Tag Archives: technology
SummerFest lets the fun begin
SummerFest lets the fun begin Staff Reporter / 28 June 2013 The annual SummerFest Abu Dhabi, the emirate’s blockbuster seasonal promotion, kicked off on Thursday. The 52-day event, which includes a three-day, first-of-four ‘STOMP at Emirates Palace’ show until August 17, spans mid-summer, the Holy Month of Ramadan, Eid Al Fitr and the destination’s traditional EidFest celebrations. “These high-energy STOMP performances will get SummerFest Abu Dhabi off to a rousing start with new music and choreography and two recently added routines — ‘Trolleys’ and ‘Frogs’ — which have never been seen before in the UAE,” said Sultan Al Muhairi, Manager, SummerFest Abu Dhabi. Tickets start at Dh150 with residents booking through www.summerfestabudhabi.ae and GCC show goers able to book through leading regional travel agents. Organised by Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) to build the destination’s seasonal appeal, SummerFest Abu Dhabi features sizzling hotel deals with free tickets to some of the emirate’s leading leisure attractions. Guests booking a minimum of three nights’ stays at any of 40 participating Abu Dhabi hotels during the festival — with the exception of Eid — will receive free tickets to Yas Island’s headline attractions — Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, world’s largest indoor theme park, and the award-winning Yas Waterworld, named the Middle East’s leading attraction by the World Travel Awards. “With a new identity and our longest-ever line-up, SummerFest Abu Dhabi sends a resounding message that there is now much more to see and do in Abu Dhabi,” added Al Muhairi. “We anticipate huge interest in our Adnec hub with its world-class schedule of live Show World performances while the line-up at du Forum on Yas Island adds to the entertainment appeal for all ages.” At Show World, an action-packed bill of 98 shows over 47 days features seven blockbuster acts performing twice-daily during week-long runs at Adnec. With varied performance times, the Show World schedule sees regional premieres of 90-minute live action shows from Cartoon Network’s Lazy Town and perennial favourites Bananas in Pyjamas during its opening fortnight. By the time Cartoon Network’s Ben10 rounds out Show World proceedings in mid-August, the international stars of Scooby Doo, Freej and Sesame Street will all have trodden the Adnec boards. Tickets to Adnec, which include entrance to Show World, are Dh40 for adults and Dh20 for under-12 children while kids under two-years-old enter free. “SummerFest Abu Dhabi is one of the emirate’s key events during summer months and we anticipate thousands of visitors attending this year’s festival and enjoying a delightful calendar of family-focused activities at Adnec,” said Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, Chief Commercial Officer at Adnec. Elsewhere, the side-splitting United Nations of Comedy makes its UAE debut at du Forum on July 4 and 5, before international sports stars including tennis star Tim Henman, ex-Manchester United and England striker Andrew Cole and seven-time NBA champion Robert ‘Big Shot Rob’ Horry take centre-stage during ‘SportFest’ – a programme of weekly jiu-jitsu, tennis, badminton, basketball and football clinics, masterclasses and tournaments rolling out during Ramadan evenings. Other Abu Dhabi attractions are getting in on the SummerFest act with their own seasonal activities. Al Forsan International Sports Resort, the multi-sport facility behind Abu Dhabi Golf Club, is running summer camps from July 10 to August 3. — news@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
Be Somebody to inspire the world
Be Somebody to inspire the world Sarah Young / 28 June 2013 Inspirational graffiti is now gracing the walls of Dubai, thanks to an American team undertaking a whirlwind, paint-splashing tour through 15 cities in 11 countries. A team of four have bought the slogan from the social media motivation movement “Be Somebody” to two walls in the Al Quoz art district, Al Serkal Avenue. The brainchild of Kash Shaikh, who worked for nine years building brands for Proctor and Gamble and camera company GoPro, and Josh Heuser, founder of Agar, a culture-creating marketing and social intelligence agency in the US, the six-week self-funded tour started on May 25 in Austin, Texas, and will finish in San Francisco on July 4. Besomebody.com was started by Shaikh who began using the hashtag #besomebody in 2009. The blog now claims to be the fastest-growing online motivation movement in the world, with content reaching 3 million people each week in 30 countries. Following visits to 10 cities including New York, London, Paris, Barcelona, Casablanca, and Shirati, Tanzania, the group reached Dubai, the sole Middle Eastern venue, on Monday evening and left again on Wednesday night. The idea came about after Shaikh saw the phrase tagged on an overpass in his home town Houston, Texas. “Any time someone saw that they’d take a picture and send it to me. I had hundreds in my inbox.” Captured by the idea of “tagging the world”, and bringing together social media and street art, Shaikh and Heuser brought on renowned Cincinnati-based graffiti artist Danny Babcock to create these “punch in the gut” pieces to “inspire people to do what they want to do”, and filmmaker Matthew “Snow” Rowe to document the journey. Shaikh said Dubai was one of the places they were most excited to reach. “It’s an emblem of imagination and innovation. We’ve come here when the art scene is really taking off. “I spent three months living in Dubai two years ago and really noticed the lack of art scene…your first impression of the town is very sci-fi, plastic and metal…so it’s really cool to do this and show a different side of Dubai. “A lot of progress has been made. “One thing we don’t want to do is bring to life stereotypical parts of Dubai…the over-indulgence and luxury. We want to take the true and positive behind that….no limits and pushing further than people have dreamed to push … This place is a fantasy land.” With between 36 and 72 hours in each location, the team has to find a wall and some paint, and then get cracking on a piece relating to a city-specific theme. Dubai posed unique challenges of “highly expensive paint”, and burning heat, meaning the team had to work all hours of the night and early morning. Luckily, arrest was avoided given they were able to do it on private property. “It was a pleasant surprise finding this oasis of art in Dubai, and …people so open and welcoming. It fights back against that stereotype that you can’t do this in Dubai.” Dubai’s theme was imagination, to link to the World Expo 2020 aspirations, and engage the community to connect and build the future together. Babcock, who likens the process to hip hop in that he freestyles his creations on the spot, said the phrase “success and excess” was running through his head while working here. “Everything (here) is done in a creative way …. even if it’s built fast. “It takes imagination to be that successful to excess. “And you’re in the middle of a desert, so everything has to be creative. What is imagination, if not creating and bringing to life.” Al Serkal developer Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal said Alserkal Avenue had always been a home to independent projects, initiatives and ideas. “#besomebody is a wonderful global movement dedicated to engage the community and we are glad to be a part of it.” Shaikh said the UAE had by far the most Be Somebody followers in the Middle East, with most aged between 15 and 30, and was one of the top 12 countries using BeSomebody. “People here understand what we are trying to do. “This is exciting because this age-group can really drive change and movements. So much has happened in this region with the Arab Spring …and the next step is people looking at striving for something positive.” sarah@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
The App Craze Branches into Forestry
A startup has developed software and smartphone tools for cataloguing the trees in forests. By Conor Myhrvold on June 25, 2013 WHY IT MATTERS F orests are among the planet’s most biologically diverse and valuable places. Wrap around: SilviaTerra cofounders Zack Parisa (right) and Max Uhlenhuth demonstrate old and new inventory techniques in the field. In a small office near Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just across from Starbucks, is a small startup with a big idea for balancing biodiversity with business. SilviaTerra has developed better ways to identify and quantify the trees in forests, using smartphones and satellite imagery. The company’s goal is to help landowners, conservation groups, and timber companies manage their inventory and preserve valuable natural habitats. From the Amazon and Indonesia to temperate regions such as the Olympic Peninsula and Russia, forests are among the planet’s most biologically diverse and valuable places. The World Wildlife Fund, which estimates that we are losing dozens of football fields of forest per minute , describes deforestation as “ the biggest threat to biodiversity and climatic stability .” Conducting a forest inventory is currently laborious work. “They’re literally sending guys out to the woods with paper and pencil,” says SilviaTerra cofounder Max Uhlenhuth. “They’ll go measure, in a 10-acre area, the sizes and species of trees they have; you have to do a lot of random samples to make sure you cover all that variance.” Uhlenhuth and cofounder Zack Parisa, who came up with the idea for the startup when he was a graduate student at Yale’s forestry school, have two products that promise to update current methods. The first, called TimberScout (also available in a free version called Plot Reduce ), is software that detects forest changes by analyzing satellite imagery, which can usually be obtained through a contracting service. The tool measures variation using machine learning algorithms and customized software. SilviaTerra’s second product, PlotHound , is a free Android and iOS app that helps professional foresters keep track of forest inventory. Information recorded during a plot survey is automatically uploaded, and the app can tell the forester where to go to measure the most critical trees to get an accurate picture of the overall plot. The app is currently used by several thousand foresters across the United States, and SilviaTerra uses the collected information to improve its algorithms. “As we collect more information and build a data library, then by updating the remotely sensed imagery, we’ll have [complete] coverage of the U.S.,” says Parisa, who is SilviaTerra’s CEO. Alex Finkral , senior forester at the Forestland Group , the fifth-largest forestry company in the United States, believes that the technology will be the “a big step for estimating the quantity of trees and value of trees.” The Forestland Group is using SilviaTerra in a pilot program that will compare its technology with traditional techniques. Large landowners with forests, Finkral says, have a constantly shifting schedule of inventories, and updating inventory estimates is expensive. “With tens and hundreds of thousands of acres, you don’t need to send an army of people to sample,” he says. Cataloguing forests is useful for a range of purposes. Earlier in 2013, SilviaTerra started work with a conservation group with land near Mount Kenya to assess how reforestation efforts in communities across a million acres have affected conservation efforts focusing on five animal species. Parisa says his original inspiration came when he tried to inventory Armenia’s national forests and began wondering how he’d evaluate biodiversity in Peru. Ultimately, he hopes that the forest information collected by SilviaTerra can inform policy debates about issues like the feasibility of carbon markets or how to maximize deer populations for hunting. In fact, with satellites, software, smartphones, iPads, and apps, he’ll be counting on it. Continue reading
