Category Archives: Technology

Love Translator App by The Mukhi Sisters

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[YouTube]

It’s no secret that men and women don’t always get each other. That’s why the Mukhi sisters have come up with a fun Valentine app that translates what women really mean. Men just type in what women are telling them and the app translates the sentence to “English”. In case Love Translator doesn’t return an answer, you could always suggest one with the help of your wife/fiancee/gf or just “Break the language barrier” and get a jewelry suggestion. I think that’s a pretty cool idea and I would love to see a compilation of the best suggested answers after a while.

Speaking of jewelry, I never understood why women or anyone for that sake love getting jewelry so much. Personally speaking, that’s like the worst gift I could get from anyone.

Born to an Indian father and a Lebanese mother, the Mukhi Sisters bring you the best of both worlds in contemporary jewelry pieces. Passion for jewelry was innate and inherited by their parents who have been renowned jewelers for years. Each their own design and their own personal touch, the Mukhi Sisters line of jewelry is sure to satisfy everyone’s tastes.

The app is available only on the iTunes Store. [Download]

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Google Buys Lebanese-American Tony Fadell’s Nest Labs For $3.2 Billion

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Most of you have heard of Google’s latest acquisition, but not all of you may know that a Lebanese-American is behind Nest Labs. His name is Tony Fadell and he’s mostly known for being the iPod ‘Godfather’ back when Apple decided to launch the famous music player.

Fadell is a brilliant Lebanese-American entrepreneur, inventor and designer. He was acknowledged in 2013 as one of Business Insider’s Top 75 Designers in Technology, Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People, and CNBC’s Top 50 Disruptors.

Read more about him [Here] and on why he decided to join Google [Here].

Google has expanded its presence in consumer homes by buying Nest Labs, a connected device company which makes smart thermostats and smoke detectors, for $3.2bn. The internet search giant announced an agreement to acquire Nest on Monday, signalling a deeper push into a new market of app-controlled household devices.

“They’re already delivering amazing products you can buy right now – thermostats that save energy and smoke/CO alarms that can help keep your family safe,” Google CEO Larry Page said in a statement. “We are excited to bring great experiences to more homes in more countries and fulfill their dreams!” Google’s stock increased 0.53% after the announcement. [TheGuardian]

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Nokia Lumia 1020

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I’ve been waiting for months to get my hands on the Nokia Lumia 1020 and it’s finally here. I love taking pictures and my Samsung S4 camera is one of the best I’ve used so far, but I doubt that it will match the 1020′s six-lens 41-megapixel PureView camera paired with a Xenon flash.

Stay tuned as I will be posting a full review next week. I will also be posting throughout the week pictures on my Instagram @LeNajib.

PS: Instagram is available for Windows Phones now. It’s called Instagram Beta.

Speed Ticket Lebanon Mobile App

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Note: The app is almost a year old but I only heard about it after reading some article about 600 speed tickets issued yesterday (I thought they stopped doing so)

There’s an app available for Android and iOS now to check speeding tickets in Lebanon. Speed Ticket Lebanon basically retrieves the data from the ISF website. To be honest, I thought radars stopped working in Lebanon months ago.

You can download it for [Android] and [iOS].

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Lebanese Entrepreneur Soulaiman Itani Launches A Google Glass Competitor: Atheer Lightweight 3D glasses

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The two advantages these glasses have over Google Glasses are that they are 3D and they are lighter. The Atheer One is scheduled to ship in the fourth quarter of 2014, while the ADK is expected to ship in the first quarter.

You can check out a demo [Here].

Move over, Google Glass. A Lebanese entrepreneur and his cofounder have just debuted a pair of wearable glasses that displays augmented reality in three dimensions as opposed to Google’s two.

The glasses, built by Soulaiman Itani and Allen Yang at Atheer Labs in Mountain View, bring fantasies to life, allowing wearers to exercise with virtual targets, conduct conferences calls while browsing data online, and play three dimensional games, thanks to hand sensors and an advanced algorithm.

Those who were wowed by Pranav Mistry’s TED Talk about Sixth Sense technology will likely go gaga for Atheer, which also offers a 65 degree field of view as opposed to Google’s 12 degree frame in the corner of one’s view.

Today, it’s available on Indiegogo, for only $350; all it’s missing is precognition.

With a lightweight design and integration with Android such that it runs any and all Android apps, the glasses are designed for the everyman, founder and CEO Itani explains. While Google’s SDK allows developers to build apps for Google Glass, Atheer allows the million or so existing Android apps to function already within its platform, without any further work. Yet the company also has a custom-built SDK for those Android developers who do want to take advantage of its 3D functions. This, Itani explains, allow users to create virtual objects that they can leave in their environment or send to another location. [Source]

Lebanon’s Roadie Tuner: A Great Tool For Guitarists

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Roadie Tuner is a device created by Lebanese entrepreneurs (Bassam Jalgha and Hassane Slaibi) and manufactured in China. The device is fixed on a guitar’s tuning knob and using bluetooth technology, the guitarist can read on his smartphone the sound as a string is plucked. According to Jalgha, “it is three times more accurate than what the human ear can distinguish in terms of frequency.”

The Roadie Tuner app is already available on iOS and the device will sell for $79 on their Kickstarter platform, and $69 for earlybirds, and should be delivered in six months.

If you are interested in reading more about it, check it out [Here].

Best of luck to both Bassam and Hassane!

Designed for guitars, or any similar stringed instrument, the handheld tuner works by fixing to a guitar’s tuning knob. Using Bluetooth technology, a user’s smartphone reads the sound as a string is plucked and the device’s motor turns the knob to the right tuning, which, Jalgha explains, is “three times more accurate than what the human ear can distinguish in terms of frequency.

The team will spend the next few months in the U.S. demonstrating the product at tradeshows – including CES in Las Vegas and The NAMM Show – and pitching in Silicon Valley, before returning to build their company between Lebanon and China. They are also currently securing new distribution channels and retail partners in the U.S.

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Thanks Abir!

Whatsapp Bulk Messages to Lebanese Mobile Numbers

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I got this email from a friend a couple of days ago and I remembered an old post I had written about “reporting harassing phone calls or text messages in Lebanon“. Even though the service provided by this marketing company is different from harassing texts and call, the common point is that someone has access to our numbers and we can’t do anything about it.

I don’t know if there are 4 million lines in Lebanon but where did that company get these numbers from? Who’s providing these lists and why aren’t the concerned parties doing anything about it?

As stated previously, there should be a hotline or website shared by the Police and Telecom ministry dedicated to reporting such issues, specially those related to harassment. Moreover, there should be a law that prohibits marketers from spamming us with messages without our prior approval.

Lebanese Ayah Bdeir Ranked 9th Sexiest Startup CEO Alive

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Ayah is the founder and CEO of Littlebits. She’s an MIT graduate and was also named number 33 on Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business for 2013.

You can check out the full list [Here].

Ayah Bdeir was 12 when her dad signed her up for programming lessons. The only problem: “I wanted to be an architect,” she says. Today, Bdeir has merged the two disciplines and created little­Bits, Lego sets for the 21st century that let tinkerers build their own electronics. Her neon-hued components snap together magnetically to form circuit boards, making it easy–and, more important, fun!–to construct anything from a remote-control car to an alarm clock to a talking puppet. LittleBits has caught on in the art and design worlds–this spring, New York’s Museum of Modern Art stores featured an installation of littleBits creations–and Bdeir envisions her kits as tools for proto­typing real products. “Everyone is creative,” she says, “and everyone is a techie.”

Here’s a small interview with Ayah where she talks about Littlebits.

Thanks Mustapha!

No Internet Outage In Lebanon Tomorrow

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Via @NicolaSehnaoui

As expected and stated earlier, it turned out to be “an over-exaggerated and politicized matter that will be resolved swiftly by the Telecom Ministry”.

Moreover, and as stated by Minister Sehnaoui, Lebanon was never under threat of loss of internet bandwidth as, since April 2013 we have full redundancy through the Qadmos/Alexandros cables.