabic and English content. Your email username and password became a gateway to so many other services.

I’ve been watching Maktoob closely since it started, and have worked with the Maktoob team on many occasions. The patience and determination of the founders and their early investors must be commended. From humble beginnings in a Jebel Amman office, Maktoob now has over 300 people in Amman, Dubai, Riyadh, Cairo and Kuwait.

There are many Jordan-based Internet media ventures that have been inspired by Maktoob, or have simply benefited from the awareness that Maktoob created in the region. When Maktoob opened its Dubai office, it was probably the only Arab website selling online advertising professionally in the Middle East, educating clients and advertising agencies about the future of marketing as we know it today.

It took years for proper revenues to materialize, but perseverance and leadership have been awarded now with this recognition from Yahoo!, whose acquisition of Maktoob will send a message worldwide regarding the emergence of the Middle East as an Internet media market.

It will also tell the story of Jordanian entrepreneurship against all odds. A story that involved hundreds of team members over the years, all of whom feel this success is theirs too.

The outpouring of support and congratulations to the Maktoob team following the announcement of this deal has been heartwarming. No matter what direction the new Yahoo! Maktoob takes, its place in the region’s Internet history is secured as the trailblazing industry-maker, born in Jordan. Congratulations to us all.

zeid@maktoob.com

Yahoo! to acquire Maktoob.com

2009-08-25T11:44:00.000+03:00

Yahoo! has agreed to acquire Maktoob.com, the Arab world’s largest online community, marking the first major investment by a U.S. technology company in a region where internet penetration is still in its infancy.

The global internet giant said on Tuesday it has entered into a definitive agreement with Jordan-based Maktoob Group to acquire Maktoob.com for an undisclosed fee. Maktoob Business is a part of Maktoob.com.

Yahoo! said it expects the acquisition to be completed in the fourth quarter.

Read more

Internet filtering by MENA Governments increasing

2009-08-22T14:47:00.001+03:00

OpenNet Initiative recently released a report delivering an an updated view of Internet content controls in the Middle East and North Africa region, comparing findings to an earlier global survey carried out in 2006-2007.

The new study shows that Internet censorship has “continued apace in the region.”

Fourteen countries in the Middle East and North Africa, out of eighteen countries surveyed, filter Internet content using technical means.

"Our latest research results confirm the growing use of next generation cyberspace controls beyond mere denial of information," says Ron Deibert, ONI Principal Investigator and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. "The media environment of the Middle East and North Africa region is a battle-space where commercially-enhanced blocking, targeted surveillance, self-censorship, and intimidation compete with enhanced tools of censorship circumvention and mobile activism."

Apparently, Internet censorship in the region is increasing in both scope and depth, and filtering of political content continues to be the common denominator among filtering regimes there.

Governments also continue to disguise their political filtering, while acknowledging blocking of social content, and censors are catching up with increasing amounts of online content, in part by using filtering software developed by companies in the U.S."

Examples of issues that the ONI research reveals include Qatar's blocking of online educational health content such as the Web site of the Health Promotion Program at Columbia University; Syria's blocking of political Web sites such as Facebook; the UAE's blocking of a number of sites that present information on Nazism, Holocaust deniers, and historical revisionists, and sites that are hosted on Israel's .il domain; and two Yemeni ISPs' use of Websense.

Regarding Jordan, the OpenNet website reports that, “Access to Internet content in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan remains largely unfettered, with filtering applied to a single news Web site.”

OpenNet Initiative (http://opennet.net), is a partnership among groups at four leading universities: Toronto, Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The 2008-2009 Middle East and North Africa regional overview and country profiles can be accessed at http://opennet.net/research/regions/mena. n

zanasser@gmail.com

“Scareware” is big business

2009-08-08T15:16:00.001+03:00

According to a study by Panda Security, fraudsters are making approximately $34 million per month through what is being called “scareware attacks”.

These are scams designed to trick surfers into purchasing rogue security packages supposedly needed to deal with threats which don’t really exist.

Also termed as “rogueware”, distributors of such software are successfully infecting 35 million machines a month.

Utilizing the concept of social engineering, whereby information on such fake security software is marketed through social networking sites and tools, user are tricked into visiting sites hosting scareware software, downloading it and telling a friend. Other tactics to find users include manipulating the search engine rank of pages hosting scareware.

Panda Security believes that there are over 200 different families of rogueware, with more new variants coming on stream all the time.

The technical director at Panda Labs explains that "Rogueware is so popular among cyber-criminals primarily because they do not need to steal users' personal information like passwords or account numbers in order to profit from their victims. By taking advantage of the fear of malware attacks, they prey upon willing buyers of their fake anti-virus software, and are finding more and more ways to get to their victims, especially as popular social networking sites and tools like Facebook and Twitter have become mainstream."

And the figures support the concern that this trend is growing. In the second quarter of 2009, four times more new strains were created than in the whole of 2008, primarily to avoid signature-based detection by proper security packages.

Another technique, behavior-based detection, is an approach that works well with Trojans and worms, but is limited when applied against scareware packages.

The real issue now emerging is how sacreware is emerging as an organized crime. There are dedicated software creators and distributors of scraeware. They go through a set of procedures: writing the rogue applications, establishing distribution platforms, payment gateways, and any other back office services.

There are also affiliates (distributors) tasked with the job of distributing scareware to as many victims as possible in the fastest possible time.

Stay out of this cycle. Don’t be ‘scared’ into downloading anything. Only obtain well-known industry standard security software. Forget about small, unknown vendors. Just applying common sense is the best protection against scareware, rogueware or any kind of new ‘threatware’.

zanasser@gmail.com

Wireless broadband will dominate our region soon

2009-08-08T14:17:00.000+03:00

It is clear that wirless Internet use will exceed ‘wired’ use worldwide. Internet access delivered across mobile phone networks and Wi-Max networks will be the dominant form of connections soon.

Already, we can see several service providers in Jordan providing such services, including UMax from Umniah, Zain e-Go, Wi-Tribe services and others.
But the main service channel will be mobile GPRS, whereby phone owners will add Internet services to their cellular phone plan or package.

A recent study of this trend in our region, by Dubai-based consultants Delta Partners, confirms that almost 70 percent of broadband subscribers in the Middle East and Africa will use wireless networks by 2011, up from about 38 percent today.

This is partially driven by the region being the world’s fastest growing in terms of mobile penetration in recent years. Fixed line penetration has stagnated at 20 percent in the Middle East and 4 percent in Africa, meaning that any growth in Internet penetration will have to be via mobile.

The lack of coverage seems to be the main obstacle at the moment, but that is set to change with the arrival new submarine cables and aggressive investments in 3G networks from mobile operators.

“This will translate into a significant growth potential for mobile broadband in MEA, with subscribers expected to grow from 2.5 million today to about 40 million in 2011. At a strong ARPU of $10-15 this will represent a market worth around $6 billion in 2011 versus $1 billion today,” says Joao Sousa, partner at Delta Partners.
The report goes on to explain that operators should gain access to international connectivity at competitive prices, create an efficient network operation and develop an effective marketing policy.

Simply, what this means is that pricing should be attractive, and there is a need for more awareness among consumers.

At the moment, generally, users understand the concept of wireless broadband, but are not yet widely adopting it, probably due to prohibitive pricing.

Just like mobile voice services were expensive then dropped in price, mobile data/Internet services will follow. That’s when we shall all be able to enjoy full Internet connectivity, at all times, through any device. Analysts believe we are two years away from such a reality. I hope they are right!

zanasser@gmail.com

A quarter of a billion users on Facebook!

2009-07-20T19:01:00.002+03:00

The Facebook phenomena continues, with 50 million people signing up on to Facebook in the last three months, bringing the grand total to over 250 Million active users!

The means that approximately 4 percent of the world’s population (Around 6.70 billion) is now registered on Facebook. If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populous after China, India and the United States.

Back in April, Facebook announced that it had crossed 200 million active users.
It also took around three months to grow from 150 million to 200 million before. So, it seems growth remains consistent.

Supporting Facebook’s massive growth, which is yet to yield profits, has been a major issue for Facebook management. But, a Russian-based investor came to the rescue. Digital Sky Technologies invested $200 million and the social network now has the funds to keep going, and to serve this massive online population.

Facebook is experimenting with various services that could generate revenue. For example, Facebook Connect lets external sites use Facebook login credentials and some profile data. It has been a success, and Facebook now plans to build a powerful advertising network around it.

Also, Facebook is considering launching a “virtual currency system” which could be a very lucrative product. There are more ideas, but for now all the focus is on acquiring and serving users.

Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, sums it up saying, “For us, growing to 250 million users isn't just an impressive number; it is a mark of how many personal connections all of you have made, and how far we at Facebook have to go to extend the power of connection to the billions of people around the world.”

It’s clear he’s not done yet, and is planning for the next quarter billion Facebook-ers. Millions of them will probably come from our region, now that Facebook offers an Arabic interface. Already, the majority of ‘online Arabs’ are aware of Facebook, and other social networks.

Social networking is a global revolution, and it spans all age groups, breaking communication boundaries of the past, and some cultural norms. The Arab World will never be the same.

zanasser@gmail.com

Michael Jackson falls, and the Internet follows

2009-06-30T20:35:00.001+03:00

If you live on planet earth, then you know that the biggest news story this week, doing the rounds on TV stations and in newspapers, has been the passing away of Michael Jackson, the king of pop, who became famous long before the Internet existed, but is probably the biggest global celebrity to be deceased in the Internet age.

And the impact on the worldwide network was profound, as some reports even go as far as saying that “Michael Jackson broke the Internet!”

On June 25, 2009, Jackson's death caused Twitter outages, and pressure on Google servers, whereby “users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson," according to a Google spokesman. And these searches also brought the Google News server down, and caused havoc to Google Adsense servers worldwide.

At the peak of his death hysteria, Google Trends rated the Jackson story as "volcanic”. But Google was not the only one feeling massive pressure, other sites were ‘faliing’ too and impatient users where moving onto other sites immediately.
TechCrunch.com reported that TMZ, which first broke the news, had several outages, then users switched to Perez Hilton's blog, which also struggled to deal with the requests.

CNN reported that traffic and visitors increased five-fold in just over an hour, receiving 20 million page views in the hour the story broke. Wikipedia saw close to 500 edits made to Jackson's entry in less than 24 hours and the site was "temporarily overloaded." The Los Angeles Times, the first news organization to confirm Jackson's death, suffered outages. The site also reported that AOL's instant messenger service was down for approximately 40 minutes.

Mobile marketers believe people were checking news headlines from work or on the move as the news broke, probably making it a historic and record-breaking day for mobile too.

So not only was the Michael Jackson story drowning out the Iran elections crisis on traditional media, it was also preventing Iranians from using the Internet and mobile to get their word out regarding developments.

Commentators are calling it “a seminal moment in Internet history.” I believe that this incident proves again that the Internet is the ‘barometer’ of public interest, and regardless of varying opinions regarding Michael Jackson, the overwhelming majority of users worldwide have spoken, and the Internet struggled to cope. That’s big news in its own right.

zanasser@gmail.com

Within a week, Bing gets more searches than Yahoo

2009-06-09T20:31:00.001+03:00

Microsoft’s new Bing search engine (www.bing.com), launched last week, has already overtaken Yahoo! in the number of ‘global searches’.

Bing.com is positioned as a ‘decision engine’, which aims to serve up results that help users to make better decisions in four key areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.

Visitors able to explore images, videos, shopping, news, maps and travel content from the site. Already, a beta Arabic version is available for Middle Eastern countries; try it.

The launch of Bing followed Microsoft’s failure to acquire Yahoo last year at $40bn. With Bing, Microsoft seems to be realizing it’s search engine ambitions now, even exceeding Yahoo, at a cost that is probably much less.

According to StatCounter, Bing has gained 5.62% of the global search engine market which is a considerable market share that it has grabbed from Google.
In the first week of June, Google’s market share declined to 90.45%, while Yahoo had 5.13% and Bing had the rest.

Of course, any market analyst will tell you this is due to the “novelty effect” and it remains to be seen if Bing will retain and grow its first-time users. For now, the feedback Bing is getting is good. Reviewers say it works fairly well as a general-purpose search engine, outperforming competitors in some areas and improving the usability of mobile Web searching. Search results include a ‘clever bonus’, which is a preview of each page's text that appears when you float the cursor to the right of each result. The advanced search options on Bing are more accessible than Google's, because selecting them doesn't take you away from your current search results.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a statement that summarizes Microsoft’s new approach to the search engine space. He said that “Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the Web and find information, but they don’t do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find,” said
Backed by a $100 million marketing campaign, it seems that the only company who could realistically take on Google, even in a recession, is Microsoft.

In the past, Google was the upstart and ‘lovable brand’ while Microsoft became the evil money-grabbing empire. Google’s total dominance has seen it lose some of that popularity. So, it’s ‘game on’ now between two giants, as consumers take sides in the next battle of search engine supremacy.

zanasser@gmail.com

Google doodle for Jordan's Independance Day!

2009-05-25T14:22:00.003+03:00

In honor of Jordan's Independence Day, Google designed a special "Doodle" that can be seen on May 25th at www.google.jo.

If you're not familiar with these doodles- are you an Internet user?- they are Google's way of celebrating events and occasions, whereby the plain Google logo that shows up on the home page is replaced by a themed Google logo.

This Independence Day doodle is a nice touch by Google, demonstrating its appreciation towards users of its services in Jordan.

I'd like to think that a couple of high ranking Jordanians I know at Google might have had something to do with this, but it's probably part of a wider initiative to celebrate national or independence occasions in all countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Queen Rania is now Twitter-ing too

2009-05-25T01:12:00.003+03:00

Her Majesty Queen Rania has been utilizing ‘new media tools’ to communicate her messages regarding topics she adopts such as economic and social development, equality for women, educational opportunities and others.

Apart from the well publicized YouTube Channel, which won Her Majesty plaudits across the world and now boasts nearly 3,000 subscribers and millions of views on some videos, Her Majesty has also had a Facebook profile for some time now with over 30,000 fans and is now also quite active on Twitter too!

The World Economic Forum, held at the Dead Sea last week, attracted global attention to Jordan and to Her Majesty’s Twitter-ing. In fact, Her Majesty conducted an interview on Twitter, with questions and answers being within the 140 character limit that Twitter allows. You can see this interview at Her Majesty’s Twitter profile (twitter.com/QueenRania).

Her Majesty answers questions from the “general public” via her Twitter account (@QueenRania), and seeing as she can’t answer all the questions received, around 40 of them were put to a public vote, of which Her Majesty replied to the top five questions.

The rather frank questions selected touched on somewhat sensitive topics such as Jordanian-Palestinian relations, but mostly covered social equality, education and technology, and promoting greater understanding between East and West.

Her Majesty’s efforts to communicate through social media must be commended. Social media is probably the most efficient means of communication in the 21st century, to promote greater understanding of Arabs and Muslims, in a time when predjudice exists online and offline. What better or more powerful tool is there to convey positive messages, and fight against negative propoaganda. I believe we all have a responsibiluty to utilize such tools. Let’s get started, and follow Her Majesty’s lead!

zanasser@gmail.com

Global losses from priacy exceed $50 billion

2009-05-24T01:45:00.001+03:00

For the first time, a rise in losses of 11 percent means that piracy levels have now reached $53bn. These are the latest findings by International Data Corp. (IDC), who perform an annual study on software piracy.

Experts say this is due to unprecedented growth in the IT industry in parts of the world where there were no committed efforts to control piracy.

Overall illegally-copied programmes represented 41 percent of all software sales, three percentage points more than in 2007. Global piracy had increased as a direct result of unprecedented growth in the IT industry in parts of the world where there were no committed efforts to control piracy. The spread of the internet and access to high-speed broadband had contributed to the problem pirated software has moved from the streets to the internet, he said.

The information publicly released by the IDC highlights the status in specific areas of the world, including the Middle East.

A press release issued by the IDC reveals that the biggest disappointment in our region is that losses from software piracy in the GCC has leapt by 48 percent. Gulf states lost $590m to software piracy; yet, the only bright spot in our region was revealed to be the UAE, ranked as a low-piracy country. It was in the 20th spot in the 2007 report, and is at the 21st spot for 2008.

Otherwise, the situation in Arab countries seems disturbing, especially the region’s largest IT market, Saudi Arabia, in which piracy is up a whopping 60 percent in 2008. Details on every country are available to those who obtain this report from IDC.

People take the discussion of piracy lightly. But the reality is that piracy has a significant impact on the economy, in every country.

A previous IDC study estimates that a ten point reduction in PC software piracy in Jordan would deliver nearly 500 new jobs, $14 million in tax revenues, and $47 million in economic growth.

Government who implement strict policies against trading in pirated software and conducted a number of raids can possibly gain some of these benefits.

Additionally, countries who take a serious stance on piracy, experience an increase in direct investment from international software firms, and can develop as regional IT centers. This is something that Jordan seeks to achieve.

But, history has shown, that the education of users regarding piracy, and the establishment of incentives to ‘go legal’ have been the best measures. Delivering value to users, and understanding the economic reality of specific regions is one way to promote legal software use. Amidst this global economic recession, this approach may be the only viable one for the software industry!

zanasser@gmail.com

The IT Graduate Internship Program (GIP) takes off

2009-05-09T18:30:00.001+03:00

One of the long-running complaints voiced by IT companies in Jordan has been that graduates of IT universities and colleges are not adequately prepared for careers in the software industry. Universities always countered this arguement saying they wanted to build relationships with the sector and required more on-the-job ‘internship’, for the students.

There seemed to be a bit a deadlock in these positions, mainly because companies didn’t want to spend the time or incur the costs of training students who may or may not return, and who cannot work the hours required to produce; while academics in universities, despite their good intentions, simply could not significantly change curricula and coursework to focus on more practical skills or industry-level training.

Finally, it seems we have a program in place to solve this issue.

The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MoICT), in cooperation with int@j, has launched the “Graduates Internship Programme”, whereby the government subsidizes 50 percent of the salary of newly employed graduates in the first 12 months, and 25 percent in the following 6 months, leading up to a total of 18 months of subsidized employment, in addition to providing those graduates with ‘soft skills’ training.

This has opened the way for companies to step in to benefit from this opportunity.
Already, one of the country’s largest software developers, Estarta Solutions has joined the Graduate Internship Program, whereby Estarta will provide a number of interns with on job training in their respective fields of specialization

An agreement signed between ESKADENIA Software, another large software development company, and Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT) even takes matters several steps further.

ESKADENIA will establish working offices within the PSUT campus for the development, management and operation of software products and services, in close cooperation with the students and the academia. The facility accommodates around 30 full-time students and employees. There will also be a number of students and graduates working at the ESKADENIA head office on on-going projects.

MoICT and int@j must be applauded for this program, which will help achieve a national ICT strategy objective of increasing direct employment in the sector reaching 35,000 jobs by 2011.

It’s good to see positive movement in the sector, and such a cooeprative and action-oriented approach can solve other pending issues facing IT deveopment in Jordan. The future look brighter when we all parties work together. Long may it continue! n

zanasser@gmail.com

PC sales drop in MEA region, for the first time

2009-05-03T12:33:00.000+03:00

It is now clear that the PC market is not recession proof. Sales figures coming out of our region, the Middle East & Africa (MEA), suggest that the days of soaring growth are over.

International Data Corp (IDC) has revealed that sales growth was flat from quarter four 2008 to quarter one 2009, and have even showed a decline year-on-year during the first quarter. This means that the double-digit growth of the past few years may be over.

The IDC numbers show that a total of 3.5 million units were sold into “the channel” between January and March, this is but 6 percent lower than a year ago. It could have been worse, if there wasn’t such a high demand for portable PCs.

It is important to note that the Middle East and Africa numbers include sales in the huge markets of Turkey and South Africa, which may ‘tip the scales’.

Which brings us to the country level. In the Gulf, shipments of desktops and notebooks in Saudi Arabia increased 10 percent year-on-year during the first quarter, but the UAE contracted 6 percent over the same period. This is understandable, considering how connected the UAE market is to the global economy, whereas Saudi Arabia seems somewhat recession-proof up to this point.

The notes made by Stefania Lorenz, research director CEMA systems at IDC, don’t provide much comfort. She says that the MEA region was negatively affected by a 13 percent decline in desktops, but notebooks saw a 2 percent growth year-on-year, driven by the stronger uptake on mini-notebooks. So, it would seem the Netbook phenomena may rescue overall sales.

She goes on to explain that that IDC had been used seeing much stronger growth in the region, up until the fourth quarter of 2008 when the financial crisis hit.
That’s why IDC’s prediction for 2009 is that we shall have a “flat or slightly negative” market situation.

Although this sounds bleak, it’s better than the worst case scenarios for the Middle East, when there were fears that the PC market was in free fall.

A quick look at the ‘bigger picture’ shows another neighboring region doing even worse. When IDC includes Europe, and looks at the EMEA region, there’s a slump of 10 percent year-on-year to 21.5 million, as units sales in Central and Eastern Europe have crashed 41 percent. So, it seems we’re doing relatively alright.

Regarding the top vendors, IDC reveals that HP continues to maintain its lead in the MEA region, with 21 percent of the market, Acer is second claiming 11 percent, overtaking Dell who now holds third position. Toshiba occupies the fourth position, followed by LG and Fujitsu Siemens. Apparently, brands still matter to consumers, as the top five players performed better than the market average.

zanasser@gmail.com

Nationals may soon replace Jordanian IT staff in Gulf

2009-04-27T13:01:00.000+03:00

We all know that a considerable number of Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians and other Arab nationalities are working in the IT sector in Gulf States. Without their involvement, IT would not have grown as it has in the oil-rich Gulf which has always been lacking in human resources.

The relative technical-savvy of Jordanians, coupled with the large-scale IT projects in countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have provided a ‘marriage of convenience last’ for all parties involved, and the Jordanian economy has also benefited from these professionals’ income flowing back home.

The question has always been, how long will that last!

Surely, as Gulf nationals grow in numbers, and acquire technical degrees and skills, other Arab nationals will be in less demand. Or, at some point, a major shift in policy may occur due to a major event - such as the current global financial crisis. Already, international organizations are advocating this change, and predicting a shift sooner than later, mainly due to the recession.

The executive director of the research arm of the international business school, INSEAD, spoke recently about this saying that “countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar need to improve local skills to reap the full benefit of ICT investments in the region.”

This is part of the finding of the INSEAD and World Economic Forum annual report on Global Information Technology. The highest ranked Arab country in this report covering 134 countries happens to be the UAE at a respectable number 27- no surprises there.

It tops other MENA countries such as Qatar at 29- quite close behind- and Bahrain at 37, Tunisia at 38 and Saudi Arabia at 40 and Jordan, unfortunately, is at number 44.

Anyway, the point is that the Middle East is one the fastest regions across all regions in the world to move up in the “e-readiness rankings”, but Gulf countries have a relatively small population and rely on external expertise to drive ICT unlike other countries.

Therefore, experts see the key to the future of ICT growth in Gulf States is the ability to develop local skills; which means a need to see more engineers, programmers, architects and managers who are Emarati, Qatari, Saudi and so on. At the moment, it appears Gulf nationals do not lean significantly towards these scientific and technical professions. That, of course, could change. As leadership in the Gulf begins to ‘absorb’ these recommendations, things may change.

As lay-offs begin, the last last staff to be laid off will be nationals. So, in some ways, the recession may speed up this whole process. Perhaps it is time for authorities in Jordan to start planning for this change. If you’re an IT professional in the Gulf, beware!

zanasser@gmail.com

97 percent of email is classified as ‘unwanted’

2009-04-16T13:00:00.000+03:00

It’s been reported before, but the numbers are just not decreasing! Spam and ‘unwanted’ email continue to constitute an amazing 97 percent of all email circulating around the world. Imagine how much more efficient email services would be without this load!

These findings come from a new security intelligence report by Microsoft, which looked at online activity during the second half of 2008, and suggests that these unwanted messages are either spam, have malicious attachments or are used as phishing baits by cyber-criminals to steal valuable information such as credit cards, user IDs and passwords.

While most modern email and instant messaging programs are configured to block the transmission of potentially dangerous files by extension, attackers are now using common and less threatening file formats such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf). These formats are used legitimately by people every day and can’t be blocked, making them an attractive target for malware creators.

More than 91 percent of attacks exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office were using security holes that had been plugged by updates that had been available for more than two years. Attacks using PDF files rose sharply in the second half of 2008, the report noted.

Part of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report also examines security breach incidents around the world and finds that stolen equipment, such as laptops, is the most common reason for data loss, coming in at 50 percent of data loss occurrences. That is even higher than security breaches caused by hacking or malware, which are only responsible for 20 percent of all data loss.

The report also pinpoints the countries that are suffering from the most infections of malicious software, or malware. Russia and Brazil top the global chart of infections, followed by Turkey and Serbia and Montenegro.

Apparently, the type of malware varies from country to country. In China, several malicious web browser modifiers are common, while in Brazil, malware that targets users of online banks is more widespread. In Korea, viruses such as Win32/Virut and Win32/Parite are common.

It’s a cat and mouse chase, as criminals keep coming up with ways around anti-virus and network security software. You need to protect your PC, but watchhout!
Apparently, criminals are also putting out ‘scareware’, which are fake security programs that falsely tell to install software to protect your PC from an attack; but scareware actually steals personal details!

Where will all this end? Rest assured that it won’t, so educate yourself and be suspicious of all emails you get. Better safe than sorry.

zanasser@gmail.com

Leaving PCs on costs millions in electricity bills

2009-03-28T15:17:00.000+03:00

If you keep your PC on, when you’re not in the office, thinking no harm will be done, you are wrong, especially if left switched on overnight. A computer uses energy even when it appears to be idle.

A study of British businesses showed that it costs more than £300m a year in extra electricity bills!

1E, a power management firm funded the research, and found that leaving a PC turned on overnight for a year costs £17, multiply that by hundreds of thousands of systems and you get an idea what damage it does to the economy and environment.

In the US, it’s even worse, as half of corporate computers are left on overnight which is costing US firms some $2.8bn a year.

Apparently, it is a ‘standard policy’ in many large corporates that machines are left on to allow software patches and virus updates to be remotely installed while the machines are not in use.

However, amidst this recession, it becomes more important to shut down PCs when not in use. It helps businesses significantly reduce costs. Also, from an environmental perspective, it reduces the dissipation of PC heat, and helps reduce the levels of CO2 and other pollutants from electricity power plants.

Gartner estimates the IT and telecom industry generates 2 per cent of world carbon emissions. PCs and monitors account for 39 per cent of that total.

It’s interesting to note that these figures were actually higher a couple of years ago, which may signal growth in the awareness of employees and corporations regarding this wasteful practice.

Harris Interactive, which polled 2,000 staff members of companies in the UK, carried out similar research two years ago and found that half of British computers were left on overnight. The numbers today are less, so it’s possible there’s more awareness.

Conducting such studies in the Middle East could yield interesting results, especially in the Gulf were a culture of business excess may result in appalling numbers! But, to be honest, I sense a study in Jordan would provide shocking results too, especially in large companies which now employ tens of thousands of Jordanians with PCs at their desks.

Even before you install and turn on a PC, the materials and energy-intense production process to manufacture your unit will have contributed to environmental pollution and climate change. And there’s the growing problem of discarded older machines being dumped and causing ‘high-tech’ pollutants, but that’s another story all together.

For now, let’s each do our bit for the environment, and reduce the electricity bill. Turn off your PCs, I know I will!

zanasser@gmail.com

Facebook introduces its Arabic interface

2009-03-23T13:03:00.000+02:00

It has been expected for some time now, but the introduction of Facebook’s Arabic interface was big news when the service started a couple of weeks ago.

Facebook had been serving millions of Arabs, albeit in English or other languages. The numbers of users in the region was impressive, and now with Arabic available, Facebook is set to grow exponentially. Already, several of my relatives and friends, who are not fluent English speakers, have sent me friendship invitations and I expect that there’s a ‘viral explosion’ happening now among Arabs hungry for Facebook.

Previously, these users were cut out of the the real action, as they were using other Arabized networks. Netlog.com, for example, is possibly better than Facebook as far as features are concerned, but it’s not as widespread, and does not include as many English-speaking Arabs.

I’ve been contacted by a couple of regional newspapers to comment on what this means to existing Arab social networks, like Jeeran.com or Maktoob.com.

The way I see it is that Facebook was already big, and shall now get bigger, while regional social networks were smaller, but served more specialized requirements. For example, Jeeran has a large community of Arab bloggers, video and photo sharing users and so on. Simply, offering them a social networking function just complements the existing services within that community. Maktoob’s social network, As7ab Maktoob, is similar in that respect. Neither sites were etched into the minds of Arabs as ‘pure social networking’ services, like Facebook is widely known to be.

In any case, Internet traffic in the Arab World has so much room to grow, that everyone will benefit. For advertisers, it just means there are now more options.

On another note, a Hebrew service was also launched with Arabic. This may seem ironic or even political, but the reality is that Facebook is rolling out right-to-left languages and it so happens Arabic and Hebrew share that characteristic. This technicality has been “exceptionally challenging,” according to a spokesperson from Facebook mainly because some of the characters, mainly punctuation marks and numbers, are the same as those used in left-to-right languages, making it difficult for Web applications to determine the direction in which to display the language.

Facebook’s announcement of Arabic and Hebrew is to be followed by 60 other languages. Facebook is also calling on its community of more than 175 million users to help make the service available in every language across the world through its “Translations application”.

Check it out. Many things will come out of all this mutli-lingual social networking activity. Hopefully, greater understanding and tolerance will be the main gain.

Data theft by departing or laid-off employees

2009-03-02T09:17:00.001+02:00

This recession keeps on producing interesting stories related to technology.
Reports suggest that laid-off employees may want to exact a certain measure of revenge on the companies they worked for, by stealing data on their way out!

A story in the Washington Post suggests that is occurs ‘often’ and is particularly dangerous when proprietary data is stolen .
Apparently, nearly 60 percent of employees who quit a job or are asked to leave are stealing company information, according to report by the Ponemon Institute,a research group. The survey was based on interviews with 945 people who were laid off, fired or changed jobs in the last year. And the majority who do it do not know it’s illegal!

What are they stealing? Well, 65 percent have taken their e-mail lists, which is somewhat expected, as contacts are one of the main learnings of any job.

The next most frequently stolen data include non-financial business information (45 percent), customer contact lists (39 percent), employee records (35 percent) and financial information (16 percent).

And the two factors that most contribute to this theft are a lack of employee loyalty and “telecommuting.”

Hiring freelancers and part-timers always has its risks, but the idea of them taking their clients with them should frighten employers enough to ensure such staff have limited access to company data.

With PC and phone connectivity, and access rights to information, the question arising is who really controls the data? Can it be controlled at all?
Employees are storing their acquired information and relationships online, on sites like LinkedIn, which is somewhat acceptable. But utilizing other online applications and even ‘online data stores’ should be studied.

Clearly, what the employee does with the data determines the extent of legal action taken by the employer. For example, selling the data or turning it over to a competitor will somehow be discovered and such actions will strengthen the legal standing of the employer. Needless to say, in the US and Europe, laws governs such practices and the are grave consequences.

In Arab countries, and in the Middle East in general, the issue of employees stealing data is not being discussed, and it is doubtful that laws can handle such incidents. Apart from a accepting ‘emails and electronic communications’ as legal tender in courts, laws to govern electronic transactions are yet to be enacted, and all sorts of issues. Sooner or later, cases will arise and we’ll be discussing this.

Maybe the lay-offs in the Middle East will accelerate this, but the generally held false notion of ‘control’ over employees needs to be thoroughly revised in the information age.

zanasser@gmail.com

Everyone is hunting ‘Conficker’ to get Microsoft $250,000 bounty

2009-02-14T14:31:00.001+02:00

This story is straight out of a futuristic movie. Our security in the information age is threatened by a ‘super-worm’, which has Microsoft so worried that its offering a quarter of a million dollars to anyone who gets information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for unleashing it.

The "Conficker" worm is now public enemy number one, thanks to Microsoft’s recession-busting award. You can imagine that a massive, wide-scale collaboration of web users is now coming together to hunt down the perpetrators. Apart from level-headed, concerned bodies like industry organizations, academics and Internet policy groups; there’s going to be an electronic mob ravaging the Internet, like bounty hunters once ravaged the Wild West!

Maybe, if this sudden, collaborative flurry of dealing with Conficker actually succeeds, then it will provide a clear path to the best way to deal with such future ‘digital pandemics’: unleash everyone by promising money!

The bounty award is understandable if Microsoft is set to lose more money the longer this problem goes on. Industry estimates suggest that Conficker, which exploits Microsoft Windows PCs, may have hit up to 10 million machines. For now, it appears Microsoft has reports on 3 million PCs worldwide being infected.

What Conficker does is use a mathematical algorithm to tell infected systems to regularly contact a list of 250 different domain names each day. If just one of those domains is registered by the virus writer, it could be used to download a secondary component to all infected systems, such as malicious software.

This is quite advanced functionality, and the fact no one knows who created Conficker, and what the malicious software could do makes it even more worrying!

So, in the absence of this knowledge, there’s a growing hysteria as commentators call it a ‘super-worm’ which could be “lethal weapon in the hands of whoever controls it.”

Conficker first surfaced in November, and the anti-virus community began studying it. Researchers were then able to begin registering the 250 domains sought daily by Conficker-infected systems to monitor the instructions Conficker is sending.

Apparently, a number of the domains in the names of the FBI and Microsoft.

So, the FBI is already investigating individuals who own some domains sought by Conficker. Another interesting twist is that it turns out that many of these domains belong to researchers and anti-virus companies that put them up to gather intelligence about the worm.

It’s now becoming a wild goose chase, and taking on 21st century science-fiction proportions. It’s painfully entertaining too. Keep an eye on the Conficker phenomena, and maybe you can make a bit of money too!

zanasser@gmail.com

Apple Macintosh celebrates 25 Years

2009-02-10T14:39:00.000+02:00

Twenty-five years ago, in SuperBowl weekend, Apple unleashed the Macintosh, with a TV advertisement that has gone down in history as a classic. Based on the George Orwell novel 1984- a fitting choice as that was the launch year- it featured an athlete runner carrying an axe amidst a sea of zombie-like citizens watching a screen with ‘big brother’ on it giving orders. The athlete- presumably being a renegade Mac owner- throws the axe at the screen to destroy the rule of big brother- presumably IBM and compatibles; and the rest is history.

The Mac was the first personal computer to capture the imagination of the masses, to introduce the mouse and incorporate a graphical user interface, relying on images instead of text. It lived up to Apple’s mantra of “Think Different”. Starting with a small, all-in-one box with a monochrome screen, the Mac grew to dominate the graphic design and desktop publishing markets, and become the pick of the cool and trendy.

I had the pleasure of using a Mac as a teenager back in 1991, to produce the page that houses this column in The Star!

It was quite a hit at the time in Jordan, after Ideal Systems brought the Mac to town in 1987, and they did well to put an Apple Computer in hundreds of Jordanian businesses and homes.

Still, the Mac remained somewhat out of the mainstream, till bigger models launched like the Mac II, Mac Performa, Mac Quadra and then the Mac PowerPC range. It managed to grab around 15 percent of the US market. But market share dwindled as PC’s got Windows, and dropped in price eating up the Mac’s share throughout the Nineties till the Mac hit a rock bottom of around 2-3 percent of computers sold.

Then, in the new millennium, a transformation at Apple was led by Steve Jobs who went ‘i’ on everything. Starting with the iMac, then the iPod and iPhone.

Apple’s new clout propelled the iMac range to where it is today, stunningly back to a double digit share of the market, over 10 percent.

The Mac has extreme fans. They blow away their annual vacation savings to visit Macworld conferences, travel to the opening of every Apple store in their country, or shave Apple logos into their heads, have Apple tattoos. Here in the Middle East, we have many Mac fans too.

An interesting example is Emirates Mac (emiratesmac.com), run by Magnus Nystedt, which is a vibrant community that has now spawned a dedicated Arabic/English Apple products magazine called Shufflegazine. Check it out!

Happy birthday to the Mac and all it’s lovers. Stay creative and passionate!

zanasser@gmail.com

Tech customers seek lower-specs in a recession

2009-02-07T14:34:00.000+02:00

The lay-offs continue among the world’s top IT companies, some of which have reported a slow down in growth or even a loss for the first time in their history.
It’s all going horribly wrong for the ‘brave new world’ we live in and no one really knows where it will all end.

Microsoft has announced that it will cut up to 5,000 jobs, after posting a drop in net income of 11 percent, for its second quarter to end of December. Yahoo announced that it will cut 1,000 jobs as part of a realignment of its 14,300 staff to focus on growth areas. IBM’s “restructuring” will lead to up to 13,000 redundancies worldwide, and the aim is to make the company more focused in the long-term.

Still, conflicting reports emerge eveyrday. Some seemingly good news, like a projection that 35 million ‘netbooks’ will be sold in 2009, then a piece of news reporting a 34 percent drop in the sale of graphics processors (GPUs).

A quick deduction that could be made from these two particuar pieces of news is that people want to buy cheaper notebook PCs, ones that don’t neccessarily have graphics processing power. And that’s exactly what you would expect in a recession!

Go ahead, examine the news coming out of the IT indutsry and you shall see a trend that suggest users will still want to buy products, but they want them to be lower-end, lower-spec, just about enough features to get by.

This trend will have devastating ramifications to all companies who only have a high-end or luxury offering, and do not allow customers to drop down a level or two in the product range.

Here’s more proof. The switch from regular (analog) TVs to fully digital TVs is being halted, or rather postponed, in the US. For several years now, all the TV networks have been gearing up for digital transmission that would render the good-old roof antena obsolete. And, would require households to acquire digital-transmission ready TV sets.

Considering the drop in the prices of the latest LCD TV units, which now adorn almost every home I go to- except mine- it would seem perfectly reasonable that the switch to digital can continue. Wrong. The US government has decided to relieve the average American of the burden of having to buy a $500 TV! So, high-spec technology suffers again, waiting for the world economy to improve!

So what technologies or products will be recession prrof? A couple of weeks ago we predicted that mobile phones, digital cameras, game systems and laptops would still grow in sales. The question now is which models and at which compromise to overall quality and performance. We’ll see.

zanasser@gmail.com

Arab bloggers mobilize for Gaza

2009-01-18T18:32:00.001+02:00

Israel’s war on Gaza has been the main news story for three weeks, and it had generated significant activity in the ‘blogosphere’ with Arabs and Israeli’s posting their views on blogs, commenting on blogs and news sites, creating Facebook groups to support Gaza or Israel and even intensive Twitter-ing!

There has also been a lengthy discussion of other, sub-topics, such as a critique of the response of Arab countries- with some defending their leaders and other attacking them- and a discussion of how to best help the people of Gaza.

This all proves that the Internet is another frontier in the ‘public opinion war’ being waged by all sides of a conflict. Israeli propaganda organizations have been hiring bloggers and a regular Internet users to defend Israels’ position, and to counter the tidal wave of anti-Israeli content on the Internet.

Clearly, Israel realizes it’s at a disadvantage in cyberspace, when the sheer numbers of active Arab and Muslim users are considered.

To monitor these ‘blog wars’, go to Technorati.com, and see the ‘hottest topics’ or just conduct a search for the word ‘Gaza’ and you’ll get an idea on how many posts there have been worldwide on this issue in the last day, week and son on.

Another, more analytical and less numerical, source to check is Global Voices (globalvoicesonline) which delivers the most controversial or active discussions on the Middle East, and Gaza tops the agenda this month.

Jordanian bloggers are playing a major role in the conversation, and it’s not possible to mention each one and what they’ve done, but let’s point out the best local effort for mobilization led by 7iber.com- an independent citizen-media news outlet from Jordan. 7iber has generated a ‘blog-buzz’ to gather volunteers to help Aramex in the handling of all the aid that arrives in Jordan, from across the world, which needs to be sorted and packed then sent to Gaza. The updates and blog posts featuring pictures and videos of the response from local youth is truly inspiring, and still continues. Check it out and lend a hand!

In general, news, images and videos from this human tradgedy are circulating the globe, ensuring that the war crimes being committed are fully documented and not forgotten.

In a new world were individuals are empowered through the Internet to communicate, Israeli propaganda in cyberspace cannot win.

If only our numbers accounted for more influence in the offline world!

zanasser@gmail.com

Is the age of the desktop PC over?

2009-01-12T18:24:00.001+02:00

It appeared in the 1970s, and was called the micro-computer, and was popularized in its current form in 1982 when IBM released its PC (personal computer).
Also appearing the eighties, were the first portable computers, which were chunky and too expensive.

Portables became notebooks (big ones), then laptops, then ‘netbooks’ and ‘palmtops’.
Today, it’s fair to say that these portables, are killing desktops. Apparently, a smaller percentage of personal users are buying them. Apart from corporations and specific user groups, the desktop is now, officially, dying as a mainstream computing option.

Laptops crossed a milestone in the third quarter of 2008, passing desktop PC sales in the US for the first time, according to research group iSuppli. And laptop makers are eagerly awaiting this era.

Here’s a frightening piece of information that demonstrates the trend continued in quarter four of 2008; not a single desktop model showed up on Amazon.com’s top ten selling PC and hardware list during Christmas, while seven laptop models were in the list.

What’s driving this? Apart from lower laptop prices and higher specifications? The answer is the Internet. The ability to surf the Internet wirelessly at public places and the ability to take your office out with you when you travel. And the variety available suits almost every user group. You can get notebooks at every screen inch size from 5-inch to 20-inch.

Another interesting piece of information is that 80 percent of the world’s laptop PCs and made in Taiwan. So they will be happy for sure!

So, which groups of users may keep buying desktops? Hardcore computer gamers, because desktop systems offer greater processing power for memory-intensive applications.

On the other side of the user spectrum there will be ‘hardware geeks’, who covet processing power, experimentation and ‘modding’.

In our part of the world, or in any poor or under developed country, desktops will retain their appeal as they remain, generally, cheaper than laptops. Especially when you consider the fact that anyone can ‘slap’ a motherboard, a hard drive and a few chips together to get a desktop. However, even that is all set to change though with ‘netbooks’ coming in at under $300 complete with screen!

So, is the age of the desktop PC over? Well, the sun is starting to set on it, but I personally think that desktops have so much more staying power than industry commentators and journalists would have you believe.

Call me old-fashioned, but I plan to hang onto my office desktop PC for a couple of years to come!

zanasser@gmail.com

A quick look back at 2008

2008-12-31T18:17:00.000+02:00

Another year in computing, another set of incidents, product launches and controversy.

The year kicked off with the damaged under-sea Internet cables (and seems to be ending with a similar problem). Throughout late January and early February, users across the Middle East suffered from slow Internet services and there’s been a lot of talk since then regarding the reliability of the cabling systems. There doesn’t seem to be a solution going into 2009.

On the topic of Internet, this year was marked by an impressive increase in user numbers, and a wide-scale site blocking and banning, across the Middle East. The main victims were YouTube, Facebook and Twitter in countries like Kuwait, UAE and Saudi Arabia. An outcry followed, and authorities have since applied methods of ‘selective blocking by page’ rather than a whole site.

Also, various Arab sites got blocked too, like Jeeran.com in Saudi Arabia. Telecommunication service sites like Skype, remain blocked, of course, as long as government owned telecom companies have a say. From the looks of it, however, most of the site blocking problem could ease next year.

Back to the user numbers, it is estimated that there are around 40 Million Arabs online. Broadband has taken off, and Arab activity on social networking sites is peaking with reports suggesting that the number of Arabs on Facebook has grown 66% in one year!

2008 was also the year when sales of portable computers exceeded desktops, across the world, and in some Middle Eastern markets. Manufacturers attributed this to dropping prices of laptops, and the Internet revolution whereby people want to work on the move.

Google continued it’s all-conquering spree, releasing Arabic versions of every product- even recently including a Hijri calendar- and giving every local or regional website a run for their money. The company’s commitment to the region was increased, and attention to Jordan grew with several visits of top staff.

The IT sector as a whole in Jordan grew in 2008, although it will take some time for numbers to emerge. This occurred in spite of a local ‘economic contraction’ earlier this year, which was followed by the hammer of the global recession later in the year. So, looking to 2009, Jordan’s IT sector has much to worry about, but we won’t be the only ones in the region, or across the world to suffer.

As the year draws to a close, it is somewhat depressing that all the technology developments, massive growth in Internet users and the advancement of IT services across the country and region will now face up to the harsh reality of a global economic slowdown.

Every year, I look into my crystal ball and make predictions. This year I won’t. I’ll settle for hoping for ‘limited damages’ next year! Happy New Year.

zanasser@gmail.com

What the recession could mean to the Middle East IT sector

2008-12-08T18:22:00.000+02:00

It is now clear that the world is in an economic recession. What does it mean to the IT sector in Jordan and the Middle East?

If you’re the technology head at your company, obviously management will ask you to make cuts.

You’ll have to ‘eliminate’ redundant hardware and software assets, large maintenance contracts and excess capacity of any kind.

Operation efficiency will become the focus, and you will have to achieve the business strategic objectives at a lower budget, and sometimes argue against cuts because of the mission critical nature of some IT operations.

A good way to start, unfortunately, is by ‘squeezing’ your vendors. The rates for the software services they offer must come down, and the maintenance contract will be re-negotiated, and investment in hardware might by put off for a while.

This leads us to the impact on hardware and software suppliers, who will feel the pinch but should, in turn, plan for the downturn by cuts of their own, that will enable them to relay the savings to clients, who will be demanding discounts.

If a company employs ‘project teams’, these people will have to go when projects dry up, and if top marketing and sales people have big salaries and commissions, they’ll suffer from cuts or will just be let go as sales dry up.

It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s already started across the world and, although the Middle East seems like a cash rich region, the effects are beginning to be felt.

In Jordan, we’re used to tight economic conditions, but the last few years have seen an expansion in IT and Telecom services to such a degree that makes us vulnerable too.

An IT manager I talked to summed it up nicely, saying that there are always some excesses which are the first things that must go, that’s easy, then there are slightly painful decisions that make it challenging to deliver the same levels of IT services, but can be managed with better efficiency and resource optimization, then we cancel part of the of the IT services!

Will it get to that? Depends how long this recessions last!

zanasser@gmail.com

Google’s Ta3reeb and anti-competitive practices

2008-11-08T20:58:00.001+02:00

Google has taken another step in its Arabization efforts, launching Google Ta3reeb at Gitex Technology Week.

It is a transliteration tool.This means it allows users to use their Latin keyboards to type in Arabic text.

But, Google is not the first to do this. A product launched by a couple of Arab entrepreneurs in the US did it first. Yamli.com is a startup that has gathered substantial publicity for a couple of years and seems to now be going head-to-head with the industry giant!

It creates a situation where entrepreneurs should be concerned about Google’s involvement in every field of Arabic Internet applications and services, possibly making it impossible for local or regional initiavtes to compete!

Although it’s an ‘open market’ and anyone can launch a product, there’s also the matter of Google using ‘anti-competitive’ practices. For example, when you conduct a search on Google for the term ‘Yamli’, you get Yamli.com in the search results but also get an advertisement link about Google Ta3reeb!

This, as I understand, is illegal in the United States and Euorope where Google cannot target it’s advertising for in-house products at searches for intellectual property rights protected brands. I discussed this matter while in the UAE with a senior Arab Google official, and he agreed that such concerns regarding such practices must be reported to head quarters, and both he and Google management ‘support Arab software and Internet development efforts.”

With Google’s continued roll-out of Arabic products, you would hope such a sentiment is demonstrated.

Anyway, according to the blog StartupArabia.com, “Google had launched transliteration services before. Mianly, services that offer transliteration from English to Indian languages like Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu on Blogger and through Google Talk bots over the past year.”

So, this Arabic product was a ‘natural evolution’. It’s still too early to judge Google’s Ta3reeb service as it appears that “Yamli is faster and offers more relevant transliterations and word suggestions”, according to StartupArabia.

Let’s wait and see how both products evolve.

zanasser@gmail.com

Watch out for the ‘Nigerian email scam’

2008-10-02T23:18:00.001+03:00

For many years now, Internet users across the world have received scam emails. The most famous ‘series’ of emails, which we’ve all seen and continue to get almost every week, originate from Nigeria, with a story on how you can make a lot of money fast by helping a wealthy foreigner “move millions of dollars from his homeland”.

Usually there are stories of this person being a prince or a minister in a country that has witnessed a change in political power, and he no longer has access to his millions. And, incidentally, from among all the computer users in the world, he has chosen you to help!

This scam is also known as the Advance Fee Fraud or 419 Fraud. Police and legal authorities across the world are quite aware of it, having dealt with many gullible people who have fallen for it. Yet, so far, the police have been unable to actually catch the Nigerian fraudsters, but instead put the poor victims in prison as accesories to fraud. The logic behind this is that the victim chose to obtain money ‘illegally’ by dealing with a crime organization, even if he/she thought there would be no harm done.

I’ve heard of a couple of Jordanians who have fallen for it, but I don’t have details, so it was very interesting to recently read about an Eastern European lady, a resident of Abu Dhabi, who has also fallen for this scam.

The lady runs a dental clinic. Her unfortunate story told in the Gulf News explains that she got an email from a Nigerian man who claimed he had inherited $5 million and needed to store it in her account until details were sorted out. In return, she would be rewarded for her gesture.

After corresponding through emails, the woman agreed to meet with two Nigerian men in April who carried a briefcase filled with $50,000 worth of counterfeit notes. Before the money was handed over, she was asked to pay a 6,000 fee. After paying the amount and taking the briefcase, she headed to a currency exchange the next day. The notes all had the same serial number, were immediately found to be counterfeit and the woman was arrested.

The Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi sentenced her to one year in prison, after which she will be deported. The emails she exchanged with the Nigerians and phone numbers could not be traced to anyone.

So, beware! If you get an email that promises you money, remember the Nigerian scam gangs, and how this lady’s greed made her lose everything!

zanasser@gmail.com

Apple completes comeback in the computer market

2008-09-21T03:58:00.001+03:00

Once upon a time, in the late eighties, the Apple Macintosh accounted for over 10 percent of the personal computer market. Back then, the Mac was the only choice for ease-of-use, window driven computing, opposed to the dull and difficult DOS system running on PCs.

This was before the Microsoft Windows revolution, which eroded Apple’s position, and resulted in a sharp drop in Apple’s market share to as little as 2 percent at some stage in the late nineties.

What has happened since then? The simple answer is Apple’s brilliance in re-inventing itself in the age of the Internet, where the significance of operating systems has dwindled in the face of the importance of connectivity.

Apart from the fact that Macintosh OS X is a better operating system than Windows XP or Vista, whereby many users are leaning towards Apple computers anyway, the more important dvelopment has been the standardization of file formats and the crucial ability of any computer to run ‘Internet applications’ such as email, search, social networking and others. This means Windows, Mac OS, Linux or even Symbian are all the same to users.

On top of the Internet revolution, Apple made some smart moves in recent years, replacing the Motorola processors which ran the Macintosh, with Intel processors, thereby providing even more compatibility with Windows standards.

Add to that the rise of laptops, and the fact Apple still produces the ‘hottest’ and best looking laptop computers, and it becomes apparent that Apple is not just the iPod/iTunes company this decade, but it’s hitting back in its core business.

Taking a look at recent figures, Apple’s share of the US laptop market jumped into double figures during Q2. According to local market watcher, NPD DisplaySearch, Apple took 10.6 per cent of the US retail laptop market between April and June 2008, up from 6.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. That puts it in fourth place in NPD's chart, behind Acer (14.4 percent), HP (21.4 percent) and Dell (21.9 percent).

European and Middle Eastern (EMEA) buyers are less keen on Apples, though, as the company doesn’t yet make it into the top five. Apple’s EMEA marketshare is less than 5.5 per cent.

But, global markets have a tendency to follow the US, and as our region gravitates towards more laptops and less desktops, Apple’s comeback will be complete even here. It’ll be another thing for Middle Eastern Mac fans to brag about!

zanasser@gmail.com

Serious competition in the web browsing market

2008-09-19T10:40:00.001+03:00

Once upon a time, browsing the Internet was simple. You had Internet Explorer pre-installed into Windows 98, and if you were an ‘old timer’ who knew a bit about early browsers you would have tried the now defunct Netscape Navigator.

But, as the Internet energized the worldwide development community to cooperate to produce open source applications, Mozilla Foundation evolved, Firefox emerged, and the real choice we’ve had every since then has been either IE or Firefox.

Not forgetting, of course, the ‘boutique’ browsers like Opera- mainly a hit on mobile phones and gaming devices- and Apple’s Safari which has recently also become available for Windows PCs.

Anyway, let’s focus on the big two, which have just become a big three.

Why? Well, because Google has decided to launch a browser!
When Google enters any market, it’s big news and quite worrying for competitors.

With it’s Internet browser, Chrome, it seems Google wants to serve users with even more. So, it seems the web browser, a very important application you’re using everyday, is now getting the competition it deserves. Your Web browser is probably the most important program on your computer, and it’s now getting the competition it deserves.

Mozilla Firefox is outstanding and thoroughly deserves it’s market position as Microsoft’s real challenger, now accounting for nearly a quarter of the worldwide browser market.

Microsoft is not sitting still, as you would expect, especially with the upcoming release of IE’s new version. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 looks good.
Now, to look at the ‘new kid on the block’, Google Chrome (http://google.com/chrome) is now available for Windows XP and Vista, as Google says it’s working on Mac and Linux versions.

Within a week of it’s launch, Chrome grabbed 1% of the browser market, and continues to attract users.

Apart from the “InPrivate browsing” feature, which lets you visit sites without the browser keeping any record of your activity there, there’s little that Chrome offers which the other browsers don’t.

In fact, it comes up short in comparison. It’s just too simple, at least at this stage of it’s development. You an count on Google to fix this, and challenge both IE and Firefox, and this can only be good news for users.

zanasser@gmail.com

Middle East is 2nd fastest region worldwide in Internet growth

2008-09-07T09:40:00.001+03:00

Although we keep on hearing that ‘the Chinese and Indians are coming’, we’re not doing to bad ourselves!

Apparently, the growth in Internet traffic in the Middle East has doubled every year since 005, and we now stand in 2nd position in terms of growth worldwide, second only to- you guessed it- the Chinese!

What has happened is that connectivity became more available, at lower prices, in the Middle East. And, of course, users have acquired ‘a taste’ for high bandwidth services and now enjoy online video as a daily past-time.

These facts, and more, have been revealed by a telecommunications research and advisory firm, called TeleGeography. This study examines global internet traffic, which is defined as “a measure of how much data are being sent across the world”.
Traffic has increased worldwide by 53 percent in the 12 months to June.
In the Middle East, the number of Internet users has risen 10-fold in the past three years alone!

And, traffic has followed, surging 97 percent a year since 2005.
The only region that has grown faster is South Asia, at an average annual rate of 103 percent.

As expected, the slowest growing regions are the ones that already enjoy high Internet penetration, such as North America, which increased its Internet traffic by more than 50 percent each year on average anyway. To this day, North America is still the world’s largest consumer of internet bandwidth.

Looking to the future, there are fears of ‘bottle-necks’ and infrastructural concerns, similar to Internet blackout that occurred in January and February this year when the under-sea cables got cut. This precarious situation arose because the Middle East is connected to the rest of the world by only a handful of undersea cables.

Which explains why there’s a race to create more cables, and manage them locally or regionally. The report sites this saying that “every major telecommunications company in the region is involved in one or more international cable projects, with more than $1 billion of investment in new capacity announced last year alone.”

It sounds like good news, and it seems these developments will help us finally make the impression we should on the global Internet map!

zanasser@gmail.com

Web 2.0 fraud

2008-09-07T09:30:00.000+03:00

People always wonder what Web 2.0 means. It's simply a term to describe "the new Internet", call it "version 2" of the Internet, if you like, which has been evolving for around three or four years now.

What the term has now come to resemble is the ongoing social networking and digital media sharing revolution, coupled with all the neat user-experience features you find on websites and the free nature of Internet services. The champions of this movement have been Google (as facilitator and free service provider), Facebook (the best example of social networking), YouTube (the showcase of user file sharing and distribution); and there are many more, but you get the idea.

Anyway, like everything else in the digital age, there's a negative, malicious side to Web 2.0. Not only are there Facebook and MySpace worms, but hackers have recently managed to break into user accounts and blogs on these services, utilizing the user identity to communicate with the world. Even 'phishers' have now got in on the game, taking their scams to these social networking communities.

For those who are not aware of 'phishing', it's a term that refers to attempts to get your personal data, through either communicating with you under the guise of an organization you know. If you get an email from your bank, asking you to send them your account number and password, or your credit card number, rest assured it's a phishing scam!

Apart from the usual scrouges of viruses, hacking and phishing, it seems even criminals have decided to tap into the 'social networking and group cooperation' element of Web 2.0 and have therefore created their own online communities, help centers (if you can call them that).

The latest development is a site called Loads.cc. It's a network of hacked personal computers that can distribute data-stealing malicious software, providing cyber crooks with a ready-made tool! For a small fee, Loads.cc will take whatever malware you provide and inject it into a pre-selected number of PCs already compromised. What's the world coming too!

Criminals evolve as our technology tools mature; and the more critical online communication and information exchange becomes, the more dangerous Web 2.0, and soon Web 3.0, fraud will be.

Apply common sense to protect your Internet presence on social networking and sharing sites. Regarding worms, just don't accept messages/content/links from people you don't know, and be suspicious if someone you do know is sending you something really strange, his/her account has probably been hacked! If it looks like a scam, it is a scam. It's as simple as that!

zanasser@gmail.com

Too much gadget power!

2008-09-07T09:21:00.000+03:00

Every once in a while, a friend of mine will come up to me and ask if getting a Core 2 Duo 2GHz laptop, with a big screen and the full complement of multimedia features, is a good idea, although it costs around JD1,500 ($2100).

When we start talking about his/her uses for such a computer, it becomes apperant that a JD500 laptop, with a processor of half the power and lower specifications will be enough!

There seems to be a problem nowadays. Users don’t buy their hardware to meet their needs, but instead end up with what I call ‘hardware overkill’.

Take digital cameras as an example. Really, a 5 megapixel camera with proper auto focus and advanced night-time shooting should be more than enough. Why on earth would any regular person want a 12 megapixel camera! Are you planning to blow up your photos into wall unit size?

Let’s also look at mobile phones for minute. Almost every person I know who carries a Nokia or Sony Ericcsson advanced and expensive multimedia phone is barely using the processor power in hand. It’s just that they ‘liked the way the phone looks’, and of course they want to get the latest. But, if all you’re going to do with your JD500 phone is the basic functionality offered by a JD70, you would be mad to spend more!

Certain ‘emotional blackmail’ products like the iPhone take this to ridiculous proportions. Users who haven’t even begun to explore their iPhone 1 have already ditched it for the all new iPhone 2!

The same applies to iPods. Do you really need to carry 4,000 songs and use a touch-screen? Aren’t 500 songs enough, and what wrong with normal buttons?

Even gaming systems have gone crazy. Most kids can still get loads of fun out of their JD100 PS2, which still gets all the major games releases, and there’s little more than sharper graphics and sounds on offer from the JD350 PS3.

Maybe I need a dose of reality? If people were reasonable about their technology gadgets, there wouldn’t be an industry for new high-tech products.

What marketers understand is that buyers build an ‘emotional’ bond with a gadget or electronic device, and it becomes both about functionality and status.

But, really, what’s the use of status when you don’t have a bank account that can maintain your current, average status anyway!

zanasser@gmail.com

Gates leaves, Microsoft searches for future ....

2008-07-05T19:18:00.001+03:00

Here’s a landmark occasion, the retirement of William Gates III, known to the world as Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world and the face of the PC revolution.

But, in the Internet, his brilliance has been superceeded by several companies, who understood the new realities better than Microsoft. Therein, lies all the talk in the media this week about Bill Gates leaving as Microsoft needs to chart a new course.

Time magazine may have been a bit harsh, with a headline: PC Genius, Internet Fool!

So, everyone thinks Bill couldn't figure out how to beat the Internet — how to manage the transition of his grand old monopoly software company, Microsoft, into a business that thrives on the Net.

He begins his retirement from Microsoft as the PC era's biggest winner, and the Web era's most spectacular casualty. The Internet has turned business upside down, look at the music, television, newspapers and retailing industries for evidence of destruction of decades of sound business models. To think the Internet could also brutalize a cutting-edge technology firm like Microsoft just shows that even Google will take a hit one day!

On the topic of Google- a company that Microsoft probably looked at with disdain when it first launched as a free service, then tried to buy it’s way into the same business with little success- you have to wonder if the tidal wave of free online software applications will hammer Microsoft’s revenues. After all, Microsoft is still a multi-billion dollar, highly profitable and somewhat monopolistic company.

Apparantly, Microsoft still has $26 billion in cash reserves. But, surely, not even Gates thinks that will last forever!
Pulling off stunts like killing Netscape, the first-to-market browser, by including Internet Explorer as standard in Windows, seems such a distant memory now as Microsoft seems incapable of killing anything, let alone breathing life into Windows Vista!

Suddenly, big and complicated operating systems such as Vista, aren't necessary in the Web Age; and Gates’ biggest regret is that he leaves without putting his mark on this Web Age. It’s true Microsoft own Hotmail, MSN and other online properties and services, but they are not the ‘big boys’ of the Internet economy.

For me, as a technology magazine readers since the eighties, the a journalist since the nineties, Gates has been part of my world. His business and personal evolution has been watched by millions, including me. His persona and legendary status are part of popular culture, even here in Jordan! How many times have you heard derogatory remarks like, “You think you’re as smart as Bill Gates”, or “I can’t buy this, I’m not Bill Gates”.

I want to tip my hat, as should every computer owner over the course of the past 25 years, to a visionary who facilitated every revolution we’ve witnessed since PC-DOS launched. We’ve seen many ‘angles’ to his character, but surely the philanthropic efforts he’s about to build on deserve our utmost respect.

The billions he and his wife Melinda will be spending from their own fortune to help those in need, across the world, will be Gates’ biggest legacy; not forgetting of course that operating system we all used one day: Windows!

zanasser@gmail.com

The IE Killer: The global fan club of Mozilla’s Firefox

2008-06-17T16:32:00.001+03:00

As a loyal Firefox user, I can tell you that it does not surpise me at all that Firefox version 3 is creating such a huge buzz.

A website called 'Spread Firefox' is running a drive to encourage web users to sign up and pledge to download the browser on its launch day. There are now almost one million people who have signed up. Between 100,000-500,000 pledges originating from the U.S; then the most pledges come from Brazil and Poland, which each have between 50,000-100,000 people ready to download Firefox 3.0. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Egypt stand out.

Jordan, somewhat dissapointingly, has only around 300 pledges- I am one of them. Still, we are ahead of some Arab countries!

Anyway, the highly anticipated launch is set for sometime in mid-June, when the company expects about 1.6 million downloads in a single day.

Meanwhile, Mozilla announced a “public preview release” of Firefox 3.0 last week which is available for download. The idea is to get developer testing and community feedback on the new features and the claimed “dramatic improvements in performance, memory usage and speed”, prior to the big launch day.

Mozilla are saying tha Firefox 3 includes one-click bookmarking, a smart location bar, phishing and malware protection, a instant site ID info, built-in spell checking, session restore and full zoom and a choice from over 5,000 add-ons that help you customize your browsing experience.

Firefox currently has a market share of about 20% and over the years has continued to gain ground on Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which still enjoys an the lion’s share of the market.

Something worries me, though. I have had the recent misfortune of upgrading- if you can to call it that- to Windows Vista which has actually slowed down my productivity. Although this processor-hogging operating system is running on a state-of-the-art Intel Centrino Core Duo 8300 processor, it’s so slow!

Because I am a dedicated user of Firefox, and a fan of open source in general, I have noticed that Vista is not treating my favourite browser nicely, and that Explorer (IE) on Vista may actually be faster!

I don’t want to accuse Microsoft of anything, so I shall assume that the Mozilla team are still getting their act together on how to make Firefox run effectively on Vista, and maybe version 3 will take care of that.

Yet, there’s the slight doubt in my mind that Vista is intentionally not Firefox friendly. I hope not.

Otherwise, I’ll have another good reason to switch to Linux, and so will millions of users worldwide.

In the mean time, and till we figure out this Firefox-Vista situation, join the global revolution of free, user-friendly software and sign up for the Firefox 3 launch, and discover life beyond IE. n

zanasser@gmail.com

“Smart mosques”: High speed Internet, in houses of worship!

2008-04-09T18:03:00.001+03:00

Here’s something interesting. Reports in the international media say that Indonesian and Malaysian mosques are soon to get superfast “broadband” at discounted prices.

Kuala Lumpur-based Velchip has just announced plans to create a vast broadband-over-powerline network which will deliver 224Mbps (megabits per second) to users in Indonesia for about RM5 (or $1.57) per month.

That is such a low price, which is sending shock waves across information technology circles in Europe and the US who are comparing it to local prices, on the one hand, and are highly interested in the notion of Internet access in places of worship.

The story gets more interesting. The goal is to connect Mosques across the country, linking together 400,000 houses of worship, over existing wiring and delivering service to about 60 million users, then connecting to mosques in Indonesia.

It’s a $14 billion project which will be rolled out over the next three years, with participation from US satellite company STM Networks, who will use five satellites to provide communications services.

In fact, Velchip is is managing the world’s biggest broadband powerline project. The company’s chief executive officer Suhaimi Abdul Rahman, is calling it the “Smart Mosque” project.

He goes on to say that this broadband project will provide access that is “the fastest and cheapest in the world.”

The government is pleased with this pioneering project to “to enhance economic growth and Internet literacy in developing countries as well as improve bilateral ties between Malaysia and Indonesia.”

The technology is based on BPL modems, which utilize existing electrical power lines to deliver high speed Internet access and data transmission.

So, Broadband over Powerline (BPL) is set to be a big development, and of course there’s the ‘religious aspect’ angle to this story. Some may question how important it is to connect mosques to one another, or to provide such high speed access.

Really, the question should be why not!

Islamic countries and communities are joining the Internet age, and everyone deserves to be connected. Religious scholars; Muslims in schools and universities surrounding these mosques, or even inside them.

Already, the Crystal Mosque in Malaysia made headlines earlier this year, being unique not only because it is made of crystal-shine glass but also because it's the most ICT-savvy mosque in the country, and arguably the world. Officially opened in February 3rd, it’s got wireless broadband and is already equipped to stream sermons via the Internet.

So, as you can see, it’s already happening. So, why not spread this trend to Arab countries? I wouldn’t be surprised if Dubai picked up on this. Remember, you read it here first.

zanasser@gmail.com

What’s the world coming too?: A camera that sees through clothing!

2008-03-19T20:41:00.001+02:00

In this age of counter-terrorism, anything is possible.

Cameras that can see through clothes, like the x-ray vision of Superman, are now technologically possible.

Apparently, with the kind of interest governments have in ensuring security, they will spare no cost in obtaining such a tool.

Accordingly, the Dubai Mercantile Exchange announced that it would deploy a new x-ray camera that “can see through clothing to detect hidden explosives, drugs and weapons.” And, they wouldn’t be the first in the world to do so.

It seems that the commodities exchange and Canary Wharf in London got it it first. The BBC reports that it’s actually a portable camera, known an as the T5000 Security Imaging System. It had been developed by UK-based Thruvision and is to be unveiled at the Home Office Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB) Exhibition on March 12 13.

So, this is a brand new tool, and it’s already being adopted by Dubai. Soon, as you would expect, it will also be used across the region in other ‘hotspots’.

Getting back to how it works. the T5000 can detect both metallic and non-metallic threat objects under clothing on still or moving subjects from up to 25 metres away.
Now, for the piece of information that first jumped to your mind - and mine- upon reading that the camera ‘sees through clothes’.

Could it, possibly, reveal the details of a person’s naked body? Wouldn’t that result in the indecent exposure of unknowing individuals? Imagine the outcry that would follow its use!

If Thruvision’s claims are to be believed, the answer is “no” it doesn’t. Although it can see through clothing, the camera does not reveal "body detail". What that basically means is that you it can’t capture what imaging technicians call “surface anatomical effects."

In plain English; the machine reveals “a silhouette of the form of your body” that looks more like an outline than actual body details.

However, seeing is believing and we’d all like to actually see a demonstration of this camera in action to satisfy our curiosity and set our mind at ease too!

Here’s more on how it works. The camera detects low level energy known as T-rays, that are naturally emitted from all materials, including rocks, plants, animals and people.

Then, it collects the T-rays and processes them to form images that reveal concealed objects hidden under a person’s clothing. Most importantly, it does not subject people to any harmful radiation associated with traditional x-ray security screening.

Anyway, Thruvision’s camera is quite a breakthrough for a commercial application, seeing as such technology was both prohibitively expensive and only available to certain government agencies, like NASA, who created it for astronomers to see very far stars, without being bothered by other stars or space objects that might be standing in the way!

In spite of this ‘official’ response, I’m not quite comfortable being scanned head-to-toe, through my clothes, and not seeing what I look like on a security screen. I’d much rather pretend this camera doesn’t exist!

zanasser@gmail.com

Another piracy crackdown in Jordan

2008-03-05T17:25:00.001+02:00

Since the early nineties, we’ve had a copyright law which has gone through various amendments and ‘refinements’, but hasn’t been consistently enforced.

It seems there have always been social and economic reasons why authorities have not cracked down fully on piracy. Think for a moment about the price of a typical software package, then think of the young people who cannot get it and the resulting lack of knowledge.

This could be tackled by either making software accessible legally to young people in schools, universities, libraries and so on, or by just providing price cuts to enable them to gain the knowledge.

Some of these ideas have been applied, but in a relatively poor country like Jordan, where the average household income could never be enough to buy an original copy of Windows Vista and put food on the table, piracy and illegal software trade will proliferate.

Authorities also seem to be dealing with the problem in ‘bursts’. Every once in a while we hear about a ‘new crackdown’ or the closure of shops or the ‘surprise visits to companies’ across the country.

Such an increase in law enforcement activity was witnessed during February this year, and as you would expect the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represents software publisher’s interests, was full of praise towards local Authorities.

Let’s first clarify one major point. Piracy is illegal, and should be punishable by law, and the members of the BSA are within their rights to protect intellectual property they own; which they invested their time and money in creating. Surely, none of us would accept to see a song we wrote, a movie we produced, or software we created being sold on the pavement downtown for JD 2.

The problem is that the retail price of the original version of that video game, for example, is JD 60.

Do the math, and you’ll figure out why it’s impossible to completely prevent piracy. What if that original video game cost JD 10 or even JD 15, then the majority of gamers would save up to buy an original copy and will happily become ‘legal’ users.

The harsh reality is that it will never happen, as global corporations like Microsoft, Adobe, Electronic Arts and others are all making so much money at current prices, in spite of rampant piracy even in their own countries. We’d like to see a complete crackdown on piracy in the US and Europe, but it’s not happening there either.

It would appear that these publishers price their software taking into account that only one fourth of copies in use will be original, therefore legal users have to generate all the profits. We salute those legal users who fuel the needs of the remaining masses!

Somebody has to address this imbalance and rather than just enforcing the law, there’s a need to enforce more reasonable pricing in all fields of intellectual property including software, movies, music and books.

So, the National Library has cracked down on another local vendor, and imposed a fine or prison sentence.

Will this be the last time? No. Will every vendor be caught? No. Will the BSA ever cease to exist when we have a perfect world of cheap original software? Double No. Any solutions on the horizon? You answer that one.

zanasser@gmail.com

Facebook, MySpace & YouTube bans in the region: Cultural threshold crossed

2008-02-27T15:46:00.003+02:00

It was bound to happen. Social networks are really pushing the boundaries of culturally ‘acceptable’ topics, images and even videos to breaking point.

In the Arab and Islamic world, there is a certain level at which there will be complaints, followed by government intervention and censorship.

I will not be the person to say whether or not total freedom should be allowed, as it is clear to every corporation working in, or taregting, the Middle East market that there are certain religious and social norms that must be considered.

The problem with the Internet, is that it unleashes the ‘abnormal’ in these societies, and it happens so fast and attracts many users before authorities realize what’s happening. Then, as you would expect, these authorities hit the headlines locally and across the world when censorships or bans begin.

This week, mediaME.com reported that 'elements of the popular social networking website Facebook could be blocked to UAE net users next year. This is part of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) upcoming Internet Penetration Policy (IPP).

The report says that “the aim of the new policy is to liberate web access by more specifically defining which types of online material can be accessed and which should be blocked to surfers.”

A spokesperson said that "we do not want to deny access to websites that are social portals and encourage cultural interaction in today's globalised world. At the same time it has to be done without losing our identity, traditions, ethics, morals and culture."

The spokesman added that sections of social networking websites, such as Facebook's dating-related sections (or, more specifically, downloadable applications) would be banned, which is not the case at present.

I have to say that the approach of the UAE towards the Facebook issue is quite civilized, providing a future deadline that both warns Facebook of the consequences, and allows users to maybe get whatever they want to see or do finished before a certain point in time!

And, it’s only blocking parts of Facebook. So, the majority of users will be unaffected.

Also this week, the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority (PTA) ordered Internet service providers, to prevent people in Pakistan from visiting YouTube.

The authority cited a "highly blasphemous" video featuring right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

The block was intended to cover only Pakistan but somehow caused a tech-glitch that extended to about two-thirds of the global Internet population!

Anyway, the ban was lifted shortly afterwards, as YouTube graciously removed the video. So, government censorship sometimes gets results.

Although total freedom is supposedly what the Internet is all about, surely the same regulations that govern print and audiovisual media in Arab and Islamic countries must, at some point, also govern the latest mainstream media.

Did anyone really believe that the Internet wouldn’t be treated the same way?

zanasser@gmail.com

... and now Blogger goes Arabic too !

2008-01-30T19:31:00.000+02:00

Several weeks ago, Google’s free blogging service, Blogger.com (Blogspot) shifted its default interface to Arabic for all users logging in from Arab countries.

This irritated many users, and actually resulted in blog posts from disgruntled non-Arabs living in the Gulf, who went on about how the GCC was multicultural.

It was interesting, but the over-riding issue was that Google was finally going to give popular blogging platforms in the Arab World a run for their money. Jeeran.com, Maktoob.com and Al Bawaba.com stand out as major Arab blogging communities,which basically do exactly what Blogger does, but in Arabic.

Having established sizable communities- Jeeran claims over 50,000 blogs- you can imagine that they’re somewhat prepared for this development.

However, if you think about it and notice the continuos evolution of Arabic language services from Google, you will see that a ‘complete e-life solution’ is Google’s aim. You’ve got your search engine, gmail, Google Apps, Arabic News, blogging platform and you can use Adsense and Analytics for your blog too.

You could soon be totally Googled, and all of it is happening in your mother-tongue.

To be honest, I personally feel that the best blogging platform is Word Press, and it’s available in Arabic, and is a great example of why an open source engine, rather than a blog community like Blogger, Maktoob or Jeeran could be the way ahead.

Back to the launch of Blogger in Arabic, Google already has offices in the region, in Cairo and Dubai, and has appointed a marketing manager for the Middle East and North Africa, Yasmina Brihi.

Unlike the old days, when Google would Arabize its products silently, they now want to announce such moves and demonstrate commitment to the region.

Ms. Brihi said “It's great to reach out to the Arabic-language community with the launch of Blogger in Arabic. There's a great deal of interest in and excitement about blogging in Arabic on the internet.”

More Google officials are lining up to speak to Arabia, including Siobhan Quinn, Product Manager at Google, who says that "[We're] really excited to be launching blogger in Arabic. Blogger's always been about allowing people to communicate, connect with each other, and share ideas in an easily accessible way; it's great to bring this platform to this community."

Google plans to update and enhance Blogger Arabic over the coming year and also launched the service in Persian and Hebrew.

So, again, this heightened interest by Google in our region is good news for consumers, as far as choice is concerned, but means some serious re-strategizing by major Arab blog communities who benefited from Google’s absence so far. It’s a tough, globalized world.

It’s not inconceivable that one of the home-grown blog communities we’ve got is offers a better blogging platform than Blogger. What is needed is some marketing clout and dollars to ensure that it can compete on all levels.

Then, with an even playing field, may the best blog platform win!

zanasser@gmail.com

The annual Apple hysteria by Jobs: Any point getting excited in our region?

2008-01-16T22:43:00.000+02:00

It's now become the annual opportunity for hysteria among technology geeks and quite a few consumer gadget enthusiasts too.

The annual Steve Jobs address at the Macworld conference creates such a buzz on the web and through the media that it sometimes doesn't live up to its own billing, like this year, I'm afraid.

Last year it was the iPhone which, obviously, turned out to be worth the hysteria with its unique user interface and slick design. Having sold over 2 million units no one can say it didn't succeed!

This year on January 15, we had the somewhat 'lower key' thin MacBook 'Air', which even good old Steve tried to muster a smile about upon announcing. The bigger news, with long term ramifications for the movie industry, and the traditional video store too, was the announcement that Apple would be offering movies for download (obviously for a fee) at iTunes. The announcement was big because Apple revealed that it had every major movie studio on board.

Such is the pulling power of the Apple brand and Steve Job's personality, who by the way is the biological son of a Syrian immigrant to America but who was adopted by the Jobs family. I don't really know the relevance of this to anything, expect for the fact that it gives any brilliant Arab hope, provided he/she is surrounded by a conducive environment like San Jose's Silicon Valley, where Steve has lived all his life!

Anyway, back to the impact of the newly announced products on our region of the world, it goes without saying that a hardware product, like an ultra thin Macbook, would arrive in the region, clock up sales and probably add to the surprisingly growing Macintosh user base in a region where we all thought the Mac was dying!

As for iTunes, unfortunately, we still can't enjoy its services as we are still considered a 'back-water' market for Apple, and I can't understand why it's taking them so long to open an iTunes store for a country in the Middle East. Some 'experts' tell me it's due to 'payment gateway' issues and the fact that Apple has to come in and look at every market.

Apparently, iTunes is still not available in every European or Asian market either, so maybe that's a consolation.

In the meantime, regrettably, everyone's pirating music and video through Peer-To-Peer (P2P) networks, but that's another story.

So, how has Jobs touched our lives- excuse the pun with the iPod Touch?

In several ways actually, not least contributing to the creation of the personal computer revolution 30 years ago in his parent's garage, but also by launching products which can make any person, anywhere in the world excited.

I've got an iPod and iTV, many of my friends have MacBooks, I actually know a couple of people using 'hacked' iPhones- another example of us still being a 'back water' to Apple, but the enthusiasm is there and Apple has had a regional office in Dubai and an dealership in Jordan for nearly two decades.

We expect more attention from Apple, we deserve more and we'll throw in the Syrian-origin card if we have to!

Mr Jobs, are you listening?

Published in The Star newspaper
zanasser@gmail.com

Google's juggernaut reaches the Middle East

2008-01-09T20:09:00.000+02:00

If you’ve followed Google for the past decade, the only way to describe the company is that it is a ‘juggernaught’!

Product after product, breakthroughs and revolutions every month and it’s all perfectly summed up by the company’s performance on the stock market. How I wish I had bought Google stock years ago!

Anyway, up until 2006, it didn’t look like the Middle East had properly registered yet on Google’s radar.

Apart from the fact that Google efficiently Arabized its services and was gaining users, there was very little direct involvement in the region, or at least we couldn’t see it!

Then, sometime in 2006, we started hearing whispers like ‘watchout, Google is coming to the Middle East’, mostly from the region’s online portals and communities who have to pay attention when the goliath comes to town.

Soon enough, Google’s intent was revealed.

In June 2006, Google launched Arabic News, and it emerged that they’d appointed a regional director for Europe, the Middle East & North Africa, Dennis Woodside, who said “The launch of Google News in Arabic demonstrates Google’s commitment to bring localized products to users across the globe.”

Within a year, by summer 2007, Google opened its first office in the region in Cairo, Egypt.

Several ‘onliners’, myself included, stated that it was the first step in Google’s efforts to boost revenues from Arab clients for Google’s advertising solutions, and maybe even launch an Arabic-language contextually-targeted AdSense service.

At the time, the president of Google’s operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), Nikesh Arora, said: “MENA is a region with 300 million people, speaking the same language. We hope our products, and the Internet as a whole, will bring useful and beneficial tools to our Arabic users. We can see potential for industries like tourism and travel which are important to Egypt’s economy.”

Then, later in the year, Google popped up in Dubai, hiring a marketing team, appointing a country manager, and holding a Google AdWords Seminar in November 2007. So, it seems to only be a matter of time before Google will be ‘doing the rounds’ across the region.

At the risk of sounding like I’m courting Google’s attention, I’ll say that Google’s interest in Arab users and markets is good news because it means we’ll get better localized services, more online service choices and we’ll have a regional channel to provide feedback about these services.

What’s wrong with more choice? Nothing at all.

In today’s global economy, Arab online players need to rise to a global challenge, from the likes of Google.

In countries like Russia and Korea, local players still lead in search engines and, surely, there will be certain online applications which our home-grown onliners will lead.

But, for everything else, there’s Google!

Published in The Star newspaper

zanasser@gmail.com

Cyber-terror makes a comeback in the news

2007-12-11T21:11:00.000+02:00

In the first couple of years following the events of September 11, 2001, a hysteria regarding Internet-fueled terrorism reached fever pitch.

In the midst of this atmosphere, many Islamic movements and organizations on the web were banned, blocked, censored or monitored. With time, the term “cyber terror” emerged to describe any form of Internet aided attack for political causes, yet many still disagree to this day on the use of the word ‘terror’, opposed to more accurate words like ‘vandalism’ or simply just ‘hacking’.

After all, these politically motivated attacks were not killing anyone, unlike terrorist acts in the real world, and most of these problems could be fought back with technology solutions, like anti-hacking measures and proper Internet security procedures

Since those days, every once in a while we see a return of cyber terrorism talk in the press, like this week as Saudi security intelligence and technology experts are calling for the creation of new laws to stop the growing threat of cyber-terrorism and the radical ideologies it promotes.

Authorities in Saudi Arabia are urging the United Nations to press member states for the “introduction of new laws to criminalize the use of communications technology to spread terrorist ideologies which concerns all countries”.

The statement came out of a conference in Riyadh, organized by the Saudi Intelligence Services, attended by around 3,000 security intelligence personnel and information technology experts.
It is true that there is a credible threat of terrorist groups using the Internet to get organized, just as they would have used telephones and letters in the pre-Internet age; but this conference was saying that the Internet actually enabled these groups to carry out strategic attacks around the world.

Quoting the reports: “Prince Sultan Bin Abdel Aziz told delegates his intelligence organization had identified over 17,000 websites which fuel Al-Qaeda ideology. He stressed the need for immediate action to cull the rampant growth of cyber-terrorism, which he said increases by some 9,000 websites per year.”

The strategic importance of communications technologies has been well understood by these groups, and it apparently has resulted in more sophisticated cooperation between cells. A Saudi daily newspaper spoke to the prince who added that “Terrorists do not just focus on military success. There is a third angle to the operation which is the glory of publicity, which compensates for the failure of the operation.”

Looking at things from this angle, probably elevates the classic ideas regarding terrorism and the Internet, and possibly makes the term ‘Cyber Terror’ more credible. With general sentiment worldwide agreeing to a strict crackdown measures on such sites and networks, there’s also a need for parallel training programs designed to educate both security specialists and the general public about what is and what isn't cyber-terrorism.

A clear definition of what constitutes a cyber-terrorist website is needed, to ensure that this doesn’t become another witch-hunt of all forms of Islamic or Arab nationalistic content on the web in the US and Europe.

zanasser@gmail.com

Jordan: A hotbed of web entrepreneurs targeting the region

2007-12-05T20:00:00.000+02:00

What is it that makes Jordan a hot-bed for regional website projects?

Over the past decade, it's become clear that one of Jordan's hottest exports is ICT (information and communication technology). Within that sector, there's a very interesting case on the rise of online media portals and communities, starting in Jordan and aimed at the Arab World.

Today, some of them have matured sufficiently to relocate management and marketing to Dubai (like Maktoob and Jeearan), while almost all of these portals, old and new, are managing to attract advertising dollars from the GCC to cash in on the massive numbers of users they are attracting in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and other countries which advertisers are interested in.

Sorry to break the bad news to you, but Jordanian consumers are of little or no interest to regional advertisers, but that's another story.

This whole phenomena of 'Jordan As An Internet media Incubator' started in 1996 when Arabia.com was launched, by the same team who created BYTE Middle East magazine, led by Khaldoon Tabaza.

Arabia.com was the first and largest Arab online community, and it was the equivelant of Al Jazeera for Arabic online news across the world. Strangely, at that stage Al Jazeera itself had just launched and had little time to worry about the Internet.

Anyway, Arabia.com disappeared due to corporate and financial problems, and the second-in-line to succession was Maktoob.com, founded in 1998 by Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury. Needless to say, the survival instincts and management of these two gentlemen enabled Maktoob to survive and grow into the largest online community today.

Somewhere in between these two, emerged a quiet potential giant, Jeeran.com, founded by Omar Koudsi and Laith Zureikat, and grew slowly but surely and is now one of the top regional portals.
The most recent entrants both launched in the same month, November 2006, and are D1G founded by Majied Qasem and IKBIS founded by George Akra, Karim Arafat and others.

Both now have high regional profiles, with IKBIS already being called the YouTube of the Arab World and D1G racing towards achieving traffic numbers that just can’t be ignored by the region’s market.

Newbies like Akhtaboot.com, aaramnews.com and others all have a regional outlook and are beginning to collect the all important GCC traffic.

So, amidst all the doom and gloom of Jordan not yet realizing it's potential to become a regional IT hub; a handful of entrepreneurs have worked to 'marry' online media with IT competencies, to fly our flag across the region.

As more non-Jordanian investors come into these companies, and they take on a more regional ownership flavor, history must record that they were born and raised in Jordan, and are led by a new brand of Jordanian web entrepreneurs.

I've been a witness to all of this, as have most of you; so let's announce it and be proud of the region's best e-entrepreneurs who happen to be Jordanian.

zanasser@gmail.com

Everyone’s talking about Facebook ... even in Arabia

2007-11-28T15:57:00.000+02:00

I don’t need to tell you about the Facebook revolution. But, maybe we can delve into some interesting statistics regarding Facebook users and then we’ll touch on the topics of privacy and Facebook being blocked in ‘certain countries’.

The well-known technology blog, TechCrunch (www.techcrunch.com) published a table of facts about Facebook members in 32 countries - Last week I found it, and it seems the page has now been 'retired' - sorry no link!

Anyway, over all, 63% of Facebook users are women, while only 36% are men!

Even in the digital world, ladies are more interested in connecting with friends and family, they are more likely to stay in touch and to check in on those they care for. It seems harsh, but men are just different. This is not a sexist statement, look at the evidence!

Arab countries featured include UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt. Regrettably, the study does not include numbers from Jordan, but neighboring Arab countries could be indicative.

Onto the UAE, the Arabic country with the highest Internet penetration, there are 196,880 Facebook users of which 75,000 are males and 121,000 are females.

In Egypt, the country with the highest population in the region but relatively low Internet penetration, there are 396,000 Facebook users of which 147,000 are males and 249,000 are females.

In Lebanon, a middle-ground country in penetration and population, there are 169,000 Facebook users of which 59,000 are males and 110,000 are females.
And Saudi Arabia, the number in total is quite low for such a large and relatively wealthy country. There are only 120,000 Facebook users of which 47,000 are males and 73,000 are females. So, you see, even in Saudi Arabia the impact of woman on Facebook is clear - I’ll be getting some comments about this statement!

So, for all Arab countries, the percentages of male users are in the 30s and females are in the 60s, which fits the global profile. Jordan is probably the same.
Onto why numbers of Facebook users may be low in some Arab countries, like Saudi Arabia.

Apart from social conservatism, there’s the matter of site blocks that are somewhat erratic. Authorities may, at any time, decide that Facebook is being used by social or political groups to promote unacceptable ideas or controversial causes; and accordingly block it.

Just look at what happened in Syria this month, where authorities blocked Facebook for now apparent reason leaving tens of thousands of users stranded without their Facebook buddies!

Why can’t everyone just understand that no one can, and no one will, stop the Internet from carrying ideas to people. A famous Arab cinema director, whose movies are usually censored or banned, once said that “ideas have wings that fly though any barriers to reach the people.” The Internet epitomizes this, as does the mobile content channel and other new age avenues of information.

So, maybe it’s the best of times and the worst of times to be a Facebook user in ‘Arabia’. However, you are guaranteed an interesting journey!

zanasser@gmail.com

Books: Last bastion of print in the digital age to fall soon

2007-11-21T01:57:00.000+02:00

Books seem to have survived the digital revolution so far. They are the last bastion of print media to continue to be used by the majority of readers without a direct digital replacement- so far..

Attempts at electronic books reading devices- which are basically digital pads with long battery life- have been around for some time, but readers have not taken to them. It has to be said that none of these devices has been quite impressive enough to become a viable alternative and the parallel development required is for eBook sales to take off too.

But, first let’s talk about the unique experience of holding a book and what benefits must be replicated in a device.

It is generally agreed that the main issue has got to be clarity of text and comfort to the eye (no screen glimmer). Next in importance is light weight, intuitive ‘page-flipping’ technology and very long battery life (at least as long as it takes to read a whole book). Imagine one charge - one book; difficult but maybe possible.

So, what are the devices out there now that promise some of these lofty benefits?

The best looking device at the moment has just been created by Amazon.com, which is interesting when you consider that they are the top bookstore on the Internet. But, it seems they now have a vision to completely undercut every offline store, by ensuring that eBooks make a bigger impact, and therefore readers will be downloading their books from Amazon instead of visiting Barnes & Noble, Borders or Virgin Megastore to buy them!

The Kindle which sells for $399 has just been released in the United States, and you can buy the top selling books as downloads at $9.99 each, and older titles for various prices lower than that, and you can even download blog feeds for around 99 cents.

It looks good, comes in a folder-like wallet that feels like a book cover, and as you expect it offers additional features like web browsing and audio capabilities. Show me a book that can do that!

The CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos says that “books are an already handy thing”, referring to the already nice portability of paper books. That’s why even he admits that “it will take time for people to adopt this product.” But he believes it will happen, simply because people will want to the convenience and ease of downloading attractively-priced ebooks, and therefore will need the device to do that.

It feels like how the iPod revolutionized the music industry. I wonder why Mr. Gadget of the 31st century so far, Steve Jobs - creator of the iPod- isn’t working on a ebook reader by Apple.

But, it looks like the Kindle is the start of this wave of competent devices, and there will be many more.

Would you dump paper books for one of these any time soon? At first thought, your answer may be no.

But try to remember how you felt about the digital camera and the MP3 player when they were first launched. Now tell me that you don’t own either of these devices!

An ebook reading devices will join them one day. It’s just a matter of time.

zanasser@gmail.com

Problems with Vista

2007-10-31T18:40:00.000+02:00

To be honest, I'm not using Windows Vista yet. I just bought a PC last week, and was offered the opportunity to get Vista with it, or XP and decided to stick with XP. It's probably because of what I've been hearing from friends and reading on the web!

In the few times I've tested or used Vista, I've noticed it's rather slow and somewhat over-featured!

In any case, here's a rundown of the most common complaints about Windows Vista, and check them out to see if you've ever run into any of them:

Vista is slow, even on a brand new desktop or notebook, even when no applications are running. Opening an application takes time, and once inside an app there's a chance fast-typists, like us journalists, will suffer a delay in characters appearing on screen!

Some users say Vista works fine if you've got 2GB RAM. What, that's massive!
Operating systems should be light, running in the background and should not be a cause for holding up a user session with multiple applications.

Another common user complaint is that Vista applies new short-cuts and routes to doing things which end up feeling like 'long-cuts' because Windows users have been dealing with Microsoft's operating systems for 15 years and they don't like too many changes.

The main problem is that there are other useable options out there, and not just Windows XP.

Have you ever heard of Ubuntu? It's an open-source operating system that can run all your applications and is getting excellent reviews all round.
Right from the start, the installation is slick, the desktop is fast and responsive, and it copes well without running on a top specification machine.
Thanks to non-Microsoft products, like OpenOffice (replacing Microsoft Office), Thunderbird (replacing Outlook) and Google Apps (soon replacing everything), Ubuntu comes to life!

There's also Apple's Leopard OS, which just hit 2 million users this week, but that's for Macintosh users.

Back to PC systems, Vista is doing fairly well in spite of the slow take-up by users. Almost every PC in the Western world is being sold with a copy of Vista, other regions are not far behind and obviously there are millions of downloads of the system from Microsoft's website. But, such is the sheer dominance of Microsoft, that many million more users are needed for Vista to make an impact, and to be considered to be replacing XP.

Just imagine that Microsoft continues to support XP fully, ten months after the release of Vista, and from the looks of it will continue to do so until 2010, at least.

So, where does that leave us?

If you're a typical non-technical user who is about to buy a PC, get Vista and run it on a PC with big RAM and harddisk space, and don't push it too hard!

If you're still using an old PC, stick to XP as long as you can.

If you're a techno-type, install Ubuntu and discover the wonders of Linux and open-source.

Oh, and if you're still using Windows 98, please tell Microsoft because they're pretending that you don't exist anymore!

zanasser@gmail.com

Microsoft offers IE7 without validation - no strings attached

2007-10-10T05:15:00.000+03:00

Finally, Microsoft has decided to challenge Firefox on its own turf, by making Internet Explorer 7 a truly free, no-strings-attached browser.If you thought it was freeware, seeing as you actually don’t pay anything for it, think again.

You were paying in information to Microsoft, because the condition to download IE7 was the need for Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) authentication.WGA is part of Microsoft's Genuine Software Initiative.

It is intended to help prevent the distribution and use of unauthorized versions of Windows. Up until this week, if you wanted to download IE7, you had to authenticate according to the WGA. So, you may wonder, why would it be a problem to request that users are law-abiding, legitimate owners of Microsoft software before they can enjoy IE7?It’s a problem because the harsh reality is that no less than 85 percent of users worldwide are using illigitimate Microsoft products, and even that is a conservative estimate.

Apart from legal Windows XP or Vista installations, that come pre-loaded on PCs, how many home users do you know who paid for their copy of Office?

In business, we tend to go legal, but home users don’t and they make up the bulk of total PC ownership in any country.Anyway, users like there privacy, even business users, and they’re probably not comfortable with Microsoft keeping an eye on their hard disk contents.

It’s not just Microsoft applications that may be illegitimate, there are also products from Adobe, Corel and others which may be illegal.

Simply, Mozilla’s Firefox offers users an excellent, full-powered browser without any conditions. This has allowed Firefox to gain a sizeable share considering it’s not backed up by a major corporation like Microsoft.

Naturally, Microsoft will ‘add some PR spin’ to why they’ve changed their strategy, claiming that IE7 is more secure alternative than IE6 and that higher adoption of the browser will provide more Internet security worldwide. Fair enough, if IE7 was actually more secure! Microsoft’s statement also makes it clear that the company is still ‘totally committed to fighting software piracy’.

But what this move shows is that the availability of a free, open-source alternative that manages to gain significant market share, may push Microsoft towards offering free software.

Interesting, and it’s a first sign of a major industry shift at the consumer end.In a few months, once the uptake of IE7 increases, and the browser is put under serious pressure by hackers and malware writers, we’ll get a better idea on how secure it is, and the number of downloads will show if this strategy has halted the increasing market share of Firefox.

Although I don’t like to promote software companies, I suggest we all download IE7 and show Microsoft that this is the right direction; thereby promoting freeware, and less conditions on future software releases by the the industry’s top publisher. Think about that.

zanasser@gmail.com

Forty years ago handlheld calculators were born

2007-10-02T22:01:00.000+03:00

Amidst all the wonders of the PC world, it’s easy to forget where it all started.

Forty years ago, Texas Instruments created the handheld calculator, and made it a consumer-friendly price; thereby opening the way for ‘bigger consumer calculators’ which turned into the home computers of the 70s and 80s.

Our favorite home computer companies like Commodore and Sinclair followed Texas Instruments (TI) through that passage way with their own computers before launching computers. So, four decades ago, history was made. TI’s first calculator weighed 55 pounds and plugged into an outlet. Compare that to TI’s and everyone else’s latest offerings and you’ll see how far technology has come.

But what immediate impact did it have back then?

Jerry Merryman, 75, a co-inventor of the hand-held calculator, said that Americans embraced it, educators were proud of circumventing repetitive, drill-based learning and instilling creativity and curiosity in students. These are the lessons calculators help facilitate,” he says.

Even back then, the debate began on whether calculators help or hurt students. Some educators believe that calculators students technology-dependent and mathematically insecure.

A fact that may point in that direction is that the United States lags in international math exams. But, really, isn’t that just a symptom of Americans not being as smart as Asians and Europeans who use calculators too and are still very mathematically minded!

Besides, calculator capabilities grow with students and enable them to achieve more. Elementary students get started on “Little Professor” calculators that can add, subtract, multiply and divide, then they move onto graphing calculators in later grades.University students nowadays are already using programmable devices that show algebraic formulas, graphs and word problems on the same screen.

So, really, isn’t the whole idea to facilitate brilliance in math and logic, rather than slow it down with tedious, mind-numbing manual calculations!

Mental math must be taught in Kindergarten, then once the basics are grasped, calculators can take over. Why not? What other way is there to grasp higher math.

Compare this matter to writing. Some people can’t spell, but word processing can allow them to express themselves thanks to automatic correction technologies. Our computers will be doing all of this work anyway. You can’t stop progress. What we need is to organize it’s application.

And remember where the word ‘computer’ came from: the verb ‘to compute’. We’re using a glorifed calcalculator everyday!

zanasser@gmail.com

Now, even Moore's Law is changing

2007-09-20T01:26:00.000+03:00

A new century has meant new rules for most aspects of the IT business. Now, even the sacred 'Moore's Law' of microprocessors is changing, by the admission of Gordon Moore who created it.

First, here's a backgrounder on what Moore's Law is. It is the maxim which declares a doubling of transistors on a computer chip roughly every two years, therefore providing a double increase in speed and performance.

For 40 years, since 1965, Gordon Moore created this principle and it has held true scientifically. However, the fact that the space on a 'chip' is finite, means that at some point it won't be possible to continue in that direction.It is expected that within a decade, or so, that will happen.

In non-scientific terms, what this means is that PC processors from Intel have doubled in performance every two years and it ingeniously also applies to other technology gadgets.

Back in the early nineties, this rule worked perfectly for me, as my 33MHz 486 PC was replaced by a 66MHz Pentium two years later, then replaced by a 120MHz Pentium two further years afterwards.

Then, I just stopped counting megahertz, and it seems that Intel stopped too, but that's another story! Anyhow, Moore now predicts that processor performance it won't grow by that somewhat exact margin anymore. It even seems like it won't grow at all in the conventional methods after a certain threshold.

Who is Gordon Moore? Born in 1929, he is the the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation and the author of Moore's Law.

What is Moore also saying? He claims that "the interface between computers and biology now is a very interesting area", which may be the next driver of computer performance. In other words, bio-energy rather than silicon. Back to Moore's law, almost every measure of the capabilities of digital electronic devices is linked to Moore's Law: processing speed, memory capacity, even the resolution of LCD screens and digital cameras.

All of these are improving at exponential rates as well. This has changed dramatically the usefulness of digital electronics in nearly every segment of the world economy.

For those of us who have been following the development in computer technology since the 1980s, it's such a stunning difference to think 'where we were and where we are now'. Yet, there has been a somewhat steady predictability about it all, knowing that processing power will improve carrying with it all the advancements we've seen in multimedia.

Moore's Law was a driving force of technological and social change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and for scientists it is like an 'earthquake' when this principle no longer applies. Everything changes, wait for the next technological earthquake!

zanasser@gmail.com

400 million downloads: You all helped 'Spread Firefox'

2007-09-12T13:50:00.000+03:00

On November 9, 2004, users worldwide started a movement called ‘Spread Firefox’. Supported by tens of thousands of contributors, it took just 99 days to deliver 25 million downloads of Firefox.

Apperantly, the world was desperate for a web browser alternative to Internet Explorer (IE). Microsoft was probably watching and not worried at all at the prospect of ‘another Netscape’, let alone an open-source competitor not supported by a corporate owner!

Well, we all know how that turned out!

In less than six months, the number of downloads doubled to 50 million, and it turned open source into a household word and reasserted the supremacy of choice and simplicity.

Firefox didn’t overwhelm users with pop-ups, and gave them a new browser not yet targeted by hackers and malware writers, without worries of infecting their systems. But, best of all, it worked well compared to IE!

It took the Spread Firefox global community of activists only one year to reach the 100 million downloads mark. It seemed that there was something about the brand, and it’s ‘common man versus corporate giant’ that made it fun to use and a statement cherished by anti-corporate types.

That’s why some 50,000 websites and blogs carry the ‘Spread Firefox’ buttons and banners, making Firefox one of the world’s most recognized and respected brands.

Accordingly, last year, it was reported that the number of downloads hit the 200 million mark. Guess what, it’s doubled in the year since then!

Firefox has reached 400 million downloads.

Obviously, the Mozilla organization, the ‘patron’ of Firefox is trumpeting this as a victory.

The official statement goes as follows: “You all demonstrated that not even the world’s most powerful companies can keep people from a better, safer, and faster Web experience. You all, the grass roots and heart of the Firefox movement, have helped hundreds of millions of people find that better, safer, and faster Web.”

The Mozilla foundation is non-profit, and the browser is indeed a strong product so you’d have to accept most of that statement as true!

And it’s all happened in just three, short years!

As you would expect, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer lost some market share, and has been updated and developed to counter this Firefox blitz.

Still, Firefox grows and continues to take market share from IE. We’re not kidding ourselves, IE will continue to lead the market, but Firefox has achieved so much and there’s more to come.

Wait till Firefox handles every language in the world properly. Arabic support is available but still needs some work, and web developers across the region are now making their sites Firefox compliant. Even at this early stage, there’s a considerable percentage of Firefox penetration among Middle East-based users.

Bravo Mozilla, congrats to Firefox-ers. Long live the open source revolution that promotes better performance from corporates who forgot that users have choices.

zanasser@gmail.com

Fraudsters cash in on generosity of Arab users?

2007-09-08T01:27:00.000+03:00

It’s a known fact that the latest viruses and malware depend on ‘social engineering’ concepts to spread widely. What this basically means is that these malware writers attempt to tap into typical user weaknesses, like claiming that an attached file includes special surprise- a prize, or images of a beautiful women, or the solution to a problem .... and more.

Nowadays, techniques to infect a user’s PC even include soliciting a visit to an infected website, which will damage a user’s PC. To quote a warning from TrendLabs, “a number of new attacks take the form of commentary on current events, especially natural disasters. When concerned individuals visit a nominated website to offer their assistance, they receive misleading instructions to download spyware or visit a compromised website.”

"Recent history has proven the effectiveness of these techniques. The warning goes onto explain that “events such as the recent flooding in the western Yemen, the Pakistan earthquake of 2005 or even the fatal poisonings of almost 2000 camels in Saudi Arabia provide the kind of stories with which devious operators can get a toe-hold in an individual's computer.”

Apperantly, TrendLabs actually think that users in our region are more susceptible to these schemes than others across the world!This interesting, and rather entertaining announcement from TrendLabs goes as far as saying that “Internet criminals are exploiting regional traditions of generosity and hospitality”.

Well, first of all, we thank Trend Micro for deciding that we’re the most generous users in the world, but we tend to disagree, and even object, to the notion that we are ‘gullible by tradition’!

The company cites “the rapid take-up of personal computing and Internet access in the Gulf region which has meant that many first-time users are exposed to some long-established online scams.”I don’t think users in the region are that naive, or any worse in this regard than users in emerging areas of the world like China, India and Eastern Europe. For a start, most scams come out of those countries anyway, and are even prepared in their local languages. Surely, they are more vulnerable!

On the plus side, rather than just focusing on the negative ‘gullibility issue’, there’s the good publicity we as Arabs are getting as being ‘good intentioned people’.

The announcement says that “People's good intentions lead them to websites that purportedly help out the victims of earthquakes, floods or other natural disasters, but these open the door to malware and identity theft.”

So, people in our region have better intentions and are more innocent than other regions of the world?

Sorry, but I doubt it. It’s just marketing spin aimed at the region, but there obviously is a serious worldwide problem behind this story. Yes, you should take note of such scams, but don’t be too concerned about them being aimed at us ‘generous an gullible’ Arabs.

It’s just a case of human behavior and inexperience, no matter where you’re from!

zanasser@gmail.com

The end of an era, IATA to cancel paper tickets

2007-08-30T17:37:00.000+03:00

It’s the end of an era, and the beginning of another chapter of the digital age. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has announced that it has placed its last order for paper tickets.

What that means is that once this order is received and fully distributed, you won’t see another paper ticket again. Imagine that!

An amount of 16.5 million paper tickets were ordered from 7 specialized printers to supply the 60,000 accredited IATA travel agents in 162 markets around the world until 31 May 2008.

From 1 June 2008 onwards, 100 percent of tickets issued through the IATA Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) will be electronic.

Why? Well, because the digital e-ticket has now fully taken over.

The way it works is simple. You make a reservation with your travel agent, the agent gets confirmation digitally, then instead of asking you whether or not you want to print the ticket for you to pick it up, the agent simply confirms it online, gets e-ticket info, forwards it to your email which you.

The e-ticket number is all you need to announce at the airport. You need not even print out the email including that number, you can just read it from your handheld device if you wish, and produce identity proof that you are the person who’s name is on it!

This step follows a concentrated effort by IATA for 38 months promote the use of e-tickets. E-ticketing went from 16 percent in June 2004 to 84 percent today. And in less than a year, the paper ticket will become a collector’s item.

How much paper will be saved? Well, look at the number of tickets issues annually. IATA’s settlement systems issue over 400 million tickets every year.

With the volume of paper tickets now at only 16 percent of that total it’s still a massive print run.
Is this bad news for the printers? Probably.

They join a growing casualty list including photo print shops, fax machine producers, document shipping specialists and many other businesses who’s operation are now looking obsolete.

Surely, the digital age will create a whole new set of opportunities they can tap into to.They just need to move fast, as Kodak has done successfully moving onto digital photography and accessories.

Why is IATA doing this? The answer is obvious in terms of paper savings ($9 for every ticket) but there’s more to it.

The e-ticket system actually provdes better and faster service to travellers through email, agents can serve customers remotely, airlines deal with less paper and the impact on the environment is reduced.

No need anymore to axe 50,000 mature trees each year. Al Gore and Greenpeace will be pleased!

Start collecting and keeping those paper tickets. They’ll fetch a fortune soon on eBay and make sure your email is always live when planning a trip. Your ticket confirmation will be showing up on your PC, mobile or handheld device screen from now on!

zanasser@gmail.com

Another study of Arab Internet users, more controversy!

2007-07-04T16:41:00.000+03:00

Every couple of months, we see a study tackling a different angle in the analysis of Internet users in the Middle East.

Most recently, Booz Allen Hamilton have finalized research, which they obviously sell, but have revealed a few tasty details.
It’s a study of the demographics, habits and Web 2.0 attitudes of Internet users, and therein lies an interesting link.

Apperantly, male users still dominate the Arab Internet scene, unlike the rest of the world where there is gender-neutrality.

It gets more interesting, and frankly less believable, when the study claims that males are ‘more involved in Web 2.0 websites and tools’.

What! How can that be? Are there more male bloggers, Facebookers, MySpacers than there are females!

It defies logic, and I’m going to raise a storm now among some of my readers, when I say that females prefer to chat, interact and connect to friends more than males do.

Come on! You know it’s true. Women have stronger social skills, are more interested in socializing and therefore should be driving the ‘Internet social networking’ revolution. Right?
Not in our region, apperantly, if the study results are to be believed.

Other interesting, though less controversial issues, covered by the study are regarding the influence of Internet interaction and information on the formation of opinions and consumption trends.

It seems that 84 percent of men surveyed are making purchase decisions based on them what they see on the ‘net’, which is high when compared to the 50 percent of users who do so globally.
Another issue raised is that of blocked sites. In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, in particular, sites like YouTube, Flickr and even Facebook succumb to regular blocks which definitely impede the growth of Web 2.0 Internet habits in these countries.

Although it’s an on-off situation with these ‘blocks’, the trust in the availability and dependability of services is reduced and therefore the use of social networking tools will be reduced too.

A solution seems to be the rise of regional video and photo sharing sites, which would take into consideration the conservative nature of the region, thereby remove offensive content and guarantee continued service. Although we dislike censorship, let’s be realistic. Whether it’s Web 2.0 or Web 10.0, you can’t get away with sexual or political content on your site in our region.

So, there you have it: Web 2.0 sites and networks, when they’re not blocked, are an excellent way to ‘dupe’ the rich Arab male, especially in the Gulf, out of his money while he wife/girlfriend is not even on the Internet to see it happening and advise him with her intuitive shopping knowledge.

Sounds silly? That’s what I got out of this research after much thought! n

zanasser@gmail.com

Open source, the new target of malware

2007-06-21T19:10:00.001+03:00

It is now a known fact that no operating system is immune to malware
attacks.

But, for a few years, users could seek refuge in Open Source, as it was
a somewhat unpopular target for virus/trojan writers and hackers!

Recent reports regarding worms created to attack OpenOffice (the open
source answer to Microsoft Office) are a clear indication that days of
safety are long gone and that open-source software is becoming more
attractive to malware creators.

Simply, open source applications and operating systems are growing in
popularity, and where users go - malware goes!

The OpenOffice macro-based worm is quite sophisticated. It affects
OpenOffice users on several platforms including Windows, Linux and the
Mac. No escape, apperantly.

Some open source believers are pretending the OpenOffice worm is an
isolated incident, especially as very few cases have been reported; or
in ‘anti-virus talk’, the worm’s presence in the wild is very low.

But, Symantec say that’s only because of coding errors in the worm that
limit its ability to spread.

Watch out for better engineered worms soon, as hackers pay more
unwelcome attention to the platform!

OpenOffice has been downloaded over 80 million times, which represents
very fertile ground for an attack. It’s a new avenue to exploit, to
spread their worms and Trojans, and the home-user sector is a
particularly attractive target.

In fact, and according to Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat
report, 98 percent of all targeted attacks are aimed at consumers.
Open-source software, in itself, is not necessarily more vulnerable to
attacks compared to proprietary software from Microsoft, for example.

But if ‘closed source’ software from multi-million dollar companies
claiming secure systems has flaws, imagine what ‘open’ software would be
like!

On the other hand, open source enthusiasts are saying that it’s already
very popular, yet the attacks are few. Is that as sign open source
software is more secure? Probably not, it just means hackers and virus
writers haven’t paid enough attention to it yet.

In our region, open source is just starting to pick up pace.
Unfortunately, widespread adoption could coincide with the emergence of
viruses.

Think of it in terms of ‘economies of scale’. If malware developers can
create something that will work reliably across Windows, Linux and Mac,
then it will give them ‘more bang for their buck’.
Malware creators are, after all, organized criminals selling their
services to phishers and spammers.

If there’s a a potential to profit, you will see malware creators
entering a platform. It’s just the simple law of digital evolution.

zanasser@gmail.com

Google scores low in privacy rankings

2007-06-13T20:00:00.000+03:00

Again, the issue of privacy on the Internet is being debated by governments across the world, and Google is at the center of this discussion.

Regrettably, reports actually show that the world’s biggest ‘information gatherer’ hasn’t done enough to ensure its user’s privacy!

A recent report into corporate surveillance of customers has attacked the approach to privacy of Google and other major players.

The report goes as far as saying that Google's attitude towards privacy puts it “at the bottom" as far as standards of corporate surveillance are concerned.

The search giant's attitude was attacked as being "hostile" and "ambivalent", following a six-month investigation by Privacy International into the privacy practices of more than 20 internet-based companies.

Google came bottom of the privacy rankings, which included other internet heavyweights such as Apple, eBay, Microsoft and YouTube.

The report, A Race to the Bottom: Privacy Ranking of Internet Service Companies, said Google was ranked last partly due to its "aggressive use of invasive or potentially invasive technologies", market dominance and the size of its product range.

Google gathers and retains large quantities of information about its users and their activities.

A Google spokesman said Privacy International's report is based on "numerous inaccuracies and misunderstandings" about Google's services and the company stands by its record for protecting user-privacy and offering products that are transparent about what information is collected.

Google was the only company to earn the bottom ranking for "comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy" but none of the companies featured in the report got the highest "privacy friendly" ranking.

The report said the overall privacy standard of the key internet players is "appalling" with some companies demonstrating "mindless disregard" for the privacy rights of their customers. It’s strange that all of these issues are being discussed in the US and Europe and we don’t hear a single complaint from a governmental or ‘watch-dog’ body in the Middle East!

Don’t we deserve privacy too? Or are we just depending on the high involvement of our European and American counterparts to sort it out, and then we’ll benefit from whatever standards they implement?

Surely, we’re putting as much information about ourselves onto Google services (search, email, calendar... etc).

Is it possible that Google and other could have two sets of privacy standards? One for the countries that require stringent standards, and another one for the rest of us?I hope not!

zanasser@gmail.com

What’s next for Facebook, MySpace & others

2007-06-06T13:08:00.000+03:00

The supposedly simple answer is finding a way to make money for the site owners- to sustain and develop the service- and for users- along the lines of Google Adsense and other profitable tools used by bloggers.

Why? Because holding a user’s interest in this age of cluttered media and hundreds of similar websites must come down to superior services and money making!

To quote a report by the Washington Post: “In the three years since networking sites like Facebook and MySpace exploded on the scene, they have revolutionized the way people interact online. MySpace had 67 million visitors last month, and Facebook, appealing heavily to college and high school students, had 23 million, according to ComScore. But even as the two sites combined add several hundred thousand members daily, the buzz can no longer mask questions about their business model.”

MySpace, which was bought two years ago by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Interactive Media and then last year signed a $900 million advertising-and-search deal with Google, has yet to post a profit. In a recent study by In-Stat research, covering firm of 400 social-networking sites, very few had successfully answered that question.

Facebook have come with an answer, announced last week, with a program that allows other parties to introduce Facebook features, which would promote revenue sharing. A Facebook member could add a feature that compiles the songs he listens to on his iPod and then informs everyone in the network of these favorite tunes. Others in his network could do the same, and this could automatically create a list of favorites reflecting the member’s entire social network.

The Washington Post, for example, is contributing a feature called “Political Compass” that allows users to determine their position on the political spectrum, based on answers to a short online questionnaire, and share that with other Facebook members.

These approaches would permit site’s members to add new, interactive features to their Facebook pages and share them with others in their online network.

The idea is for social-networking sites to make themselves more “media rich” to attract new members and retain old ones. This is particularly important because young Internet users tend to be fickle.

The next wave could come from smaller, limited community sites in which members have a common interest. This would be on the other side of the ‘social networking divide’ compared to the tens of millions of users on Facebook and MySpace. In the US, already, sites are popping up for people with spouses in the military, or moms who want to quit smoking or fans of “Grey’s Anatomy” and so on.

It’s a new trend called “Social networking with a Purpose”. It could result in a situation whereby mature users are on these specialized and limited networks, while their children and younger people stick with the ‘millions of dating and entertainement’ possibilities offered by Facebook and MySpace.

It should be interesting to see how these trends evolve. So, the answer to “what’s next” is not so simple after all!

zanasser@gmail.com

Zune to challenge iPod ... 2.3% to 70% .... I wonder!

2007-05-30T17:07:00.000+03:00

Will anyone finally challenge Apple’s iPod supremacy in the digital music/video player domain?

The heavy weights already in the market, for several years, like Sony, Sansa and Creative Technologies have not managed to even get close. In fact, estimates put their and every other competitor’s total share at 30 percent; obviously that means Apple has the market sewn up with a commanding, frightening 70 percent.

Even in popular culture, people stopped calling it an MP3 player, digital music player or whatever as it’s becoming a multi-tasking gadget capable of music, video and games-playing!

It’s so much simpler to just call it an iPod. Anyone with an earphone is asked the question “so you’ve got an iPod,” taking the time to explain it’s actually a Sony is useless!

Microsoft however, think there’s still a chance and they believe you’ve got to start somewhere to challenge a market leader.

Such a strange, and refreshing, attitude to come from the undisputed software giant who is bent on squashing competitors before they manage to eat into its 90-something percent of the operating systems and desktop software applications markets!

So, does Apple have much to worry about with Microsoft’s Zune standard? Well, the latest news that Microsoft is to sell its 1 millionth Zune unit can be looked at from two angles- the half empty or half full approach.

On the one hand, it’s a laughable amount that gives Microsoft no more than 2.3 percent of the total global market for digital media players, compared to Apple’s mammoth 70 percent. Apple, which launched its iPod music player in October 2001, has sold 100 million of the music players.

But, on the other hand it’s got impressive technology, has one of the fastest-growing user bases among Apple’s competitors and has a massive giant behind it. Do you really think Microsoft will stop at anything?

Look at what Microsoft did in the games console market, when it’s Xbox challenged Sony’s supremacy with PSone and PS2, and Nintendo’s ‘niche’ profitable gap. It turned that industry upside down, losing money (still losing five years later), but gaining market position and now boasting new generation console leadership with the XBox 360 selling more than Sony’s PS3 so far!

So, maybe the Zune is the only real candidate for the ‘iPod Killer’ tag the press like to use generously with competing devices which have all proven inferior to Apple’s wonder device.

It’s not the technical supremacy of the iPod models, as much as it’s the way Apple blends everything together: looks, simple functionality, prestige pricing, strong availability and distribution, coolness and ‘cultural engineering”, so to speak!

In any case, Microsoft is still ranked 4th, behind SanDisk who has 11.7 percent, and Creative with 4 percent. Both companies seem content with this profitable yet small share of the market. There seems to be a ‘truce’ or some kind of submissive balance.

Well, Microsoft isn’t going to be submissive, so watch closely and see how it will propel Zune even further.

zanasser@gmail.com

The latest challenge: "Information Explosion"

2007-05-23T21:13:00.000+03:00

As if there weren't enough challenges already for network administrators, a recent report has warned of Data Explosion.

Don't be shocked, it's not a terror-related concept, it's just a term to refer to the massive amounts of data being produced daily by users worldwide which is being 'stock-piled' in servers eating up billions of gigabytes.

The usual suspects, International Data Corp. (IDC) have come up with this new pressing issue as part of a study called The expanding digital universe, which found the information stored on disk arrays has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 60 percent over the last decade and that growth rate is predicted to be maintained through to 2010.

The amount of information created, stored and replicated in 2006 has been calculated by the study to be 161 billion gigabytes - equivalent to three million times the information in all books ever written. That figure is expected to reach 988 billion gigabytes by 2010.

What this means is that the Internet authorities, or whoever is responsible for its servers must find solutions, or space for all this data.

But, as it seems, this is a multi-layered problem, as businesses also face this information explosion over the next three years as the number of digital images, email inboxes and broadband connections doubles.

The user-generated revolution seems to be an additional driving force behind this explosion. Apart from the challenge of storage, there are issues of structuring this glut of information. The research predicts almost 90 percent of data will be unstructured, compared to around 70 percent historically.

Then, of course, there are environmental issues related to increased power requirements, cooling equipment, personnel and data security challenges at all levels.

As everyone and everything goes digital, terabytes are being gobbled up. For example, the Information Heritage Initiative in the US has donated $1m in equipment, products and services to the US Smithsonian Institution's programme to digitize its collections. This donation includes 100 terabytes of archival storage capacity and an EMC Centera content storage system.

So you can imagine how many governmental and business organizations around the world are doing the same!

Who would have thought that the information age would cause so much trouble?

zanasser@gmail.com

Friendship 2.0

2007-05-16T15:10:00.000+03:00

Yes, it's another one of those otherwise normal terms, which become 'new Internet age' once you add the '2.0' suffix. But, actually, it's truly remarkable how radically different friendships have become because of the Internet; and with the latest social networking websites there's clearly a major shift in the way we deal with people who we would previously call friends without much to show for in terms of keeping in contact or declaring our friendship.

Allow me to simplify this idea. In high school, I had a friend who moved to Canada after graduation and I haven't seen him for over a decade. Apparently, he's a Facebook user and after conducting a search he figured out I was on Facebook too, and he sent me 'an invitation' to join his list of friends.

Let's take a look closely at what's happening here. First, he has declared to me that he still regards me as a friend, then he adds me to a publicly accessible list of friends thereby telling them and the rest of the world that I am his friend, and encouraging some of them to be my friends too.

All of this by just spending a few minutes in front of a PC, without the hassle of searching for my phone number or email, without calling me, without having to explain at length that he's still my friend and that we must stay in touch and so on.

Amazing! I am startled by Facebook, where I now have a list of friends most of whom I have not seen for years (therefore had no contact with anymore) or whom I met once or twice but apparently left an impression!

And you sprinkle some family members and friends of friends onto this list and you end up with a proud, long list of Facebook friends to show the world!

Next, you start being 'poked' by these friends, or they 'write a message on your wall'. It's so easy and effortless that it sucks you in, and you actually answer. Short messages coming in, mean you provide short, easy to produce answers…. No pressure!

What's more, you would have never called this person to ask "how have you been?", or "how's you day?", and just looking at a friend's Facebook page and witnessing his/her recent activity- which is detailed, such as recent communications with other friends or invitations sent or received- you'll know this person is alright and active.

Again, no pressure and no need to contact your 'friend' directly to see that all is well. Again, amazing!

I'm not going to go into the 'social circle' aspects of Facebook groups, which are equally engaging and provide many more social interactions and benefits, simply because I haven't gotten into that yet and because I sense it's turning into a means to organize people in certain directions, sometimes even commercial directions.

For now, anyone of us can just enjoy the simple pleasure of a few minutes of accepting an invitation from an old friend, possibly making a new friend, and communicating socially with people from the comfort of your computer desk.

If everything I knew and experienced about friendship in the past, before Facebook, can be called version 1.0, then it is clear to me that this new version 2.0 is a major, digitally-driven leap.

My vote goes to Friendship 1.0 plus 2.0 for a more complete and healthy relationship with friends old and new.

zanasser@gmail.com

Are WiFi routers a health hazard?

2007-04-25T13:07:00.000+03:00

With the proliferation of WiFi, it was only going to be a matter of time before health concerns regarding the electromagnetic fields created by WiFi networks would be discussed.

In the United Kingdom, in particular, parent organizations in schools and local health organizations have been questioning the effects WiFi waves may have on children.This is becoming more of an issue, and some parents have even gone as far as suing a school district over plans to install an always-on WiFi network.

At the moment, there isn’t a single study that suggests any harm whatsoever from WiFi networks. Parents, however, say that this is a new technology and it will need long-term studies spanning years to find out.

In the meantime, they want protection for their kids. Some small stories have been popping up in the press across Europe about teachers or workers claiming to have become sick because of WiFi.This follows years of concerns regarding the dangers of cellular electromagnetic fields (phones and towers), which have been studied extensively with mixed results.

At the moment, it is generally agreed that using a mobile phone for long periods can create headaches, possibly ear infections and generally cause a state of nausea for some users.

That’s why it is recommended to use ear pieces, two-way speakers and other solutions whereby you don’t put a phone against your ear for too long.

Accordingly, and due to the fact that WiFi is now becoming widespread - with every home, office and school soon having these WiFi waves flying around- it becomes important to launch scientific studies in the field.

The same people campaigning against mobile phone masts, are the ones suspecting the health impact of wireless computer networks. People defending WiFi say that a WiFi router is really small, use much less power, has a much shorter range, and gives off less radio frequency radiation than an average cell phone tower. Looking at this issue technically reveals that WiFi routers have a peak power output of 100 mW. Compared to most cellphones, which output around 2 W, its makes WiFi look tame.

So far, industry experts and engineers believe that children, and adults, will be perfectly fine in a WiFi covered area, even if they sat straight in front of the wireless router for extended periods.Every electrical appliance in our modern lives emits electromagnetic waves (radiation).

While schools are cracking down on WiFi routers, they’re allowing microwave ovens, cellphones, televisions, portable radios and other electrical devices that may also pose some undefined long-term risk.

Worrying isn’t it? Or maybe there’s nothing to worry about at all. Let’s see some studies that can tell us more. In the meantime, use every electrical gadget or wireless service with moderation and stay tuned!

zanasser@gmail.com

When you quit, who owns your email?

2007-04-18T11:39:00.000+03:00

When you get a job, you get an email address with it. You use that address mainly for work, but maybe also for personal communications.
When you leave, who owns those emails and who has the right to claim them? Is it your right to 'backup and leave'?

This is one of the most recent issues being raised by information-age workers, and it generates heated debate on IT website and employment blogs and forums.

On the one hand, anything you do at a company goes on that company's record and therefore is part of your employment history.

On the other hand, do you have the right to keep important communications and attached documents, maybe even secretive ones, when you are no longer associated with the company?
Isn't that the equivalent of opening a file cabinet at the office, making photocopies of your letters and important documents?

In the good old days, you couldn't do that, but now you can digitally.

Let's take a look at what happens when you leave a company.

You send an email to all contacts saying you are leaving, and that further communications maybe conducted with another colleague, then the IT Manager either automatically diverts every incoming email to this person or just backs-up your incoming messages and gives them to your department to review. Obviously, there's going to be loads of junk and several personal emails. Isn't that somewhat embarrassing?

Your former employer could scan for any interesting or revealing information.

And what about the personal messages you're not getting, aren't some of them important to you?

That's why it is advised that you only use your personal email (Gmail, Hotmail… etc) for 'personals' and never even use your company email when registering for a site or service. Simply, keep it professional.

Turning the tables on employers, are some voices now being raised about companies abusing your email address after you leave. By owning that address, the company may conduct communications in your name! In some cases, this could be a tool to discredit you or seek revenge for anything you've done.

I believe an employer who sticks to formal communications through his/her work email address, and who has done nothing wrong will never have a problem. And, feel an employer who realizes you’re professional enough and left the company on good terms, will not go fishing for info in your mail.

But, just imagine how many lawsuits and legal wrangles could emerge from this situation, if there is no clear legal procedure on who owns the email, what is allowed and what is not once you leave and so on.

As you can see, it's a messy and complex matter. Nowadays, as our lives go ‘fully electronic’ all kinds of questions will be asked, and the law has to step up to this new level of digital economy. n

zanasser@gmail.com

Protect YouTube, or ensure 'free' video sharing!

2007-03-14T12:03:00.000+02:00

For a couple of months, my evening entertainment source has not been TV or DVDs. Honestly it's just been YouTube, and sometimes Google Video!

It's just amazing; this "video on demand" revolution. I am a big fan of the 80s, my favorite decade, and YouTube provides me with videos of every song I fondly remember from back then, and videos of the songs I listened to but never saw.

That's exactly why copyright holders are suing YouTube!

Having lost me, and millions of other viewers, I understand that TV empires like Viacom (owners of MTV, VH1 ..etc) are very scared of YouTube.

YouTube is delivering 100 million vidoes a day to viewers, how much of that is intellectual property is not clear, but Viacom estimates that it has lost 1 Billion in revenues from YouTube so far. That's probably an exaggeration now, but might be true in the coming years.

Maybe they should learn from the lessons of the past, that no one can stop technology evolution and consumer choice.

Instead, they need to sign an agreement with YouTube, by which they could share advertising revenue for Viacom content, or use YouTube to show previews of their top shows and generate more interest in their stations!

Already, the BBC has such a deal, and it's promoting it latest shows.

But it seems that the problem with Viacom is that it owns music station properties, and its music programming (whether shows, interviews) isn't the same as a top rated series like Lost or Prison Break which users must tune into a TV station for. Inciddently, it seems that some of the music property holders like Sony BMG are fine with YouTube, and have signed deals.

There must be solutions. YouTube and other video sharing sites, including ones in the Arab World like Clipat and Ikbis, deserve to continue to serve customers with the freedom of comprehensive content.

YouTube, and its owner Google, have a responsibility as market leaders to sort out this mess, make peace with media companies and property rights owners, and lay the right foundations for this booming online video revolution.

I for one, will be thoroughly disappointed if I can't watch my 80s music videos, or clips of interviews with these artists, and clips from the greatest 80s TV shows in Britain which I could never see as a teenager here in Amman!

This case will set the legal precedent that could govern our digital entertainment in the future.

If Viacom and other TV empires allow free video viewing on their own sites, without a subscription fee, then all that will happen is that we'll move our viewing 'channel' from YouTube to Viacom.com and so on. But, what's the guarantee of that happening?

We should raise our voices to protect our right to free viewing. Let them make money off advertising. It should be interesting to see how this story ends.

zanasser@gmail.com

The legal battle for MP3!

2007-03-07T21:08:00.000+02:00

Did you know that there’s a legal battle regarding who owns the rights (patents) to MP3!

Imagine that a file-compression standard used to create billions of music files, circulating the globe through the Internet and sitting on millions of music players is owned by someone who wants money in return for your use, and money from the MP3 player manufacturers and everyone else involved!

Greedy, you may think. Well, according to international laws governing intellectual property rights, it’s the right of whoever created this technology to benefit from it, if it was patented (registered). Apparently, the problem is that several parties are claiming part-ownership of this music standard. And, as you would expect, a legal battle has been raging.

Like everything else being researched in today’s modern world, I first checked the Wikipedia entry for MP3. Here are some excepts of what I found.

“MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a popular digital audio encoding, lossy compression format, and algorithm, designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio. It was invented by a team of German engineers of the Fraunhofer Society, who worked in the framework of the EUREKA 147 DAB digital radio research program, and it became an ISO/IEC standard in 1991.”

Now, fast forward to what happened last week. “Microsoft got slapped with a massive $1.52 billion judgement for infringing on Lucent's patents related to MP3, but the issue of who owns the patent rights to MP3 isn't exactly clear. Microsoft thought it was in the clear since the company had licensed the MP3 codec from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute (members of which are pictured above), which bills itself as "the birthplace of MP3", but there are a bunch of companies which claim to have had at least something to do with creating the codec.”

Thomson, Philips, and Bell Labs (which was part of AT&T, but is now part of Alcatel-Lucent) all played a part. Not to mention Texas MP3 Technologies, which came out of nowhere to sue Apple, Samsung, and SanDisk recently. That’s quite a mess, isn’t it?

Apparently, the real problem is that MP3 evolved as a standard which builds on the work of earlier codecs and formats, so it's easy for a variety of different entities to legitimately lay claim to having some patents related to its creation.

So, what does this all mean, if and when a party, or a group of parties, are awarded the MP3 intellectual property? It means there’s a lot of money to be made by these people. Every MP3 music player manufacturer will pay fee, every seller of MP3 music files will pay annual fee or share of profits and you, the consumer, will be paying that added difference.

It’s sickening! This fiasco makes you admire Apple more, for using Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) instead of MP3 in its online music store (iTunes) and iPod devices. It’s also a better standard which delivers higher quality sound, but most importantly it’s clearly the intellectual property of Sony (no legal battles there) and AAC files and players are being sold to the public within reasonable pricing!

The MP3 standard must be similarly managed, but it’s anyone’s guess what will happen now. Let’s wait and see.

zanasser@gmail.com

Online meet-ups and break-ups!

2007-02-15T12:22:00.000+02:00

Whatever you think of Valentine's day, you have to admit it has become a marketing bonanza for sellers of chocolates, roses and assorted gifts; not to mention the sold out restaurants and entertainment outlets.

Like everything else in our lives, online communication has also been put to use, or even abuse, and hundreds of websites attempt to cash in on the occasion by selling the aforementioned items, or charging for 'valentine introductions', particularly social networks and matchmaking services.

Arabic sites have got in on the act, with Maktoob launching a valentine promotion every year, online matrimony services like Bint Al Halal or Qiran highlighting the occasion, in spite of the fact that they have a somewhat Islamic character to them and there's very little about Valentine that is Islamic!

There are, of course, Arabic valentine cards which will have been flying around the web throughout last week into mailboxes of young Arabians, especially in the Gulf among nationals who still face difficulties in communicating outside the virtual world.

But here's the most interesting development: text and voice chatting to meet, date and even breakup.Technology provides such a convenience for those who don't have the courage or access to speak face to face. Online is aided by mobile in this new era of digital relationships.

Relationships can begin and end online, with exchange of usually fake photos and images. One of the hottest topics of female-targeted sites and forums is the growing adoption of online to end relationships.

As you would expect, it's one of the hot mail-bashing topics. What's new about that? Men and women usually end a relationship by phone, so why is sending a text message or email so different!

An October survey commissioned by Samsung Telecommunications America reported that about 11 percent of Americans say breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend via text message is okay.

The study goes on to say that psychologists are concerned that avoiding confrontation may not be a good idea for the person delivering the message or for the receiver. The ability to face up to things is an integral part of maturing.

People grow when they face tricky or uncomfortable situations. It also shows a lack of respect for the other party, which can be quite damaging to that person's perception of his/her self image.

Technology is also used in the post-relationship phase, to seek revenge! Teenagers in the US are reporting that instant messaging and texting is used to harass ex-boyfriends and girlfriends and even worse things happen; such as the upload of embarrassing pictures, videos and messages on social networking sites and blogs!

So, there are now 'breakup help sites' to get you through the tough times, and ensure you don't go crazy! This is al becoming too silly, but it's part of the digital landscape we live in. Don't be surprised if your children or younger siblings are already 'e-valentining'. Soon, they'll be e-breaking up too!

zanasser@gmail.com