Social Slave

I just got an email from the social media department of Crowne Plaza Kuwait that they have launched an official [Blog]. Bookmark it to stay posted on their latest news and offers.

According to a senior executive at Google, Residents of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait view the most videos on YouTube.

“You’re actually doing more YouTube views per day than the average globally,” said Mohamad Mourad, the manager for the Gulf region at Google, which acquired YouTube for US$1.65 billion in 2006. “So people like video in this part of the world. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait have the highest consumption of YouTube per capita in the world.” Mr Mourad said there were now 120 million YouTube views per day originating from internet users in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region. Recent unrest in the region also boosted YouTube views and internet use, he said.

This seems odd considering the size and population of the gulf countries against the world. But then again I’m not surprised.

[Link]

I received this funny email at work about a warning issued by the Central Bank of Kuwait against a Chinese ‘magic pen’. It seems that the ink used in these pens disappears within one hour to four days after writing on cheques or normal paper and can be illegally used to forge documents.

I had read about a similar warning issued in Dubai sometime back where these Chinese pens had been smuggled into the UAE and they were warning all the banks not to use customers’ pens to sign on any official document and cheques and to use only their own pens and be extremely cautious.

I guess the forensics could probably shade in the impressions left by the pen even if the ink disappears.

I just spotted this article that the Wasabi restaurants will be a getting a new look and image by the end of the year. The Sultan Group has signed up with Thomas Klein International again (who has been working on the soon to open Butcher’s Den) to develop a new image for the Wasabi chain of restaurants in Kuwait. But first they will work on a new Wasabi outlet which will be located in the Wattiya area that is undergoing renovation by the government of Kuwait. Read all the details about it [Here].

The new Wasabi will be housed in a stand-alone historical building, and will be approximately 480 square meters in size. The current building, an old traditional Kuwaiti house built with materials available back then in nature: sea rock, mud, limestone and gypsum is a protected building and therefore a very challenging environment where to work as the original shape of the building nor any of the exterior facades can be touched. Kuwaitis imported teakwood from India, and jandal (trunk) and basajeel (bamboo) from Africa (Mombassa – Kenya and these elements can still be seen in the front of the building.

There is an interesting piece of information about the Wattiya area in the article:

Wattiya has a tremendous significance to Kuwaitis as it was here that in about 1672, Barrak bin Ghurair, the Emir of the Bani Khalid, built his Kut (a small house in the shape of a fortress situated near water) in what it was then a small fishing community known as Qarane. This is known today as Wattiya. The name Kuwait is the diminutive of Kut.

I just love the Wattiya area but sadly I haven’t been there in a long while and don’t know how far the renovation has been done. There is a Flickr account called I Love Q8 where you will find a nice collection of photographs on Kuwaiti Heritage and most of the photos are shot in Wattiya. I love old buildings and the history attached to them and these photos are amazing!

I just read it in the news this morning that Caribou Coffee will now be offering nutritional gourmet food to its customers at all their branches across Kuwait through a partnership with Diet Care. This is a pretty good move to make healthier food choices available to people who usually have their office lunch from coffee shops.

Al Sayer Franchising signed an agreement with Diet Care to complement Caribou Coffee’s existing high-quality product line of coffee beverages and food by offering customers Diet Care’s healthy and nutritional choices of salads, sandwiches, and desserts, freshly delivered to all 26 Caribou Coffee branches in Kuwait.

So no more excuses to reach out for high-calorie cheesecakes, muffins and cookies to go with your coffee.

Here’s a [Link] to all their contact numbers, although the menu is not the updated one.

I just heard on the BBC radio on my way to work that Osama Bin Laden is dead. President Obama confirmed this in a news conference last night.

The president said that he had met repeatedly with his national security team since August and that they received information that bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Pakistan. Then last week it was determined that the U.S. had enough intelligence to take action, he said.

“Today at my direction,” Obama said, the U.S. launched a targeted attack against that compound in Abbottabad, which is about 150 kilometres north of Islamabad, and that bin Laden was killed in a firefight. The U.S. has his body, he said.

“Justice has been done,” the president said.

Here is the full coverage on BBC and CNN.

They are still on high alert though since they fear that the Al Qaeda supporters may try to retaliate or avenge his death.

Update: It’s being reported all over the news that a Kuwaiti courier helped in leading to Osama Bin Laden’s hideout. He was actually a Kuwaiti-born Pakistani man called Sheikh Abu Ahmed who was Bin Laden’s most trusted courier and went by the nom de guerre ‘Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’. The US intelligence had been trying to identify and track him from a very long time after his name came up in their interrogation of other Al-Qaeda detainees. Read more about it [Here] and [Here].

I wonder if they would release Osama Bin Laden’s DNA test report or photographs which helped them to identify his face after he got shot over the eye. Since they ‘buried him at sea’ we would never know otherwise next we’d hear Donald Trump demanding Osama Bin Laden’s ‘death certificate’.

Here’s a bit of good news for all those who’ve had their eyes on the iPhone 4 for a while now. VIVA has partnered with Apple and launched the iPhone 4 at unbeatable prices today and you can now get one starting at KD 69.99.

During a press conference yesterday, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Badran VIVA Kuwait CEO announced that VIVA Kuwait will launch the new iPhone 4 in Kuwait on April 26 with a range of tariff plans tailored for iPhone customers. He noted, “We at VIVA care a lot about our customers and we want to satisfy their needs as possible and this is why VIVA decided to bring in the iPhone 4 and set all the VIVA services in the device to make it easier and cheaper for its customers.

Anoud Muthaib Senior Segment Manager at VIVA Kuwait told the press, “The prices of the iPhone at VIVA will be very competitive compared to other companies and shops selling iPhones. We worked very hard to make this partnership with Apple and it took us along time to educate and train our employees on the iPhone 4.”

[Link]

Note: The iPhone 4 handsets are not locked to VIVA and can be used with any other telecom provider in Kuwait or abroad. And VIVA will be the first to launch the upcoming iPhone 5. Great job and good luck VIVA!

I was reading through the Kuwait Times and spotted this article that the Samsung Smart TV was launched in Kuwait yesterday by Samsung Gulf Electronics and Al Andalus Trading Company. The TV has some pretty cool features where you can browse the internet, download apps and even connect with friends on social media networks while watching the same TV shows or even play Poker plus a host of other options. The remote control also doubles as a QWERTY keyboard. It’s like an all-in-one ultimate product that tops the smart phones and tablet computers.

The Smart TV is available in 32″, 40″, 46″ and 55″. The prices were not mentioned in the article, for that I’ll have to stop by and find out more.

Check out all the features on their official [Website] and Facebook [Page].

Update: Average price per unit is KD400.

Here is a website I came across where they have posted a special 3-part presentation on the ‘before and after’ satellite images of the destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Roll over the images to see the massive change.

[Link]

So what if you can’t attend, the royal wedding will be streamed live on the Internet for the first time in the history of British royal weddings. The event will be broadcast on YouTube’s Royal Channel for four hours starting at 9.00 am GMT (12.00 pm Kuwait time) along with a live multimedia blog put together by St. James’s Palace. This is most likely to be the biggest event that YouTube has broadcast live with more than 2 billion viewers expected, and also the first time a live blog will run alongside a live stream on YouTube for any occasion.

Social media around the event will include:

• Official Royal Wedding website
• The British Monarchy Flickr account
• Twitter Account @ClarenceHouse
• British Monarchy Twitter Account
• The Royal Channel on YouTube
• The British Monarchy Facebook page

An official video “Wedding Book” on Youtube invites anyone to submit their own video of congratulations to the couple or you can send a message of congrats on Twitter using the hashtag #rw2011.

The royal family has most definitely stepped into the modern times and gone digital.