There isn’t a child in this world that wouldn’t want to be the pilot of a fighter jet, especially when the plane is stealth plane. I remember the first stealth planes that were flown during the Gulf War, the F-117A, I couldn’t even forget its name and the way it looks. And now they have finally released the new F-35 Lightening II stealth fighter, which has been in development for a long time, and from the images it looks like Star Scream from the Transformers, with the same tattoo design across the body of the plane.

Link: Gizmodo

Mada Communications just announced Home Internet Services through WiMax based services. Previously Mada only dealt with Corporate services and clients and didn’t enter the home market, but as of yesterday they have a booth in Marina Mall selling this Modem. For 20 KD a month you get speeds UPTO 10 Mbps, meaning you can get up to that speed but not necessarily stay at that speed. If you sign up this week you can get this package without any Data Caps for the first three months and after that it will be a 20 GB per month Cap, and you don’t have to sign up for a year. After speaking to them they are thinking about putting packages together at a later point to help increase the 20GB cap, maybe for every 5KD extra you pay you get 20GB but that is just a debate at this point. I went to Marina and bought two of them, one for me and one for a friend who lives in Khaldiya. Honestly its pretty cheap and worth trying out to see what kind of download speeds we can get out of it.

This is supposed to be a plug and play system, you switch it on and it works right away. I switched it on by Fintas since that was my first stop and for some reason it didn’t connect. I had other stops throughout the day so I decided to take it with me and plug it in and try it where I go.

It has two Ethernet Ports and Two Telephone Ports for ISDN service which is to be introduced at a later stage. Its not a small device, its about the size of an iPad when you see it but I do like the simple design of it.

Where it worked well:

• Mishref
• Shamiya
• Kuwait City
• Qadsiya
• Dahyat Abdulla Al Salem

I got speeds varying from 5 to 8 MB Downloads, and 0.2 to 2.8 MB Uploads which is pretty decent. Overall WiMax technology has been around for a little while now but its still a bit unstable. Overall its an excellent service from Mada Communications and I hope they rethink their Data Cap strategy. I was testing using a direct ftp download to check on the speed fluctuations and it ranged from 500 Kbps to 1100 Kbps which is pretty impressive overall, the pings are bit high though so anyone using it for gaming would be annoyed. I like the service I just hope it doesn’t get too saturated and can support a larger number of customers. Also one note they are still not available by the shalaihaat so its still just within the initial areas within the main residential areas around each ring road start from the 6th ring road and heading towards the city. I’m still going to tweak it and mess around with it but overall its pretty good.

(I Hate Data Caps! So Much!)

Now this new phone has peaked my interest, I have always been a fan of Sony Ericsson but I feel like they haven’t gotten the smartphone formula down yet except when I saw the look of this phone and the specifications. Its a powerful phone inside a very thin sexy looking case and its running Gingerbread (Android 2.3), when they first launched the Xperia they launched it with Android 1.6, and Android 2.01 was out by then and they didn’t upgrade. SE makes great hardware but very slow to upgrade their software, this is where HTC excel, they keep updating your software and the phone just keeps on going.

Specifications:

• 8.7mm Thick
• The Arc comes with a 4.2” display
• GPS
• 8.3Mpix Camera
• HDMI Out
• 1GHz Snapdragon CPU
• Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

My phone life cycle started off with Nokia back in the early 90s, then switch to Ericsson (before the merger) in early 2000, then switching to Sony Ericsson, and just recently switched to Android with the Google Nexus first came out. Now this phone is making thinking of switching back to the Sony Ericsson platform but the best part is that its all Android and I won’t really won’t have to do much except sign in with my Google account and everything will sync automatically.

I was thinking of upgrading next year, it was probably going to be one of the HTC phones which are to be announced some time in February but the Xperia Arc is a definite candidate with its specifications and style, I just hope its released very soon.

Link: AkibaharaNews

At times certain ideas and designs are beyond financial justification, and the Concorde was that, an engineering feat. It was a beautiful machine, this shot shot was in 1988 at Heathrow Airport, a gathering of great machines. These planes surpassed all designs for almost a decade, they were beyond their time and spaceage looking, all they had to do was angle up and enter space. The supersonic form of this plane was unmatched, no one has yet to build a plane that could take so many at supersonic speeds. I remember flying on this plane twice in my lifetime, both to New York when I was very young, to New York in 3 hours and that is still unheard of. I even remember the Concorde Lounge at Heathrow Airport being a higher class then even first class, I consider myself lucky to have seen and flew on a technological marvel, not its a part of history but I hope that they come up with a plane such as this in the near future.

Link: Gizmodo

Recently I have been looking about making a major purchase, getting a decently large TV. I was looking at the Mitsubishi DLP Screens as I still believe in DLP technology for large screens. DLP Technology is still maintained by a few manufacturers and they have made huge strides over the years in getting better picture technology and quality into these types of screens, they are amazing, and beautiful to see but also big. If size and weight don’t matter to you then a DLP is your best option, if you want to hang a tv then LCDs or Plasmas are your only option.

In this case I went for a DLP but the choice was 3D or not, and the new one had a few new niftier options with better black. Having good blacks on a screen is very important to get a high picture quality and it was tempting me. But the same model Non-3D TV was almost 20% and it didn’t seen worth it to me, I would be saving at least 200-300 KD. And I honestly don’t see 3D as a deciding factor, its getting to be more an annoyance with those damn glasses. Until they invent TVs without the 3D Glasses I won’t be purchasing one any time soon. I think honestly consumers are getting annoyed with 3D more then anything else!

Scott Wilson is the designer behind the TikTok & LunaTik that has stormed the web the past month, every tech and designer website talking about it. It honestly deserves the fame just because of the unique and high quality design, it even appealed to me.

TikTok and LunaTik simply transform the iPod Nano into the world’s coolest multi-touch watches. The idea to use the Nano as a watch was an obvious one ever since the product was announced. But we wanted to create a collection that was well designed, engineered and manufactured from premium materials and that complemented the impeccable quality of Apple products. Not just clipped on a cheap strap as an afterthought. We wanted to create a product that your friends and strangers would stop you and ask “WTF is that??? And where can I get one?!”

That isn’t the only thing that got me interested, I clicked on the link and found myself at the TikTok+LunaTik Kickstarter page. This was an interesting experience, you pledge certain amount of money and you get a product or certain products all based on the amount you pledge, its like preordering the product at the price you choose based on the package you want. Turns out Kickstarter is a new concept which helps designers and product developers to get the income they need to make their product, its a unique and fantastic approach to connect the developers with the consumers. TikTok+LunaTik was an extremely successful result, the goal of the pledges was $15’000 but it shot past it up to $941,718 which is extremely alot more then they were expecting. I pledged $160 to get the TikTok & LunaTik, I honestly never really thought about the iPad Nano except after seeing this design, it would make it easier more me to put on a watch and listen to music while riding then to have it in my pocket. The design is genius and because of this design it urged me to get the Nano, so I think they have been successful in designing a product which would appeal to people and everyone loved it. I think that the Kickstarter Platform is fantastic and I’m looking at other products that they might have, it ranges from music to photography equipment, I’m enjoying seeing these interesting products.

Link: Kickstarter

Mac News:

• Mac will be launching their App Store this coming January 6, which is the same start of CES in Las Vegas which Apple doesn’t attend. Now its going to be interesting to see the type of Applications that will be sold and at what price.

Delicious

• The social bookmarking website will be shutting down soon, I know some of us have been using it for all your bookmarking needs but it seems that Yahoo is shutting it down since its not performing as they hoped it would, so they are dropping it. You can export your bookmarks to HTML and use another service.

You hear a lot of good things about big companies, especially tech companies but there is a lot of dirt to go around but very few talk about it. Well not as much as Valleywag, they are the TMZ of tech companies, they bother everyone, talk about their dirty theories and spread bad news like wildfire. It’s always good to know that Google and Apple aren’t the saints they try to portray, every company has its dirt and what every Steve Jobs has they bring it to light. They seem to love to talk about Mark Zuckerberg, the guy behind Facebook and all his dirty tricks and skeletons in the closet and how they have the new movie about them. They talk about HP and Oracle like it’s a big boys club, and the sex listings on Craigslist that has just shut down. Anything dirty on tech companies can be found at Valleywag and its always entertaining.

Gawker Media Sites, Gawker

Google, Craigslist, Mark Zuckerberg, Apple, Steve Jobs, Oracle, HP

Link: ValleyWag

My Blackberry Curve 8900 is reaching the end of its life, I have decided that I need to transfer to a new phone soon but first I have to back up the phone. First thing I did was plug it into my laptop with Desktop Manager install to back up all my contacts and details.

I plugged in the phone and left it to back up and left the computer for bit. I came back and it was stuck on “BB Groups” so I left it for another 30 minutes only to find it still stuck there. So I upgraded from Desktop Manager 5.0 to Desktop Manager 6.0 and tried it again and it got stuck again at “BB Groups”. I remembered a few times that I did a Back Up and Restore for a few people that their were issues restoring the BB Groups so I’m assuming that there still is some sort of issue.

The next step is to try to leave the BB Groups out of the back up which I will try with the advanced connection but I’m hoping that will solved the issue once I activate the other phone.

I think the only thing I have to do now is leave all the groups and then try the back up and restore again. I have about 10 groups in total so I just have to get reinvited to them once I’m done with the back up, I just hope that it is the issue and not something else, or then I’m not sure what to do.

“With no solution available and in the public interest … Blackberry Messenger, Blackberry E-mail and Blackberry Web-browsing services will be suspended until an acceptable solution can be developed and applied,” Telecommunications Regulatory Authority director-general Mohamed al-Ghanim said in a statement carried on state news agency WAM.

I was surprised as anyone else for UAE’s and Saudi’s announcement that they will be cutting off all Blackberry Service of all kinds. Meaning that even if you have a service from another provider from another country it will not work in the UAE or Saudi.

There were announcements a few months back that they were contemplating shutting down the service in Kuwait, but luckily they are too lazy to go through the politics to do it, and it would be an damage many of the telecom company’s bottom end.

They cite security reasons as the main reason not censorship, but the reality is that they have no control over Blackberry services what so ever when people use them. In reality it’s very difficult to figure out someone from their Blackberry PIN, and so they can broadcast msgs, send items to people without having it intercepted or scanned. Blackberry came on fire over the past two years in the MiddleEast, everybody wanted the service, and it really took off. But the authorities weren’t to happy, in Emirates they have a lockdown on communications of all sorts, but this one seemed to have slipped them and they aren’t too happy about it, and the same goes for Saudi.

Now for the real interesting part, last year there was a little debacle with Etisalat trying to install spyware on their handsets through a Blackberry software update. That was really the Spyware product of SS8 which can monitor communications of Blackberry, but it was removed by RIM the manufacturer of Blackberry and people were pissed. Now here is the little details they fail to mention, SS8 develops products such as these but they have to take license proprietary software from RIM to use it. SS8 is only licensed to sell the software in the US, Canada, and the UK which they have to the governments, and they aren’t licensed to sell in any other country including the Middle East, that is why they were pissed about the Etisalat debacle in 2009. So I think the tactic of Saudi and UAE are trying to put pressure on RIM to allow SS8 to sell in the Middle East or the service will be shut down and they will lose a large amount of revenue. I don’t know if they do or don’t block the service in a few months but its going to be a hell of a blow to RIM’s income.