#arab tech

Facebook blocked the use of "God's forgiveness" in arabic "استغفر الله العظيم" for a period of time before allowing the use again, the word is frequently used in the middle east, and it seams that Facebook's antispam filters have detected this word and a moderator disabled it's use without even knowing what it means.

 Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum the ruler of Dubai announced on his Facebook page that the UAE have decided to enter in the space race, and plans to send an Arab spaceship to Mars by 2021, the country will invest $ 5.5 billion in this project.

Today we announce two epic projects in our history: establishing UAE Space Agency and sending the first Arab spaceship to Mars by 2021. With investments already exceeding 20 billion dirhams, the agency will maximize the contribution of space industries to the national economy. The more than 60 million kilometer journey to Mars will mark UAE out as one of few countries with space programs to explore the Red Planet. Our region is a cradle of great civilizations. Given the right tools, Arabs, once again, can deliver new scientific contributions to humanity.

One of the main reasons of very few Arab startups is the lack of capital.

Saudi Arabia is taking a big step in the right direction!

Saudi Arabia’s government and Riyad bank (through it's investment arm Riyad Capital) plan to start a venture capital fund of $270 million to invest in new technology companies. 

Riyad Capital will manage the fund,  and Saudi Technology Development and Investment Co., a Public Investment Fund, will provide seed capital.

The target is advanced materials, sustainable energy, and information, communication and technology industries.

Domestic investments will be focused on technologies developed by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh

There will be investments in international companies that are relevant to Saudi.

Viber (recently sold to Rakuten for $0.9 billion) is big in Lebanon and throughout the Arab region, except the fact that Viber founder and CEO Talmon Marco was formerly the Chief Information Officer for the Israeli Defence Forces, the sworn enemy of most of the Arab states, including Lebanon. Even though, the Lebanese Telecommunications Ministry tried to ban Viber in an attempt to protects its citizens from Israeli espionage, and Viber being actually banned for a while in Saudi Arabia (but the Israeli startup found a way to bypass the ban).

The main reason why the Arab populations are OK with their data being shared with their sworn enemy is all about economics, for example in Lebanon mobile rates are around 30 cents per minute for calls and 10 cents per text. Free services like Viber and Whatsapp are saving everyday people a lot of money.

When asked about the Viber-IDF connection, Lebanese have an attitude similar to mainstream America when it comes to NSA espionage. "I am not doing anything wrong, why should i be worried?"

Dubai Rules announced the launch of a strategy to transform Dubai into the smart city of the future within 3 years, and that through transform of government services into smart digital services, accessible through smartphones.

The announcement mentioned smart transport, smart gardens,  internet coverage of public parks, in addition to implementing smart gadgets throughout the city, in addition to tons of smart services destined to tourists, residents though smart services related to security, tourism, shopping etc ...

the full announcement in Arabic by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum governor of Dubai is: 

The United Arab Emirates have just unblocked Skype, the VoIP application have been blocked in the middle eastern country for few years.

The move to unblock Microsoft's acquired VoIP services is a direct result to Microsoft decision to retire the MSN Messenger in favor of Skype.

Even-though Skype is now accessible, it will not have his most important functionality unblocked , UAE Skype users will not be able to use the application to call either mobile phones or land-line phones.