The excitement of what was on show was palpable, the buzz of new products and upgraded old versions impressive and a couple of celebs dazzled attendees with their presence. Mashable described the show as the beginning of the end of planned obsolescence.

These are some of the quirky gadgets and appliances presented at CES, amongst thousands of others:

Alternative power sources for your gadgets, such as ETON’s solar powered, blue tooth speaker system.

The iPad radio quality microphone from Blue Spark.

Karotz, the world’s smartest rabbit that updates your Twitter and Facebook status from anywhere, sends emails and reads texts fully integrating them into social networks, very cute.

Behringer iNuke’s boom sounder at 8 feet tall with 10 000 watts of sound, unbelievable.

Swivl your personal iphone hands free cameraman accessory.

Samsung’s Digital Appliances certainly impressed from the latest washer-dryer with a Smart Control system, allowing users to stay connected to the washer without having to manually control it at the machine, to their smart Refrigerators and Smart TVs.  I love the concept of having all our home devices talking to each other and being able to remotely control them all. And lets not forget LG and its smart appliances, the best part is their smart fridge with its shopping list feature.

And where does that leave the Google TV, well take a look here.

MakerBot showed off its latest 3D printer, the Replicator. It can print creations as big as a loaf of bread and is capable of printing more than one color at a time.

WiMM Watch, the Android 2.1-based watch offers a 160×160 touch screen and other than a watch, it is essentially a tiny Android computer running what WiMM lab calls Micro Apps.

Ion’s Apprentice Guitar, for those who want to rock, it transforms an iPad into a full-sized guitar to help teach new players how to play.

Tri Cascade introduced its smart home energy system with a smart thermostat that allows you to monitor and control your house’s energy consumption even when you’re not at home via the iPhone app.

Murata Boy is a 50 cm tall, 5 kilogram bot that balances and rides (forwards and backwards) on his fully functional bicycle and has everything from Bluetooth, to gyro-, ultrasonic- and shock sensors. Just for fun!

Miveu camera, this lens attaches to the iPhone with a custom ruggedized case, which incorporates a simple tactile shutter button allowing easy operation to snap away.

Worth a mention was Intel’s Social Cockpit Center, imagine an impressive space station control center, it had an Adobe-Air based desktop application that collected CES buzz on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and forums.  The Social Cockpit tracked not only hashtags, but specific topics, products and brands being discussed online. The data was updated each hour to give a sense of who was on top throughout the day, as well as a daily report to sum up social conversations.

These examples are just some of thousands that were presented, with so much to see, so much to do and so little time. Check everything that was on display at CES this year here.

The show centered around social aspects on almost all spheres. Consumers no longer just want to consume products, they want to be able to upgrade easily, have instant gratification and share their experiences. A music gadget, for example, isn’t just about playing an instrument — it’s about creating a new piece of music, learning how to play properly, sharing your progress with friends and doing it all in a way that makes you feel good about yourself.

The consumer electronics that will succeed in today’s market are the ones that stay in tune with the social needs and trends of its users, thereby empowering their experience.

To see the Best of CES 2012 Award Winners go here.

The Big Apple

2011 saw Apple continue its market dominance and passed Exxon Mobil as the world’s most valuable corporation, even with the death of its enigmatic leader. Everywhere you looked this year, Apple seemed to have the golden touch.

From the mobile market where Apple launched the new iPhone 4S with Siri, the voice controlled feature that everyone wanted, pulling in 40 percent of smartphone revenues, nearly 65 percent of the sector’s profits.

Through to the PC and iPad markets, with PC’s selling up to 13 percent of the market share and iPads a whopping 75 percent, nearly 50 million units by the end of the year. The pace didn’t slow down either with the launch of iCloud making device interconnectivity easier for the user, the iPhone and iPad’s increasingly downloaded Apps, with October seeing the 60 billionth song sold on iTunes, never mind opening more and more Apple stores worldwide.  Even in death Steve Jobs sells with his book being the number one best seller on Amazon for 2011. While the company is at the top of its game, one wonders whether this will carry through into 2012 with the loss of their charismatic, volatile, mercurial, creative genius? Jobs was driven to seek perfection in his company’s products through simplicity, and ease of use through elegant design both inside and out, will Apple manage to continue this trend?

The Android Phenomenon

August 2011 saw Google’s Android capturing 48 percent of the smartphone market, according to the Canalys Report.  Successful Android-based products include vendors such as Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, ZTE and Huawei, as catalysts for the platform’s growth. The market gap between the Apple and Android tablets is slowly closing, in 2010 the market share was 83.9 to 14.2 percent respectively, while a small percentage sat with other vendors. However in 2011 this gap is now 68.7 to 19.9 percent, respectively. Will Android begin to dominate the market share in 2012? Projections from Gartner show that by 2015 the market share will be 47.1 to 38.6 percent, so watch this space.

The Social Networking Boom

Wikileaks began the year with revelations about the US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, then the information on what American Diplomats had been writing home about was revealed. The Arab Spring made the world aware of just how powerful, on the political front, social networking and mobile devices could actually be. With demonstrators holding up placards with Twitter hashtags in Tahrir Square starting the online media frenzy of information, then came the Tunisian conflict, with the government initially not realizing the significance of Facebook or Twitter and Mubarak’s complete internet shut down once they did. With some hackers setting up a “phone to tweet” system enabling Eygptian’s to dial an international number and record a message that was then broadcast as a tweet.  But every disconnected day meant a loss of millions of dollars in revenue for those running businesses there, with most just happening to be some of Mubarak’s Generals, so the country hastily rejoined the networked world.  Lybia saw similar media frenzies with ordinary people on the street sending through messages, videos and blogging about their ordeals, with Gadhaffi’s final moments being recorded and broadcast with a mobile phone. The Syrian conflict continues and moments in history are being broadcast live across the world via social media streaming. When we think back to wars lost and won and how initially media correspondents would put themselves in harms way bringing us broadcasts via satellite phones, then we would watch in horror at live broadcasts via satellite and now we are witnessing, not via the press, but the everyday people on the streets involved in these conflicts “then and there” via modern communication tools. Our perspective on war, on the people (not the soldiers or politicians), on the destruction, has changed and the truths behind these events can no longer be hidden as in the past.

The Facebook phenomenon continues, starting the year with 500 million users and finishing with over 800 million, it is the worlds largest social

network. Every day, Facebook users comment or press the “like” button more than 2 billion times and upload more than 250 million photos. Analysts estimate that the network’s users post 30 billion pieces of content every month. However, it has brought to the forefront the issue of privacy and just how much information users do not know is out there about themselves.  Facebook’s policies, more than any others, seem to be driving the discussion of privacy in this new age. And so it should be, with new features such as the Timeline, where all your information will be available from birth to date, to sharing exactly what you are doing at a specific moment in time with your friends, very little will be left to the imagination about your life. As Facebook prepares for a much-anticipated public offering, which could come in the spring of 2012, the company is eager to show off its momentum by building on its huge membership.

The Paperless eBooks

eBooks have certainly also introduced us to a paperless more environmentally friendly format to reading books.  Many are not fans yet, but when you think of just how many trees can be saved along the way with the Amazon Kindle or downloadable books for the iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and other tablet devices, then not paging through a book makes a lot of sense. With smaller thinner versions of these in design, the idea of carrying a small light weight device is much more appealing than a big hefty book which will be discarded or gather shelf dust. Easy to download, read what you want when you want, add audio recordings, visuals and the movie of the book, the idea of eBooks becomes extremely appealing.

2011 can be defined as one of the most interesting technological years, will 2012 hold as many new advancements for us?  I don’t think the pace is going to slow down, if anything it will grow more frenzied, with more to watch, read and participate in.

What defined 2011 for you in our ever changing ICT world?

1.  Are you a musician in the making, then you will want to look at the ultra-compact device that connects any MIDI compatible device to the iPhone®, iPod touch® and iPad®?  Then the iRig MIDI should be on your list. It is a standard Core MIDI interface for iOS and connects MIDI keyboards, drum machines, drum pads, pedal boards and more to an iOS device to control a world of MIDI-compatible apps such as GarageBand®. Included is the SampleTank for FREE* and added to this you can also use iOS apps to control external MIDI equipment such as sound modules, DAWs or lighting systems right from the mobile device.

2. The iPhone 4S or the Samsung Galaxy S2, when you are torn between Apple and Android. When you have all the Apple toys, logic tells you to stay with all the i products for consistency, the problem being that you are then locked into Apple apps. The thought of breaking loose is highly tempting and may just be what sways you when you see all the android apps that are available to download.

3. If you don’t own a tablet, then this is the time to go out there and take the plunge. Once you have one, you will never look back. It is convenient to carry around, has wifi and mobile connectivity, with access to the internet, email and social media accounts, you can get work done quickly and efficiently, never mind all the apps you can download to play games, read books, newspapers and they all come in a variety of sizes. For some tablet comparisons go here.

4. So how about a watch that not only tells the time, but also receives calls, sms’ and emails right to your wrist. Not only that you can surf the net, watch the news and look at your photos via a tool which connects design and technology together. This is like having your smartphone on your wrist. Perhaps a bit bulky for tiny wrists (I am sure they will eventually come up with a better more elegant design) but convenient for sure, i’m smartwatch, the complete interconnection of all digital devices.

5. Apple TV “Now there’s always something good on TV”, blockbuster movies, TV Shows, your music and movies, even news and sport.  You can choose what you want to watch when you want to watch, have a look at Apples TV Instant Entertainment here.

6. Kindle Fire, with 8 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, thousands of popular apps and games, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Pandora. The Kindle has ultra-fast web browsing with Amazon Silk, free cloud storage for all your Amazon content, vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle, a fast, and a powerful dual-core processor to view all your favorite children’s books, graphic novels, and magazines in rich color. Why would this not be on your list?

7. The Aldebaran Robotics Nao Robot

It also boasts the first ATP World Tennis Tournament of the year in January each year, the Tour of Qatar cycling event, and numerous football, rugby, gymnastics and athletics meets throughout the year, to name a few.

Yet there has been a vast amount of press in recent weeks surrounding Qatar and the health issues that it faces. References to the nation being one of the most obese in the world, with roughly half the adults and a third of the children suffering from this problem. Added to this, 17% of Qataris also battle with diabetes, resulting in further medical complications down the line.  The nations economic explosion, having recently become the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas, has been blamed for changes in lifestyle and eating habits.

What has any of this got to do with technology? Being an avid exercise freak and always watching what I eat, I started wondering how much Qatar and our technologically advanced world offers online and I was quite amazed at just how much is out there to help to change an unhealthy lifestyle.

Lets take a look at all the great FREE APPS that are now available to download to assist in healthier lifestyle initiatives, here are the top ten from Mashable:

1. LIVESTRONG.com, Lance Armstrong’s health and fitness website has this handy free app to track and look up your daily caloric, fat, carbohydrate and protein intake, Calorie Tracker.

2. The weight management app allows you to set goals, create a daily calorie budget, record food and exercise, and view graphs of your progress.

3. The 40·30·30 app allows you to ensure you are getting the right nutritional balance, it will really come in handy if you need to quickly calculate the percentage of carbs, protein, and fats in your meal.

4. The iPump app, has 4000+ images and videos and 400+ workouts, on top of that it has its own drag and drop workout builder for you to create your own workouts, all in one app. .

5. The BMI Calculator will give you key information for setting or optimizing your fitness goals. And it should work for all but the most muscular of bodies.

6. If music is your ideal motivator, try Nike BOOM. This app syncs your music to your workouts and throws in some audio-visual motivation from pro coaches and athletes along the way.

7. If your day could use some deep breathing and flexibility, try Pocket Yoga, which packs 145 poses in the palm of your hand. You can choose from three different practices, difficulty levels and durations for a total of 27 sessions. Namaste!

8. If you spend a lot of time on the road for work or pleasure, it means time for you to forget about your workout. CrossFit Travel comes to the rescue with an impressive list of exercises that can be done in a hotel room or other small spaces.

9. For more serious bodybuilders, this is the app for the muscle-bound. JEFIT Pro is a highly-rated app to help you track your progress, time your workouts, and beat your own records, all without the hassle of pen or paper.

10. For tracking just how much fat your body is burning, we suggest an app like Instant Heart Rate. It shows your heart rate measurements, a real-time PPG graph and your heart-rate history.

And what about the fun techie equipment you can buy to assist you with your new exercise and eating routine?

Exercise equipment is in abundance in every sport shop in the malls here, especially if you prefer to exercise at home.

Fun assistive equipment for exercise routines include the purchase of the Nike + iPod personal trainer, and how about including an odometer – check these little helpers out for walking or running, some have a GPS system to show routes you could run/walk and the distance and calories burnt, plus heart rate monitors to ensure you are staying within your correct heart rate limit for fat burning.

Qatar itself has plenty of online local programs and companies to assist those requiring help to start or continue with a healthy lifestyle program, these are some of the sites that I found:

Slim and Lite, I loved that I could check out my Body Mass Index (BMI) on this site as well as my Waist/Hip ratio, which can determine whether you have a higher risk of contracting chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases, strokes, etc.  Plus much more….

The Art of Abundant Living, is an all encompassing website from Corporate programs to Individual coaching on health and lifestyle, nutrition, physical fitness, stress management (another cause of diabetes), work/life balance, and so on.

The Qatar Diabetes Association gives insight into the disease with community initiatives and workshops. With 17% of nationals, excluding the expat community which would increase that percentage. diabetes is an increasing epidemic which needs to be controlled. Having a mother that suffers from the disease, I have been exposed to the constant blood testing and injections that can occur up to 3 – 6 times a day. The bruising that can be found all over the fattier areas of the body, the constant swings in blood sugar levels, the numbness that occur in the feet and hands and having to be constantly aware of what to do if she collapses, it is a frightening disease and one we have to learn to control.

The Greenbox provides an online method of ordering fresh, convenient varieties of premium quality organic goat cheese, organic or regular fruit and vegetables and poultry. I liked the fact that you could buy organic foods via this site and that all fruit and vegetables that are imported are seasonal, so there is no “artificial manufacturing” occurring.

Qatar Living includes a section on Clinics and Health Centers in Qatar for quick reference.

The Government has also taken the initiative to enlighten communities on healthcare, here are some of their informative sites:

Qatar Embassy on Health

Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health

Hamad Medical Corporation

Exercising in Doha may have its limits in the summer months when wanting to enjoy the outdoors, but facilities now abound. Firstly, in the cooler winter months there is the Corniche, which allows for great walking and running, and they have included gym exercise machines close to the Olympic Oryx, which can be utilized.

Hotel Health and Fitness Centers are in abundance with separate facilities and classes for both men and women, schedules are easily accessible online with yearly membership, see below for a few options:

Sharq Village and Spa

The Ritz Carlton Hotel

Sheraton Hotel

Four Seasons Hotel

The Grand Hyatt

Private gym membership is also available more readily in Doha now:

Aspire Active

Fitness First

Yama Yoga

Villagio Gym at Villagio Mall, unfortunately no website yet which was disappointing

It just takes time to look and find this information online, but it is all there for the picking and if you are concerned about your weight and ensuring that you stay fit and healthy take the time to get to grips with what your body needs and avoid the obesity and diabetes trap.

When it comes to staying healthy, online facilities and techie equipment have made our lives so much easier. So as a nation, lets get those couch potato bodies into the zumba pumping, yoga stretching, body rocking, dumbbell pushing swing of things.

Everything’s changed. And privacy will keep changing just as the way we access and use data is. ictQATAR recently held its latest “Connected Speakers” event, which featured Jules Polonetsky, Director and Chair of the Future of Privacy Forum. Jules spoke to ictQATAR about how social media, mobile and online advertising are changing the future of privacy.

Check out this video interview to know more about what tomorrow’s privacy will be like:

How do you go about choosing the right mobile? The variety is overwhelming and the market is saturated with choice. Name brands such as Nokia, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson, and of course Blackberry, iPhone and Google Samsung Nexus, flood the marketplace.  Then there are all the discussions of smart phone, android capabilities and app offerings. This just increases the anxiety on which option to choose, what each can offer, and why one would be better than the next.

Which are the must-have handsets for the end of 2011.

The choice is overwhelming. The solution personal. You need to decide what functionality is going to satisfy your hunger for technology, and how much you want your phone to be working for you.

The iPhone may have been the hankered over mobile but the Android is fast becoming the preferred instrument of choice and where does that leave the Blackberry?

Here are 5 little tastes of what you can find out there.

Samsung Galaxy SII

Vivid, Fast, Slim

The Samsung Galaxy S II with its ultra slim profile is strikingly styled.  It has an excellent 4.3 inch Super AMOLED plus touch screen which delivers brilliant display colors and high contrast ratios which ultimately results in a sharper image. The 1.2GHz dual-core application processor provides high-speed multitasking, quick web page loading, fast image editing and high performance gaming. The 8 megapixel camera and the1080p full HD video functionality allow for stunningly high quality photo and video images. The phone includes a secondary front-facing camera for quick self-portraits and video calls. Plus impressive further image-enhancing capabilities such as autofocus, LED Flash, face and smile detection and touch concentrate make for stunningly high quality images. The Samsung Voice Solution – Say N Go allows the user to execute major functions on the phone.  The phone includes Hubs for social media, music, books and games, while the customized Live Panel allows easy access for users to see personalized content. The Samsung Galaxy S II excels at all it sets out to achieve and is one of the sort after Android phones on the market at the moment.

Look out in November for the Ice Cream Sandwich Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

HTC Sensation

A mulitmedia superphone

HTC’s  slogan “quietly brilliant” could not be more appropriate. Its latest offerings of the Sensation range — Wildfire S, Desire S and Incredible S have established it as one of the popular mobile phones on offer. Powered by a 1.2 GHz dual core processor this little baby is a superphone with a powerful fast performance. Apps start up instantly, there is seamless switching between music, downloading email and surfing visually rich websites making this phone easy to use. The instant capture camera is what caught my eye, the moment you push the button is the moment the picture is captured, no trying to switch between functionality or find your camera on your phone. It is instantaneous. It also has multi-window browsing for easy web surfing, an active lockscreen, and immersive experiences where you can wipe away the raindrops when viewing the weather.  For its solid premium look and feel it features a unibody aluminium construction with protection from grit and sand when facedown and the qHD widescreen display allows for excellent screen viewing. With its offering of Hollywood blockbusters, watching on your phone has become so much easier, after making your selection you can and start watching the show seconds into the download. The DLNA allows you to share videos and photos to your big screen TV wirelessly as well as connect to your Wi-Fi printer to easily print photos, documents and web pages. This is a phone to watch.

Nokia N9

Connecting People

Nokia’s trendy new look and feel is exceptionally bold, with excellent touch screen responsiveness and nifty “swiping” features. This is the first MeeGo 1.2 (Harmattan) OS-based device by Nokia.  The screen sports a 3.9 inch FWVGA curved AMOLED, scratch resistant glass and has a smooth, high quality plastic exterior. It has, like many other phones, included the swiping feature but with three main views. The familiar App View, the Open App View where you can jump from one app to another and the Events View for all your social networking sites. These Views make it easy to swipe from one app to another, quickly and effortlessly. The camera is a pleasure to use, with Carl Ziess optics it takes great shots and films in high definition.  The wide-angled lens is also a bonus, just tap to focus and shoot. It comes with instant share online and just by touching another NFC-enabled phone you can share with those around you.  Nokia has included fast, responsive, effortless browsing and with HTML 5 support you get the best of the web, with rich apps and fast video playback, while having multiple pages open and moving between them. The battery is non-removable and therefore has no expandable storage capability. While snazzy looking with easy functionality, there is nothing groundbreaking that I could pinpoint about the N9.

BlackBerry® Torch™ 9810

Act on Inspiration

The Blackberry Torch 9810 is classic Blackberry, it is a smooth, attractively efficient design on the original.  With its all in one design, a fluid touch screen display, optical trackpad plus the slide-out QWERTY keyboard the Blackberry Torch 9810 makes for easy typing.  The 1.2GHz processor allows for faster browsing, networking, socializing and gaming.   The Liquid Graphics™ technology creates an even more vivid experience with fluid animations, instant response times and stunning graphics. Although it only has a 5 megapixel camera, this is made up with the added functionality of the 4x digital zoom, continuous autofocus, face detection, image stabilization, geo-tagging, a multiple picture-taking mode and zero shutter lag. The video camera is much of a muchness with other smartphones, but with the device supporting HTML5 video, it provides a super fast, seamless loading, scrolling and zooming experience. The Blackberry 9810 is a great multi-tasker with easy switching modes between email, messages and social media, with notifications still coming through. The next generation BBM™ features are now built into many of the apps allowing the user to share and chat to friends while still using the open app, so you can share more information instantly. One of the most exciting features on the 9810 is Blackberry’s support of Augmented Reality² via the Wikitude World Browser this allows the surrounding real world information to become interactive. You can check to see which BBM™ friends are nearby, read reviews on restaurants you have just passed or get a story behind an interesting landmark.  There are endless possibilities.

iPhone 4S

It’s the most amazing iPhone yet

The iPhone 4S has everything the iPhone 4 delivers to you, just more. The new Retina display is the highest-resolution screen ever, you get absorbed in the smooth pixel density, with crisp text, sharp graphics and stunning images. The camera has 3 more pixels than the last phone, but of significant mention are the addition of the lenses (up to five) and the custom lens with a wider aperture. Naturally, all these additions allow for larger, truer color and improved resolution images, even in poor light. The dual-core A5 chip makes the iPhone 4S the most powerful of the iPhones to date, it is quick and responsive when launching apps, browsing the web, social networking or playing games. Actually for gaming it pushes the graphics up to seven times faster than previous iPhones, leaving the games running smoother and feeling even more realistic.  iOS is one of the most advanced, easy to use mobile operating systems and the iOS5 brings over 200 new features to this phone. These include Siri – the intelligent assistant, Siri will make your phone calls, send messages, schedule meetings, set reminders and a whole lot more with your voice commands. iCloud allows all your content to be on all your devices, it manages and stores your music, photos, apps, mail, contacts, calendars, documents and more. With iMessage you get unlimited free MMS and SMS with anyone else using iOS 5, Facetime calls allow you to speak to those that have the iPhone, iPad2, iPod touch or Mac over WiFi, while Airplay wirelessly streams what’s on your iPhone to your HDTV and speakers via Apple TV, and the AirPrint will print your email, photos, web pages and documents from your iPhone. It is the first phone to intelligently switch between two antennas to transmit and receive, so call quality is better. The biggest downfall of owning an iPhone is for all the wonderful inter device functionality, they all have to be Apple. Should you wait for the iPhone 5, you’ll have to wait a little longer to find out.

Download Mobile Comparison of the 5 phones above.

Personally I have always preferred a Nokia device. I once deviated to the Samsung and after being sorely disappointed with the battery lifespan once again moved back to Nokia.  I am excited about all the new options and although I have fallen in love with my MacBook Pro, iPod and iPad and would consider the iPhone, there is that little device called the Samsung Galaxy Nexus that keeps catching my eye.  What will your choice be?

Howcast, which was launched in 2008 (how am I just discovering it?), features generally short, instructional videos that cover more than 25 broad categories, such as business, finance, health, media, first aid, nutrition, parenting, technology and travel. You can discover how to do just about anything on this site. Many of the videos are done in a light, comical manner, however there are plenty of serious videos that are incredibly informative. Many of the videos also include useful written instructions to support the video as well. Scrolling through these how to videos is actually a bit addictive – you’ve been warned.

The Howcast Homepage

Beyond being beneficial for the user, the “how to” video also has great marketing potential for businesses. Do you own a craft store? Well then why not do a video on how to make felt snowmen? Are you a social media consultant? Why not do a series on how to attract fans or followers on social media to show your expertise and drive new business leads? There is likely a video angle for just about any business you are in.

Howcast makes it very easy to virally share the videos and also has a solid mobile platform, meaning you can learn how to do something wherever you are. This could prove particularly helpful if you need to change a tire when stranded in the middle of nowhere or if you need to figure out quickly how to survive a bear attack (yes there is a video for that!). To get you started in your learning, check out the following video on how to juggle three balls.

CC Image rights : acaben

RIP Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

Wednesday 5 October 2011, the world lost an icon, a man of vision, creativity and innovation.

Steve Jobs  new his time was limited, in August, when he stepped down from his position as CEO of Apple, I don’t think the world new just how soon he would be taken.  On his resignation he said: “I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.” “I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”

About Steve Jobs:

Steve Jobs was the Chairman of the Board of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976.
Steve also co-founded and was the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, which created some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time including Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille. Pixar merged with The Walt Disney Company in 2006 and Steve now serves on Disney’s board of directors.
Steve grew up in the apricot orchards which later became known as Silicon Valley, and still lived there with his family.

Apple released the following statement:

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today. Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

 The front page of Apple.com contains a picture of the late Steve Jobs, and the second page a tribute to the industry leader by Apple CEO Tim Cook:

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being.

Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor.  Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

 He went on to say that Apple are planning a celebration of Steve’s extraordinary life for Apple employees and if the public would like to share thoughts, memories and condolences in the interim, they could email these to mailto:rememberingsteve@apple.com.

Steve Job’s Stanford Commencement Speech in 2005 included the following statement that always inspires me to try that little bit harder, ““If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”

Barack Obama’s statement sums it up,  ”Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.”

You’d expect this to be a cliché session where speakers would just share stats about online risks, or call for protecting children against cyber threats. But the session actually turned out to be a real debate on the definition of online vulnerability and the types of online risks that could actually take place with participants sharing their experiences from all around the world.

Mina from ictQATAR and Sami from Mada at the Internet Governance Forum

So who’s “vulnerable”? That’s the key question. Is it just kids who don’t have the full awareness of how to use the Internet safely or is it the digitally illiterate who are not yet familiar with how to properly use the Internet? Dr. Vicky Nash, from Oxford University, one of the workshop speakers, gave us a more realistic, less stereo-typed view when she defined online vulnerability as mainly a behavioral and not a demographic characteristic. Interesting and unexpected! I even intervened in the workshop and supported the idea and spoke to the participants on how children in Qatar are very web savvy and that there’s always this misconception that kids are vulnerable users whereas they actually now how to crack and hack websites so it’s actually parents who are the most vulnerable.

So how is online vulnerability a behavioral characteristic? Groups identified the most vulnerable, as per Oxford studies, as primarily those who are cognitively or behaviorally unable to use the Internet safely. That could be any one of us – be it adults or teens or the elderly. Persons with learning disabilities are also vulnerable, since their cognitive abilities may not allow them to grasp how to best use certain websites or process certain information parts of a website.

The best way to understand online vulnerability is to look at that model prepared by researcher Sonia Livingstone, that was intensely discussed at the workshop. It’s a simple model that classifies online vulnerability into 3 Cs!

• Content
• Contact
• Conduct

So basically, it’s what you do or what you read online that makes you or others vulnerable depending on how you act on that content or how you behave with others online. Content vulnerability is primarily commercial, aggressive or sexual content that has negative, biased, immoral or misleading values that manipulates vulnerable users (such as porn sites, deceptive ads,.etc.).

Contact vulnerability is basically any type of user interaction with others who may harm him/her either personally or informationally. How is that? Tracking websites that steals your personal information without prior consent is an example. Cyber stalking or bullying behaviors is definitely included as a form of vulnerability. Conduct is the most dangerous form of online vulnerability, where a person takes an active role in harming other vulnerable users for different psychological reasons, be it self-esteem or proving oneself. So, a person hacking a website just to show how web savvy he is to his friends is actually taking an active role by engaging in a behavior that exploits the vulnerability of others!

It’s these forms of online risks (or vulnerabilities) that really show that vulnerability is primarily behavioral. We could all be victims of content/conduct/contact vulnerabilities. It’s how well aware we are, and what we do that determines how safe we will be in cyber space. So perhaps you’d need to think twice before looking at children as the only vulnerable groups online

To me, as a marketer, mobile is one of the most promising forms of media with near limitless opportunities for integration. Mobile devices – tablet PCs, PDAs, especially cell phones – are always available, and this alone makes it a marketing opportunity unlike any other, not to mention ubiquitous Internet connectivity, built-in payment mechanisms and opportunities for gamification.

More than 33% of Qatar’s mobile subscribers have smartphones, giving marketers a go at reaching these people at the most relevant places with feature rich content. You are interacting with consumers at the point of decision, giving promotion the whole new meaning. Imagine receiving a 25% off mobile coupon for Unilever’s CloseUp while shopping for toothpaste at a local grocery store and being able to see how this product rates with other customers? It’s a win-win situation for everybody – consumers get relevant and timely information and marketers benefit from a sense of immediacy that encourages dialogue with their customers.

Mobile Applications
There are countless ways of how to integrate mobile into your already existing marketing mix – text messaging, apps, mobile search, mCRM, and proximity based marketing being just some of them. Today, I would like to focus on mobile applications. It seems like everyone has an app these days – artists, celebrities, schools, governments, and even events – hundreds of thousands of apps are already available on app stores like iTunes and Android Market, increasingly becoming a staple of digital media, thanks in large part to the ease of purchasing experience with just a tap. However, some businesses perceive building their own apps as something that is overly complex and expensive. The reality is — you don’t have to have a monster budget in order to build your own application. Companies like Mobile Roadie make it affordable to build an app from scratch for about $500.

Abed Agha, who manages Mobile Roadie’s MENA business is enthusiastic about customers’ interest in developing applications in Arabic. So far, Myriam Fares, a popular Lebanese singer, Al Alan TV, MBC FM, as well as Ittihad Jeddah, a Saudi football club, are just some of the regional customers that have kept on top of the mobile trends and successfully launched apps to connect with their fans in a whole new way. Not only these brands are keeping their audience engaged using bells and whistles like location based notifications and QR codes, but also fans can easily forward messages and update each other, making the whole experience a lot more personal and viral.

Check out this introductory video available in both Arabic and English:
 

“Making apps interactive and social is very relevant in MENA, more so than any other part in the world and our usage data confirms that,” says Agha. “We have added a whole set of gamification elements like leaderboards for most active users, earning points, unlocking customizable badges, and other ways to encourage users to share and interact with content, and our regional users love that.”

Localization of mobile apps is pretty straightforward as well. “Once the app is developed, it detects the user’s language settings and accordingly provides the appropriate language as far as the User Interface goes,” says Agha. “Therefore, if you load your content in Arabic and the user has his phone set to Arabic, everything will show in that language.” Additionally, it is possible to rename the app sections to Arabic words, where even English users will see an Arabic application. It’s that easy.

If you are still not convinced about building your own application, you can sponsor one. There are ad networks such as AdMob, InMobi and Jumptap that will allow you to run ads within applications Whether it’s building your own app or sponsoring one, marketers today cannot afford missing out on mobile.

What is your experience with mobile marketing? If you could build an app, what would it be?