Oracle bought Sun

This is pretty big news. The headers on the websites of both Sun and Oracle are as shown below. Not saying the same thing exactly.

Click here to read what Sun is saying about it.

Pay electricity bill every month. The horror!

My building haris (caretaker) informed me today morning that there’s a notice from the ministry saying that electricity bills must be paid every month.

People from almost every other country in the world must think its the most natural thing, but here in Kuwait we are used to paying our bills once a year or even once every two or three years! If this is the case, I hope they enable online KNET payment otherwise it would totally suck having to go there early in the morning, get the guy to come home and take the meter reading and go back to make the payment – every month!

Explosion in Ahmadi, Kuwait

I just got a call from my folks in Karachi asking if everything was alright and that a local news channel (Geo News) mentioned that there was an explosion in a mosque here with 5 people stuck inside the rubble and some injured.

Turns out its a Huseiniya in Ahmadi and caused by a gas cylinder exploding. More details are not yet available but you can check the below links to catch up on what people are saying.

Geo News KUWAIT: An explosion shook a mosque in southern Kuwait, hurting an unspecified number of people, Kuwait’s private Al Rai television said on Sunday.

It said five people were reported to be trapped under the rubble in the building in the town of Ahmadi.

[Geo Link]

[248am Link]

Update: Some pictures of the scene can be found here.

Viva, Wataniya and Zain – Free Incoming Calls!

Pick up that land-line phone and call me.

Finally, with the arrival of the 3rd Telecom Operator in Kuwait (Viva), the consumers are finally getting the benefit. All three operators have announced free incoming calls today (technically, Viva is yet to announce it). To my knowledge, this covers both international and local incoming calls. That’s pretty big news and people have been waiting for this for a long, long time.

I guess we owe it to Viva to revitalize the competition in this market. Happy call-receiving everybody!

Now I wonder if they are going to put a charge on outgoing local calls in Kuwait other than the yearly fixed amout of K.D.30. If not, then this is very surprising news indeed.

Sources for this news

Wataniya – I received the SMS myself.

Zain – Its all over the media.

Viva – Its not announced yet but this is the insider news so far and it makes sense too.

Nokia Unveils the N97

So its the Nokia N97! I must say it looks pretty impressive. It also looks roughly about the size of the iPhone going by this image, albeit a little taller and narrower. That takes care of my concerns about it looking like a pencil box.Though with a full keyboard hidden underneath the screen, I’m guessing it won’t be that thin.

Primary features:

• A 3.5″ resistive touch-screen
• A-GPS
• 5 MP camera
• HSDPA
• Wifi
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• 32GB onbard memory expandable to 48GB. Now that’s a lot!
• A QWERTY keyboard

This is looking suspiciously close to my dream cell phone.

They say it will go for around $693 (excluding subsidies and taxes) and is expected to be out by H1 of 2009. Certainly not cheap, but then again; it is their flagship model as of today.

Check out the Nokia link below for the details available so far.

[Nokia link]

Nokia Countdown

Roughly another hour to go before Nokia lets the cat out of the bag. I’m curious to see what they’ve got up their sleeves that’s getting the whole mystery treatment. They certainly have my attention, I just hope its not another iteration of their pencil-box look-alike series (aka the Communicator).

[Nokia link]

Apple Black Friday sale – Tomorrow!

The subject says it all. I’ve got my eyes on the new iPod Touch 2G and hope Apple gives a great discount so I can pick one up.

Detailed below is the respective price comparison of Apple vs Amazon prices on the new iPod Touch 2G:

8GB: $229 vs $210

16GB: $299 vs $270

32GB: $399 vs $360

Apple [Link]

Amazon [Link]

Update: Its not looking very encouraging with the discounts they have put up on their Australian site.

Twenty20 Cricket Final and a reckless statement

“First of all I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world.”

That’s what the young Pakistani cricket team captain; Shoaib Malik had to say after he accepted the medal for the losing side. That was a reckless statement to conclude a final-worthy, nail-biting finale between the two cricketing titans – India and Pakistan.

By saying that, he unnecessarily brought religion into the game and upset not only the Muslims in India, but also the non-Muslim supporters Pakistan has. I’m quite sure it was a sub-conscious mistake on his behalf but it was extremely distasteful nonetheless. I hope he follows through soon with an explanation, if not an apology.

The World Cup Twenty20 final itself was amazing and it was good to see cricket being played in its full spirit and form by both the sides. Pakistan was successful in limiting India to 156 runs and it seemed that we were finally going to break the long-lasting curse (Pakistan has never beaten India in any World Cup match – ever). Pakistan started off reasonably well but soon started losing wickets and if it weren’t for Misbah’s commendable fight in the end; we would have lost with a lot more than only 5 runs.

It was good to see both teams performing so well even without the ’super-stars’. Both Dhoni and Shoaib Malik displayed a lot of potential as sensible captains. They consistently made good choices during the match and showed immense faith in the younger players. This match is aptly being hailed as a victory of youth.

On a side note; I’d like to add that I believe Twenty20 is the future of cricket. Test cricket seems like a useless waste of time and even One Day Internationals seem too prolonged. Any sporting event should not last longer than 2-3 hours im my opinion. I’ve had enough of “Test cricket is the real cricket”. What’s the point if you can’t watch a match ball to ball? Anybody who manages to watch Test cricket ball to ball needs to find a job!

iPhone launch date equals my birthday

iPhone’s official launch date has been announced. Guess what – it coincides with my birthday! So am I getting a surprise present from Apple? Maybe this could serve as the push I need to make that Apple cross-over (hint, hint).

Steve, are you reading this?

If not, then Bill, are you?

Trillionaire – Mukesh Ambani

Mukesh Ambani has become India’s first trillionaire. It means that his combined shareholdings are worth in excess of Rs.1,00,000 crores!

He is the Chairman of Reliance Industries and son of Dhirubai Ambani who was the founder.

“The combined market capitalisation of the four Mukesh Ambani Group companies – RIL, Reliance Petroleum (RPL), IPCL and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure Ltd (RIIL) – has crossed the Rs 2,50,000 crore mark. The total promoter holding in these companies is worth over half at about Rs 1,30,000 crore.“

Read the complete article with details of his shareholdings in various companies, here.