Emaar announces sponsorship of Microsoft Imagine Cup UAE 2017

Global developer Emaar Properties today announced its sponsorship of the Microsoft UAE Imagine Cup 2017 student competition, which will hold its regional heats in April this year.

The partnership with Microsoft Gulf reflects Emaar’s focus on nurturing the next generation of talent, adopting innovating technologies and supporting the innovation environment of the UAE to bring far-reaching benefits to the nation.

The year-long Imagine Cup debuted in 2003 and remains the world’s largest student competition. This year the contest is no longer bound by categories, inviting viable technology solutions of every type, from every field. The only requirements for participating teams are that their submitted solutions can run on the Azure cloud and demonstrate the potential for digital transformation.

Imagine Cup 2017 starts with local and online contests held in more than 100 countries, with expert judging panels selecting the most promising ideas. Successful teams will then embark on an all-expenses-paid trip to the World Finals, where the winner takes away a $100,000 cash prize.

Veresh Sita, Chief Digital Officer for Emaar Properties, said: “Nurturing the next generation is a strategic priority at Emaar, which ensures that we are the cutting edge of technology and in creating long-term value for our company and to the community. Through our support to Microsoft on UAE Imagine Cup 2017, we are encouraging new and talent innovators, who will bring us the next advancements in technology.”

Microsoft will conduct an Imagine Cup roadshow in February and March, making stops at leading UAE universities. The presentations are expected to create awareness among students and encourage participation in the competition; with ideas that will fuel UAE’s vision for smart cities. Interested students will be able to attend intensive training sessions to prepare them for how to submit their ideas. The sessions will cover contest rules and criteria, and walk competitors through the processes of conceptualisation, design, development and testing, which help lead to the most viable solutions. The cash prize awards for this year’s competition will be; $15,000 for first, $10,000 for second, and $7,000 for third place winners.

“The premise of the Imagine Cup is that many technology platforms now taken for granted began as student projects,” said Samer Abu Ltaif, Regional General Manager, Microsoft Gulf. “Microsoft YouthSpark initiative, of which Imagine Cup is a part, was founded to seek out the brightest innovators on the planet, nurture them, and help them achieve more. It is a value we share with Emaar, and that is why it is so exciting to partner with them on UAE Imagine Cup 2017.”

The Microsoft YouthSpark initiative, including Imagine Cup, is designed to create an avenue for young entrepreneurs and innovators in bringing their ideas to market. Programmes help students to harness their creativity, generate ideas, collaborate on technology applications and develop clear business plans, using the latest tools and services.

The Imagine Cup in UAE is expected to reach over 5,000 students via online campaigns and offline roadshows in universities across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah. The Pan-Arab Finals 2017 will be held in April, with worldwide finals in July.

Etisalat Introduces iPhone Upgrade Program In The UAE

iPhone Upgrade Program UAE

When Apple introduced the iPhone upgrade program last year, many people weren’t that impressed with it. But then this year when Apple announced the iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus and announced the members of the upgrade program would get it for free, many people regretted not subscribing to it. Then Apple announced that they’re expanding the program to more countries. Hopes mounted up again and went down instantly when the expansion was only to two countries the UK and China.

Lucky for the people of UAE, the biggest carrier in the country has announced the program exclusively to its customers. And the best part is that the program comes for free. That’s right!!

All you need to do is subscribe one of Etisalat’s 18 month or 24 month contract with the new iPhone 7 or 7 Plus and then receive a new iPhone absolutely for free after 12 months. This means the next iPhone comes to you for free when you complete 12 months in your contract. Check out the plans below from Etisalat.

Smartpay Offer

Postpaid Offers

Prepaid & Standalone Offer

Starting from 10th of October 2016, customers who purchased iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus on 18 or 24 month contract and completed the initial 12 months contract period, will be eligible to subscribe to “iPhone for Life Program” and enjoy a free upgrade to iPhone 7. So everybody is a winner.

Recall: Your Galaxy Note 7 May Be Waterproof But Not Blast Proof

Samsung’s latest addition to the Galaxy series the Note 7 have been receiving a lot of exploding reviews online. That being said, some of the new Note 7s have been exploding in many places. Samsung has identified this issue as battery fault and has released an official recall. All the devices will be replaced for free in the coming weeks. If you haven’t already bought one, you may have to wait a couple of weeks until they officially continue to sell the devices again. Meanwhile, read the official statement from Samsung below.

Samsung is committed to producing the highest quality products and we take every incident report from our valued customers very seriously. In response to recently reported cases of the new Galaxy Note7, we conducted a thorough investigation and found a battery cell issue.

To date (as of September 1) there have been 35 cases that have been reported globally and we are currently conducting a thorough inspection with our suppliers to identify possible affected batteries in the market. However, because our customers’ safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7.

For customers who already have Galaxy Note7 devices, we will voluntarily replace their current device with a new one over the coming weeks.

We acknowledge the inconvenience this may cause in the market but this is to ensure that Samsung continues to deliver the highest quality products to our customers. We are working closely with our partners to ensure the replacement experience is as convenient and efficient as possible.

iPhone 7 To Be Announced On September 7th

After numerous rumors and speculations on the iPhone launch event, Apple has finally sent out the invitation for the next generation iPhone. This will be Apple’s tenth iPhone since its launch in 2007. Arguably the iPhone SE could be considered as a new iPhone, but we all know it isn’t. The new iPhone is expected to have a dual camera, a new battery and should be able to accompany you to the beach for some splashing photos. If the rumors are right, the new iPhone will also be waterproof and presumably dustproof too.

If you’re a loyal Apple fan, you know that its time to stop going behind the rumors now. It’s time to get your shiny credit cards ready for the pre-order. If Apple follows their usual trend, pre-orders should be available on 9th and iPhone should be shipped to customers the week after. So, which iPhone are you going for this time?

Microsoft Azure named leader in Gartner’s IaaS Magic Quadrant for third year running

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — August 17, 2016. Gartner has identified Microsoft Azure as a leader in the analyst firm’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), for the third year in a row, with the company placed favorably based on both completeness of vision and ability to execute.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant analysis series has long been regarded as a decision-makers’ touchstone for determining the quality of both strategy and delivery for market players. Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform enables the creation of virtual networks, servers and machines, and supports multitenant storage, object storage and a robust content delivery network for both Microsoft`s and other vendor solutions. In addition, the Azure Marketplace offers third-party partners the ability to use the power and flexibility of the cloud to sell their own software and services. Azure also provides advanced services such as machine learning and Internet of things.

The Azure infrastructure is built on software that has security integrated from the ground up, and all data, whether at rest or in transit, is strongly encrypted. All of these offerings are supported by a leading-edge Cyber Defense Operations Centre that monitors customer infrastructure around the clock.

“We are, of course, thrilled and honoured that Microsoft Azure named a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader for the third year in a row,” said Necip Ozyucel, Cloud and Enterprise Business Solutions Lead, Microsoft Gulf. “The cloud remains a powerful tool for business and public-sector innovation and we are always focused on bringing the very best technologies to bear, so that our customers can get creative without having to consider the unwieldy logistics of growing their network or upgrading hardware and software. Microsoft Azure is open, flexible and enterprise platform that we believe strong enabler for businesses growth and competitiveness”

Gartner’s announcement comes at a time when the Gulf region is taking strident steps towards cloud infrastructure adoption. Saudi Arabia plans to invest $2 trillion in IT projects in the coming years, with a significant portion to be invested in cloud. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates will see a gradual growth in IT spend from now until 2020, according to a report from BMI Research. A compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.4% will inflate the sector to $5.3 billion by the end of this period, with service revenue taking $2.2 billion. An accompanying decline in hardware sales together with BMI’s prediction that SaaS will take an increasing share of software sales, strongly indicates a decisive shift to cloud for the country.

When Microsoft announced the G series of virtual machines, back in Q1 of 2015, it represented the most memory, highest processing power and the largest local SSD capacity of any VMs then available in the public cloud. The G series, has allowed Azure to lead the market with continued innovation supporting SAP HANA workloads up to 32 TB. Azure also has industry-wide recognition for its support of Linux and other open-source technologies having nearly one third of all Azure VMs on Linux boxes.

Gartner’s report singled out Microsoft’s “rapid rollout” of these new features and many others, signaling that the company’s brand and history, both with its customers and with its delivery of enterprise-class solutions and services, had all combined to allow the company to “rapidly attain the status of strategic cloud IaaS provider”.

“Microsoft Azure encompasses integrated IaaS and PaaS components that operate and feel like a unified whole,” Gartner analysts wrote. “Microsoft has been rapidly rolling out new features and services, including differentiated capabilities. It has a vision of infrastructure and platform services that are not only leading standalone offerings, but also seamlessly extend and interoperate with on-premises Microsoft infrastructure (rooted in Hyper-V, Windows Server, Active Directory and System Center), development tools (including Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server [TFS]), middleware and applications, as well as Microsoft’s SaaS offerings.”

Gartner’s analysts also cited Microsoft’s “deep investments” in engineering and “innovative roadmap” as crucial factors in the company’s current IaaS market standing. The report further recommends Microsoft Azure for General business applications and development environments that use Microsoft technologies; migration of virtualized workloads for Microsoft-centric organizations; cloud-native applications (including Internet of Things applications); and batch computing.

Euro Cup 2016

The 2016 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 or simply Euro 2016, is the 15th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men’s football championship of Europe organized by UEFA. It is currently being held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016. Spain are the two-time defending champions, having won the 2008 and 2012 editions.

For the first time, the European Championship final tournament will be contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format used since 1996.[3] Under this new format, the finalists will contest a group stage consisting of six groups of four teams, followed by a knockout stage including three rounds and the final. Nineteen teams – the top two from each of the nine qualifying groups and the best third-placed team – joined France, who qualified automatically as hosts; a series of two-legged play-off ties between the remaining third-placed teams in November 2015 decided the last four spots at the final tournament.

Microsoft To Buy LinkedIn For $26.2 Billion

Microsoft has agreed to acquire LinkedIn the largest professional network for a whopping $26.2 billion. This makes it ones of the biggest tech acquisitions in the history.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said this acquisition aims to bridge the gap between the Microsoft tools people use to get a job done such as the Office with the tools that helps professionals connect with each other. This opens up a lot of possibilities like you can already connect to the person you’re meeting with. See what they do and if you use Microsoft Dynamics for managing customer relationships, then this gets even better as you have access to the LinkedIn data.

Its exciting to see this merger. Lets see what comes out of this in the coming months.

Visa Expands Visa Checkout Service with New Merchants

Visa marks the continued success of Visa Checkout, the online check out service that enables shoppers to pay with their cards online or on any device. In recent months, at least 33 new merchants have signed on to offer Visa Checkout.

Since the beginning of 2015, registered sign-ups for the service have increased by more than 92 percent. In June and July 2015, the average monthly enrolment growth rate for Visa Checkout was over 30 percent.

Today’s expanded list brings the number of merchants offering Visa Checkout to nearly a quarter million globally, while financial institution partners have grown to over 330.

In the UAE, Visa Checkout was made available in April 2015. Since then, banks in the UAE have offered Visa Checkout to their customers for secure cross-border shopping. The expanding list of UAE issuer partners includes Mashreq, Emirates NBD, Majid Al Futtaim Finance, Dubai Islamic Bank, and Emirates Islamic Bank.

Newly signed merchant partners worldwide include:

· United States: Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Barnes & Noble College, Cle de Peau Beaute, delivery.com, EllenShop.com, JustFab, LivingSocial, Shiseido, ShoeDazzle, Shutterfly, Sport Chalet Mobile, StudentUniverse, Under Armour, Taco Bell, Title Nine and zulily

· Australia: Event Cinemas, Village Cinemas, Hoyts, Moshtix, The Roses Only Group and Ticketek

· Canada: Grand & Toy and Heart and Stroke Foundation

· Colombia: Archies, Agrocampo, BabyMarket, Carulla.com, Exito.com, Falabella.com, Myriam Camhi and Unicef (due to technology partner IATAI integrating Visa Checkout)

Now if only Apple Pay made its way here sooner !! Right ?

LG Electronics and Nokia Technologies agree on smartphone patent license

Espoo, Finland – LG Electronics has agreed to take a royalty-bearing smartphone patent license from Nokia Technologies. The Korean company is the latest of more than 60 licensees for Nokia’s 2G, 3G and 4G mobile communication technologies and the first major smartphone manufacturer to join the licensing program since Nokia divested its Devices & Services business to Microsoft in 2014.

“We are pleased to welcome LG Electronics to our licensing program,” said Ramzi Haidamus, President of Nokia Technologies. “We’ve worked constructively with LG Electronics and agreed a mutually beneficial approach, including the use of independent arbitration to resolve any differences. This agreement sets the scene for further collaboration between our companies in future.”

The detailed royalty payment obligations will be subject to commercial arbitration, expected to conclude within a 1-2 year timeframe. Other terms of the agreement remain confidential between the two companies.

Windows 10 To Be A Free Upgrade

On Monday, Microsoft Corp. announced that Windows 10 will be available July 29 in 190 countries. Windows 10 will help people be more productive and have more fun, with a personal and natural experience that works across all their devices. Familiar, yet better than ever, Windows 10 will deliver ongoing feature innovations and security updates. Windows 10 will be available as a free upgrade to people using Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, 1 enabling hundreds of millions of people around the world to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Microsoft is finally following Apple’s path by giving their operating systems upgrade for free.