I’ve managed to get more information regarding the 2012 Concours d’Elegance that is going to be held in Kuwait next week.

- Leonardo Fioravanti the designer behind some legendary Ferrari’s including the 365 GTB 4 “Daytona”, 365 GT4 Berlinetta Boxer, the 308 GTB and GTS as well as the 288 GTO and the F40 will be giving a lecture at the Concours. His lecture will be on the Ferrari F40 since it’s the F40′s 25th anniversary. The F40 is the last Ferrari he designed and a car many believe to be one of the greatest super cars ever made. Obviously there will also be a Ferrari F40 on display.

- The F40′s nemesis, the Porsche 959 will also be on display at the Concours.

- The first day of the event they’ll be displaying old government vehicles like the old police cars and ambulances etc..

- The last day of the Concours on the occasion of Enzo Ferrari’s birthday, over 150 Ferrari’s will get together at Marina Crescent and then drive towards the Kuwait Towers.

- The Alfa Romeo Bat 11 will be on display.

- The first production model of the new Aston Martin Zagato will be launched worldwide at the Concours. In addition there will be an original 1960′s Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato on display right next to it.

This is basically all I have for now. For more information on this years Concours check out my previous post [Here]

Someone from WiMD the new internet provider I posted about earlier in the day left the following comment:

Many thanks, first of all, for giving us a platform to voice our services.

First things first, WiMD stands for Wireless Mobile Data. The name implies the meaning, so no gimmickry with names and how strong and powerful we are. Our technology is not based on the WiMAX standard and we don’t believe in sharing the customer subscribed bandwidth. We have nation wide coverage for our residential customers as of today.

Having said the above, we pride ourselves in what we commit to our customers. In today’s age of blogs and forums, we are aware that customer satisfaction is of prime importance and any wrong information/commitment can only do more harm to us than good.

As most of your readers have mentioned, they have never heard of us. This is true as we didn’t launch or market our services in the residential domain before today. All our existing residential customers till date have been through word of mouth and personal referrals. For obvious reasons you don’t get recommended for bad service or performance, do you?

We don’t want to take any further space and just want to introduce ourselves us a healthy alternative to your existing miseries with limited bandwidth and slower speed. Our request to all is, don’t judge us without even trying us. Our company policy for bandwidth commitment to customers is based on the site survey we do before delivering our services. Fair and transparent. Our NOC and Helpdesk are equipped to answer your queries.

And even after this, if your satisfaction quotient is not reached, kind reminder to our existing and prospective customers. We have a fair money bank policy which means, if you are dissatisfied with our services, you get the remaining balance on your contract reimbursed upon cancellation.

Just want to remind your readers, we are in Hall 6 @ InfoConnect. Please feel free to drop by.

We mean business and that is what we are here for. So no strings attached, no hidden dramas. JUST PERFORMANCE.

No idea on the price but one reader mentioned they start from KD385 per year.

Update: Here are their prices per year

1Mb KD130
1.5Mb KD150
2Mb KD180
3Mb KD225
4Mb KD270
5Mb KD320
6Mb KD325
7Mb KD355
8Mb KD390
9Mb KD473
10Mb KD523
11Mb KD590
12Mb KD660
13Mb KD730
14Mb KD800
15Mb KD870
16Mb KD940
17Mb KD1,010
18Mb KD1,080
19Mb KD1,150
20Mb KD1,220

Update2: I’m going to be trying out and signing up for their service. First hurdle is to see if I can install the antenna on my balcony instead of the roof since I don’t have access to my buildings roof. Hopefully the balcony would work, I’ll find out on Saturday.

Looks like this year the government is really thinking digital with the upcoming elections in Kuwait. Last week I posted about their Flickr page where they were uploading pictures taken at different events related to the elections. Well Saud A. Almutairi contacted me and provided me with details regarding the election day website he helped the government setup.

On the day of the elections the Kuwaiti public will have access to preliminary results via the following channels:

Main Website
On the day of the elections after all polls are closed at 8pm that’s when counting will begin. An hour later if you visit the MOI news portal at http://news.gov.kw you will be automatically redirected to a live results website containing 5 tabs each representing a Kuwaiti circle and each containing 3 lists:

The Candidates
This first list will be a list of all the candidates (ordered alphabetically) and contain two fields that will be constantly updated: the vote count and current rank of the candidate. This list will NOT be auto sorted based on rank as to avoid confusion. This list will remain alphabetically ordered.

Follow
The second list will contain a list of candidates a user wants to follow. This list will be empty by default until the user adds his candidates. In the screen shots below you can see how it looks empty and how it looks with some candidates added.

The Leaderboard
This final list will contain the top 15 candidates based on rank. This list will be constantly changing as per the vote count so unlike the first list, the names of the candidates here will move up or down. This list will also contain the percentage of votes the candidate has based on all votes in the circle.

If there is an update the numbers will flash. Updates to the website should start around 10PM and occur every 5 to 10 minutes.

Mobile Website
When a user visits http://news.gov.kw from a mobile device (tested on the iPhone and Android) they will be presented with a mobile optimized version of the website. You can check out the screenshots below on how the information will be presented. The only thing to note here is that on the mobile website, the list of candidates are sorted by rank.

Twitter Integration
For twitter the MOI will have 5 handles, one for each Kuwaiti circle. The system will be set up to automatically post updates every 5 minutes on the Top 12 candidates.

Here are the twitter handles for all circles: @MediaKuwait1 @MediaKuwait2 @MediaKuwait3 @MediaKuwait4 @MediaKuwait5

Note: The results from the MOI are considered preliminary scores and NOT official scores.

After falling down behind Lebanon last year, Kuwait is once again back in the lead in the latest World Press Freedom Index for 2012. Below is the ranking for the Middle East and North Africa, the global ranking is in the brackets:

1- Kuwait (78)
2- Israel (92)
3- Lebanon (93)
4- UAE (112)
5- Qatar (114)
6- Oman (117)
7- Algeria (112)
8- Jordan (128)
9- Tunis (134)
10- Morocco (138)
11- Iraq (152)
12- Palestine (153)
13- Libya (154)
14- Saudi Arabia (158)
15- Egypt (166)
16- Sudan (170)
17- Yemen (171)
18- Bahrain (173)
19- Iran (175)
20- Syria (176)

You can check out the full list in PDF format [Here]

- He uses a regular point and shoot camera on regular tripod but he’s added a panorama tripod head mount (similar to these)

- He takes on average 40 shots depending on the scene. He prefers to have a tall structure nearby so that the majority of the panorama doesn’t result in just a plain blue sky. To get a clear shot of the ground below the camera without the camera shadow, he cheats and moves the camera back a bit and then takes the shot

- He uses the photo stitching software PTGui to stitch the photos all together. You can get that software from [Here]

- As a last step he uploads the final stitched image to his 360 Cities account where it is then reviewed by their council of reviewers. If they don’t find any stitching errors or other problems, the panorama gets published to their website and it can then be placed in Google Earth (360 Cities is the only panorama site that is partnered with Google)

Here are some other Kuwait panoramas Eric has taken:
Behind the Kuwait Towers
The Scientific Center of Kuwait
Mutla Ridge

Here are some Kuwait panoramas taken by other photographers:
Onboard Al-Boom Dhow
Hawally Park
Dhow in Souk Sharq
360 Mall
Kuwait Seaside Sunset
Heritage Souk
Salhia Complex
Water Clock in Souk Sharq Kuwait
Rooftop Swimming Pool

Here is the official price list for the PS Vita in Kuwait:

PS Vita Console (wifi) KD89
PS Vita Console (3G) KD116

4GB Memory Card KD7.6
8GB Memory Card KD13.3
16GB Memory Card KD18.9

Uncharted: Golden Abyss KD17.2
Little Deviants KD10.8
Reality Fighters KD10.8
Wipeout 2048 KD13.6
Everybody’s Golf KD13.6
Modnation Racers: Road Trip KD13.6
Unit 13 KD13.6

The official release date is February 22nd.

Update: X-Cite have started pre-orders [Link]

I was invited by X-Cite and Sony to attend a preview of the Playstation Vita in Dubai. The even would give us an intro on their new portable gaming console as well as preview some games and more importantly allows to play with the device.

Introduction
The GM of Sony MENA, Robert Fisser stated that the Vita will have the strongest line up of launch games for a Sony console which is possible since the first party and third party games lined up for the Vita’s February 22nd launch is fairly strong.

When you purchase a Vita among the included items will be 56 WAAR (Wide-Area Augmented Reality) cards that you’ll be able to use with AR (augmented reality) games which you’ll be able to download for free from the PSN store. What differentiates these AR games from others is that these games will be a lot more advanced, sophisticated and use a big area for game play. There are also two social services that Sony are pushing in Vita called Party and Near. Party lets you voice chat with friends on the Vita at anytime, even if you’re playing different games while near lets you see all your Playstation Network friends status’s and what they’re playing (or have played). You will also be able to see if their are other Vita gamers in your proximity and invite them to play a game. Finally you can also unlock gifts, or give gifts to your PSN friends.

Another big feature Sony talked about was sharing save files between your Vita and the PS3 and cross-platform play which basically mean you’ll be able to play head-to-head between the Vita and PS3. They showed us a demonstration when one of their Wipeout 2048 game designer who was using a Vita raced against a producer who used a PS3.

Reality Fighters
Sony previewed a game called Reality Fighters, which is an AR fighting game that uses real world environments as the levels in the game. Mitsuo Hirakawa, who is a producer on the game, stated that the game doesn’t use a card marker (like the 3DS AR cards or the WAAR cards), which has never been done before; he also stated that characters scale up depending on where you are. So if you’re standing on a roof of a building and point your Vita downwards to the streets, your characters scale up to you, so you can have massive characters, Godzilla size fighting each other. The game will also come pre-loaded with 360-degree panoramas of popular areas around the world, like the Pyramids which you can use as your game environment. The game also features over 400 character customizations including costumes, over 50 different kinds of weapons and various fighting styles. You can also take a picture of your face so your character looks just like you.

My Experience
I was able to spend some time with the Vita and it was pretty impressive. I played Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Wipeout 2048, Everybody’s Golf, Little Deviants, Super Stardust.

First thing I noticed just as I held the Vita in my hand is that it’s not very portable so don’t expect to be able to put this in your pocket. Besides the fact that it’s pretty big for a portable device, the analogue controllers stick out. Both those factors make it impossible to store this device in your jeans pocket. The second thing I noticed is how surprisingly light it was. It’s quite deceiving because when you look at it you expect it to be slightly heavy while it felt nearly as light as an iPhone.

You navigate through the Vita menus by touch-screen swiping left-right, up or down and pressing on the icon you want. It’s quick and responsive. I tried Uncharted: Golden Abyss first since I had just beaten Uncharted 3 on the PS3 and was curious to see how different the game would look visually and I wasn’t disappointed. There were two chapters to choose from, the first showed off how crisp and detailed the visuals were with pretty impressive lighting effects. The game is visually as close to HD as you can get on a portable device. The character animations are pretty great as you could expect from Uncharted. The level featured climbing and jumping over things while showing off the gyroscope since I had to balance myself on a wooden beam.

The second chapter I played was called “That Makes Three of Us” and it featured more of the shooting aspect of the game. Without spoiling it too much, I had to save my companion from a bunch of enemies by sniping them before they shot my friend. Sniping in the game is pretty fun especially with the use of the touch screen. You zoom in and aim by holding the L1 button and you can adjust how close you want to zoom in using the sniper-scope via the touch screen. Sliding your finger up brings you closer while sliding your finger down zooms you out. This is basically the perfect portable version of the Uncharted franchise.

I wanted to test out the second touch-pad on the back of the device because I was curious to see how comfortable it would be to use so I started playing Little Deviants. In Little Deviants you have to help your character roll around by deforming the environment (using the back touch-pad) to collect stars and other items. It took a few minutes to get used to the back touch pad but when I got the hang of it this game was a lot of fun. The back touch pad was very responsive and it was very weird to visually see how the land responded to your touches. It’s difficult to describe and impossible to take a video of since I needed to hold the Vita with both my hands. The closest thing I can think of to describing it is that it’s like molding clay in your hands.

I really wanted to play Wipeout 2048 because it was a favorite franchise of mine back when I owned the Playstation 1 and I when I did get my hands on it I wasn’t disappointed. The races are fast, intense and enjoyable, visually the game is really nice to look at and the developers obviously focused on the little details because everything in the game looked good from the small details on vehicles to the environments and the explosions. I was only able to choose from a few tracks but the full game will have 10 new tracks and 20 vehicles to choose.

Super Stardust is a game that mixes gamplay elements from Geometry Wars and Asteroids, it was a nice little game to try out. Another game I tried was Everybody’s Golf which was nice looking but a sport I’m not into even though it was fun.

At the end of my game time with the Vita I was pretty impressed, I liked what I saw and what I played. Surprisingly the screen was pretty much free of my finger prints and there were no smudges. The AR features are also great and more advanced than what Nintendo has shown us with the 3DS. Graphically it’s a pretty powerful little system, more powerful than the Wii, but obviously not as good as a PS3 or 360 (but pretty close). The quality of the OLED screen was also great, there was glare from the lighting in the event hall and even with all the glare, I could easily see what I was doing on the screen. The Vita felt great in my hands as well but I would imagine someone with smaller hands might have trouble playing comfortably. The launch line-up suits the North American and European audiences and if Sony and third-party developers continue to support the Vita, I can see it being very successful, a lot more than the PSP.

First-party launch games:

Third-party launch titles:

Pre-Ordering in Kuwait & Pricing
You’ll be able to pre-order the Vita from the X-Cite website probably by this week (if not, definitely next week) and after the first week of online pre-orders you will be able to pre-order from their stores. When you pre-order the Vita online or at the store, it will come bundled with a memory card and a game. There is an incentive for pre-ordering it online from X-Cite, most probably a discount and the incentive for pre-ordering it in-store will be Vita merchandise, a bag or something of the sort.

The pricing of the Vita is as follows:

Wifi price: 1,149 AED (87 KD)
Wifi & 3G: 1,499 AED (114 KD)
SW Titles: 129 AED – 199 AED (10 KD – 15 KD)
Memory Card: 99 AED – 349 AED (7 KD – 26 KD)

The prices were listed in Emirati Dirham but I was told the prices in Kuwait will be very similar, the release date will be February 22.

Posted by Patrick

A reader emailed BBC regarding the recent problem with the reception and this is what they responded:

Regarding Kuwait, we are aware of a change of reception quality of our signal. It appears that the authorities there have changed the transmitter site resulting in poorer reception for at least some of our listeners.

We are examining possibilities of rectifying this situation but at present cannot be sure of what the final outcome will be.

That sucks.

The Gulf Run 7 car show is going to take place this weekend. This year there will be around 60 cars taking place at Gulf Run and you’ll be able to check out most of them at 360 Mall where they will be on display for everyone to see. So make sure you pass by this weekend, they’re going to be there for two days, Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th. For more information on the event and Gulf Run click [Here]

To check out the full list of cars participating this year follow the link below.

2011 Ariel Atom
2009 Audi R8
2012 Audi R8 GT
2010 Audi R8 v10
2010 Audi R8 v10
2006 Back Draft A C Cobra
2008 BMW M3
2006 BMW M6
2007 Catarham G7
2007 Caterham G7
2010 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
2007 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
2007 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
2008 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
2009 Chevy Corvette ZR1
2012 Ferrari 458
2010 Ferrari 599 GTB
2006 Ford GT
2002 Honda S2000
2007 Lamborghini LP640
2010 Lamborghini LP670-SV
2008 Lexus IS-F
2000 Lotus 340R
1997 Lotus Exige S
2009 Mercedes C 63
2009 Mercedes C 63
2012 Mercedes C 63 coupe
2011 Mercedes E 63
2009 Mercedes SLR 722s
2009 Mercedes SLS 63
2011 Mercedes SLS 63
2005 Mitsubishi Evo VIII
2006 Mitsubishi Evo VIII
2006 Mitsubishi Evo VIII
2008 Mitsubishi Evo VIII
2009 Mitsubishi Evo X
2009 Mitsubishi Evo X
2009 Mitsubishi Evo X
2004 Mitsubishi Evo X
2005 Nissan 350Z TT
2004 Nissan 350Z TT
2009 Nissan GTR R35
2010 Nissan GTR R35
2010 Nissan GTR R35
2010 Nissan GTR R35
2006 Porsche Carrera S
2011 Porsche cayman r
1995 Porsche Gemballa GTR 600
2008 Porsche GT2 (997)
2008 Porsche GT3RS (997.1)
2011 Porsche Panamera Turbo
2008 Porsche Turbo (997.2)
2010 Porsche Turbo (997.2)
2008 Porsche Turbo 911
- Radical SR8
2009 Westfield Aerorace
2009 Westfield Aerorace
2009 Westfield Aerorace
2009 Westfield Aerorace
2009 Westfield Aerorace

Back in 2009 Bait 7 closed down because of a fire and then stayed closed since the 1st Ring Road construction was taking place right in front of them. Now that the construction in front of them has been completed the place got fixed up and is now open again. The place also has a new owner but according to the manager they’ve kept the same feel and look with just a few adjustment to the menu. I don’t have their contact number or website link but they’re located in Kuwait City behind the church and if you’re planning to go there you need to park in the Starbucks lot and then follow the “7″ sign.

Arabian Business released their list of “The Middle East’s top 10 restaurants to sample in 2012” and Cucina, the Italian restaurant located at Hotel Missoni made their cut. I have yet to try Cucina so it’s now on my to do list. Here is a link to their top 10 list [Link]

I found out about Al-Sabih Marine from my twitter followers and I’m glad I did since I was planning to order a Pelican case from Amzon and it turned out to be cheaper to just buy it locally. .

Al-Sabih Marine is located behind Tilal Complex in Shuwaikh and as soon I walked into the place I spotted their Pelican collection. I was looking for the 1200 model in black but spotted a yellow one on display for KD23. The same case costs around KD10 on Amazon so I asked the salesman if they had any discounts and he told me they did and that the final price would be KD19.5. It also turned out they had it in black which was great. KD19.5 isn’t cheaper than Amazon but it was going to cost me at least KD10 to ship it with Aramex so even though I was paying double the price of Amazon I was still saving money. While I was there I also noted down the prices of the other sized cases just for reference. These prices below are without the discount which I am assuming is a standard 15%:

Pelican 1200 – KD23
Pelican 1300 – KD27
Pelican 1400 – KD38
Pelican 1450 – KD45
Pelican 1490 – KD65
Pelican 1500 – KD52
Pelican 1510 – KD72
Pelican 1550 – KD68
Pelican 1550 DIV – KD99
Pelican 1560 – KD80
Pelican 1600 – KD84

If you’re interested in getting a Pelican case I’m not aware of any other place in Kuwait that sells them for cheaper. Here is a link to their website [Link]

If you don’t know what Pelican cases are just watch the video below.

[YouTube]