Just came back from a 2-week business trip to Jeddah and it’s the third time I go there and don’t get a chance to sneak out to Mecca to perform an “Umra”.

I’m ashamed!

We were holding a sales and technical training seminar and after that starting a complex marketing campaign which we had to finalize in a very short period of time. So you can imagine working till 2-3 am daily for a whole 2 weeks with full concentration.

This was quite tough, especially in the last few days when I started to have vague memories of my family and friends and my life in Dubai as if that was happening a long time ago. Those 2 weeks felt like 2 months.

Another thing, every time I go there I ask myself: what’s the point of having a one-riyal bill instead of a coin (like the 1 Dirham coin) ?

From the first day, I always get my wallet full of bills of one riyal. Besides, it is a heavily used bill which gets it to tear off very quickly (I guess that’s why the UAE has coins for the 1 Dirham). The same is found with the US dollar (paper bill), while the British Pound is a coin (while a quid it’s worth 2 Dollars or almost 8 Riyals). Can anybody give me a convincing answer on this?

Anyhow, it’s nice to be back home and I’m really happy I’ll be going to Sudan (again) this December for 2 weeks and Eid Al-Adha.

A totally different 2 weeks, I hope!

Some while ago, i blogged about the famous Burj Dubai becoming the world’s highest building while it’s only about two thirds of it’s proposed height.

We were talking about being able to see as far as 95 Km from the top floor and this sounded like impossible. Eman even expressed the dizziness she expects from being at this height and looking outside the windows.

Well, now we have an indication as there are photos being circulated in email forwards taken from the 134th floor of the under-construction tower. These really give a good example on how high this thing is. Please note this the 134th floor, not the 160th (Which is not constructed yet). This is the current stage of the contruction.

The least I can say is that those images are breathtaking. The kind of view you can only see from a plane or at least a helicopter. I still don’t feel that 95Km range of sight is possible. But still, you can see quite far. On a clear day, I think you’d get a good view of Karama and Bur Dubai up to the creek. It is also amazing how the towers of Sheikh Zayed Road are dwarfed at this height. Click on pictures for full size.

Finally after waiting for a full summer, I can get out of my car without my glasses fogging up. Temperatures are getting lower and there is quite a breeze at night. Sometimes I open my windows and turn the car AC off to enjoy that natural air, even though it’s still warm.

Can’t wait for December to come and give me my favorite chilling weather of the year. The season of more desert safaris and outdoor concerts and less staying home watching TV with the AC suffering to keep it at 24 Degrees.

The funniest thing I’ve seen lately. A Sudanese remake of a scene of the movie (Hitch).

So it’s my 4th GITEX as an exhibitor and I still enjoy every bit of it. Our stand was HUGE this year, twice as big as last year’s and the display was just amazing. 11 units of the mammoth 103″ Plasma screen were displayed everywhere to show its different applications. My favorite was the one with the Nintendo Wii playing on it. I’ve played Wii before, but doing that on a 103-inch plasma screen was a very different experience.

I also liked the Blu-Ray display, where a 103-inch Plasma screen was displayed along with 4 65-inch plasma screen (vertically) and special High-Definition video content was played to show different band players on each screen and you actually could hear the drummer for example on the screen on your right while the drums sound is stronger from the speaker on the right. It was an amazing experience that couldn’t be expressed in words. Three of the screen are shown in the picture below.

Also, the 4 units of 103-inch plasma screen rotation and moving on our stage was a big attraction this year, along with the on-stage dance performances. This setup which is called “Gemini” had 2 rotating plasmas and 2 fixed which showed very exciting videos to form a very eye-catching experience.

GITEX organizers have decided to have the show in the heat of summer this year for some reason. I can understand that DWTC’s calendar is busy with events, but you just can’t have the regions biggest IT and Consumer Electronics show in this heat. And this clearly reflected on the number of visitors, which I estimate are 30% less than last years figures. This is also caused by the 40 Dhs entry fee (Up from 25 Dhs last year).

Something else was different this year. For the first time, I didn’t have any interest to walk around the halls of the exhibition. I didn’t even visit other stands in the same hall we were in. This, in part, is due to the big attraction that my corner was getting as I didn’t have much chance to move anywhere. We had was a Panasonic 65″ Touch Screen PDP with Google Earth and that was really fun to play with. People were lining up in queues to try it and find their homes, offices, etc. I even got a visit by Google’s UAE representative and he admired the display very much. It was really a different experience even for those very much used to using Google Earth.

One very touching moment was when a blue-collar worker showed up and asked me if I would let him try to find his village. The guy was trying his best to find the place and he really eventually did. By that time, a queue of workers were lined up behind him, waiting for a chance for a peak on their homes which they might haven’t seen in years.

Several TV channels came over and took shots of the display. There were TV channels from all over the region, especially UAE (such as Dubai One and CNBC Arabiya) and Iran.

Newspapers and magazines were also interested. I had a short interview with a Gulf News reported who quoted me in his story the next day (link here).

Panasonic, meanwhile, is betting on a higher end touchscreen product. It has produced a touch-enabled overlay panel for its widescreen plasma TVs. Fitted for 42, 50 and 65-inch TVs, the touch panel allows users to write directly on to the screen with a light touch using an optical sensor system.

“It’s a good alternative to using projectors with touchscreens since you have the advantage of the plasma display,” said Ayman Elkhidir, a Panasonic systems engineer. “They’re convenient solutions for office meeting rooms and schools, and we’ve also found they are quite popular for showrooms for kiosk applications.”

By the last few hours of the last day, I switched the touch screen to the black-board mode and gave the kids a chance to express themselves. That was quite fun

Whether this is for real or just plain fake video, it is worth watching. Check out how this guys plays Tetris and reaches the last stage where he plays an invisible one. Make sure to keep watching as fun starts at 3:00.

I personally know several people who check this blog and are Tetris addicts. This is for you guys. Personally, I don’t feel like playing this game again. Watch the video and you’ll understand.