Mapping, GPS and Navigation devices are a very useful tool for any person, while the west and USA in general has more advanced solutions in this area than what is available in the Arab world. There has been local and International attempts to solve this issue.

On the web, google has done a good job in few Arab countries namely Dubai but its awesome Google Maps Navigation is only available for Motorola’s come-back mobile Droid. NDrive a Portuguese mobile developerlaunched last October navigation applications for the iPhone, for United Arab Emirates (UAE) , Saudi Arabia Morocco and Egypt, using TeleAtlas the same company that provides maps to Google Maps and Competes with Nokia’s Navteq.

From the region, Ayna the Lebanese company launched this year “Ayna Maps“that are also available via a number of mobile devices but unfortunately Ayna maps need internet connection to work, and since Mobile Internet connection is still costly Ayna maps is not an idle solution. In Jordan, Inside Jo from Jordan, developed an online map along with its own low cost GPS device that unfortunately did not get authorized by the authorities in Jordan!

Nokia 2710 Navigation Edition, The Affordable GPS Phone:

Nokia on the other hand, has went ahead faster than anyone, introducing mapping solution online via its Ovi maps and on its Mobile devices (From High End to Mid level). To push into mid and low market (the developing world), Recently Nokia unveiled the latest device in the company’s range focused on mapping and navigation, the Nokia 2710 Navigation Edition. The new arrival is GPS enabled and pre-loaded with Nokia Maps, making it the most affordable GPS device in Nokia’s broad portfolio.
Relevant maps are included on the device to save cost and make sure that just because you don’t have an Internet connection, your device isn’t rendered useless, an essential element for mobile mapping in order to be used in mobile handsets by the main stream users since Mobile internet connections are pricey.

Nokia 2710 will be available in the second quarter of 2010 estimated to cost, before taxes and subsidies, EU 110.

Nokia 2710: has a GPRS handset, a 2.2-inch screen, 2-megapixel camera and enough storage for 1,000 phonebook entries. It also sports Ovi Mail and Instant Messaging and it’ll keep the tunes turning with an MP3 player and FM radio. It also has a 3.5mm AV connector. The device will go for up to 18 days between charges in standby mode and will give up to four hours and 20 minutes talk time.

Nokia Adds Jordan to Ovi Maps:

After Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, In the mapping and navigation availability, Nokia recently added Jordan to its Ovi Maps application. Adding rich local content and local maps that can be used directly on users mobile device turning them into a navigation systems.

“Having Ovi Maps on their device gives our consumers a new sense of their surroundings, with the possibility to discover new places and share them with their friends using SMS, MMS or Bluetooth.”said Bruce Howe, Head of Marketing Nokia Levant.

Ovi Maps application for your Nokia device is enhanced through additional features and services: high resolution satellite and terrain maps, rotation, tilting, night view and fly-overs and fly-throughs. Nokia’s Jordan Ovi maps was available during the month of November.

Walk from one place to another using WALK, the pedestrian navigation with routing optimized for those on foot, providing better orientation in a city or outdoors.

Or use DRIVE, the navigation takes you from A to B with visual turn-by-turn guidance. It helps you to locate yourself by giving information about the surrounding buildings, roundabouts and streets and in newer handsets points the direction in which you are walking using the handset’s built in compass for orientation.

Ovi Maps uses vector maps are provided by Navteq, which was acquired by Nokia in end of 2007. The map data of Jordan, is offered free of charge and includes detailed Road coverage of 28,621 Km covering 100 municipalities, including street names and street directions.

By this, Nokia has 100 percent of the total road network of Jordan covered including all the major highways connecting Jordan’s major cities. It also has 13.500 Points of Interests including hotels, restaurants, places of worship, shopping malls, petrol stations and many others.

Maps can be downloaded free of charge over the air directly to selected devices or by using the Nokia Map Loader on a PC. however since my Nokia 5800 died and I am currenlty testing now N900 which Ovi Maps is not supported on it yet, I could not test the new maps in Jordan. (See the video I recorded last month for a preview of Ovi maps in Dubai on N900.)

In addition, Nokia also launched a crowed sourced “Get to good things“website to Jordanian consumers, so that they can add their personal POI’s from Jordan and share with the world.

Ovi Maps for mobile is enhanced through additional features and services, such as:

• Better maps with hi-res satellite and terrain maps.
• Enriched Global POI information by Lonely Planet, Michelin and Wcities.
• Global Weather service with 24h and 5-day forecasts.
• Walk from a place to another – easy to use pedestrian navigation with routing optimized for pedestrians for better orientation in a city or anywhere outdoors.
• Drive with enhanced safety car navigation with enhanced safety features.

You can see Nokia’s Ovi Maps in action in dubai running on Nokia’s best and most powerful device to date -N900, via the below video presented by Nokia’s project manager during Nokia’s N Age Tour in Dubai lats month (Note: i will be posting in Arabic and English N 900 video review soon on ArabCrunch ):




(The video is a presentation of Nokia N900 by a Nokia Project Manager in Dubai. and I was asking him questions during the presentation. N900 has 4 desktop screens and Mac “Exposse” like view for multi view of all open applications.

N900 is a powerful mobile and considered Nokia’s top of the line:

N 900 Operating system is Maemo which is built using Linux, It has 600 Mhz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 1GB of app memory, 3D Graphics accelerator with OpenGL ES 2.0 support. Built in memory 32 GB, 3.5 G and WLAN, GSM GPRS and EDGE, Integrated GPS, 800 x 480 touch-screen, Hard QWERTY keyboard, G MP cam, Dual LED flash, 800 x 480 resolution video. Maemo Browser based on Mozilla.)

Etisalats ,the Emarati Telecom company has launched today its own kids phone, the device is geared for families to monitor and stay in touch with their kids.

KidsPhone is a simple device that comes only with a 4 programmed numbers, GPS and SMS. The device will alert parents via SMS and email if their kids leave a predefined zone such as school, club or home.

Kids can only call one of these 4 numbers. In most cases, to their parents brothers and sisters. The device is ideal to keep kids safe. I like the fact that the phone does not offer a full-fledged phone which kids should not have.

About a month ago, my friend Zamil Safwan from Saudi Arabia, showed me a prototype for a similar device to Etisalat’s Kids phone, that his company “Jockey Electronics” has designed and developed. He aims to partner with Telecom operator in the region to launch it.

On the other front, as we said before on AC, Etisalat launched its own mobile branded phone, Etisalat 211 FM, a low cost mobile phone at the price of 265 AED (72.15 USD) that comes bundled with Etisalat Wasel SIM card with 165 AED of free airtime credit for international calls, over a period of 3 months.

Etisalat 211FM, is a mobile device that supports MMS, WAP and FM radio features. The slim device has a colored display screen and supports both Arabic and English languages. The device comes with a headset and one year warranty from Etisalat.
Etisalat 211FM, is the first series of self branded mobile devices Etisalat said it intends to launch.

Among what we do at ArabCrunch is profile Arab startups and technology companies and review them. As we said before ArabCrunch mission is to help entrepreneurs and help drive technology innovation and entrepreneurship in the Arab region while maintaining an objective coverage. Though most of the startups that we covered until now where from the Internet and software space. What about Arab hardware startups? Today we start exploring and uncover that hidden world.

Entering the Hardware and Telecom industry is not an easy task, it is not like PHP coding or online content that can reach the mass virally. Hardware products need special care, they need among other things, smart engineers capable of chip design and low level programming not to mention the manufacturing costs that is mostly outsourced to China or Taiwan and the branding investments they need plus the difficulties in dealing with the closed mind set of mobile operators such as what we see in the USA.

Younivate, from Amman, Jordan took that difficult route upon itself. The startup which was founded by the Jordanian Engineer Dr. Saed Younis has been around since 2004 and specializes in telecommunication and industrial engineering product and solutions.

It business is a mixture of end products tailored to the end consumers and Telecom operators and designing custom solutions to other clients per order.

In its product line Younivate has an array of USB modems and one PCI card under LinkVu brand (connecting your PC to the internet via your mobile operator), Fixed wireless Terminals under the ConnectVu brand. These products support the following networks: CDMA2000, 3G UMTS/HSPA+, 4G WiMAX and 4G LTE networks. (If you are not familiar with these terms they are data, voice and video wireless networks used by many operators worldwide, LTE is the latest one).

One of Younivate devices I liked from looking at its features set is the innovative LinkVu 3G EVDO USB Modem which allows you to connect the Internet via 3G network to your PC or laptop. Running on QUALCOMM Chipset the device has some nice features that turns it into multi purpose device with an FM Radio, microSD memory, 2.5 mm headset audio jack, SMS, softphone, and GPS. The device can also be used as a mobile audio player, FM radio receiver, mass storage of files which enables you to share your exact location with your friends via Google Latitude and turns your PC into a mobile where you can send and receive SMS messages and make phone calls.

On its GPS Tracking and GPS Monitoring product line, Younivate has YouniVu Live Fleet Management System and YouniVu Fleet Management System. For mobile operators Younivate has CoverVu Network Monitoring System a software that helps them to monitor their network with ease. It detects things such the network strength and power with no need for equipment or out-door engineers to go the location.

Younivate is self funded by its founder and has achieved partnerships with blue chip brands such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.

In the marketing front, Younivate aims to reach major markets all over the world. However, currently some devices are sold in Iraq and Kuwait with some operators via OEM agreement. The company current distribution channel is based on reselling agreements with telecom operators with an ambition of direct sales in the future.

The company has competitions from China and Korea but differs itself with better performance, local support, and a competitive price as Mojahed Qashoa ,Younivate VP Sales and Marketing, told ArabCrunch.

Inside Jo is the 1st Jordanian startup to develop a GPS car navigation system. The company is a joint venture between Jordan based, Delaware, USA incorporated award winning backup company Genie-Soft  which was founded by a Jordanian young entrepreneur Muayyad Shehadeh in 2001, and Jordan based companyREBORN INDUSTRIES which specialized manufacturing of automation and electrical switchgear.

Inside Jo offer GPS Car Navigator device plus an online mapping portal for Jordan. It provides details of every street level with the names of each street in Amman (The capital of Jordan), something I never saw in any of its online mapping competitors. Inside Jo provides mapping solutions that not just tourists badly need but also a very handy solution for the residents’ of Jordan.

Online Mapping:

Inside Jo online mapping portal is up and running in beta mood, the website which is in English and Arabic promised soon, offers maps, city search, weather and entertainment guide in Amman.

“Maps” is the main section of the website and it offers you away to search the map by address or location, Inside Jo has added thousands of interest points that users can search for or add the missing ones.

Once you search for an interest point say “KFC” in this example, it shows you all the available locations of that interest point, when clicking at one of these locations, you get the telephone number and the address of the interest point and if you click read more you get to see the latest reviews of that spot or you can add your, though reviews are moderated before they can be displayed.

The other beauty of the system is that it can give you directions to that location from anywhere in the map, just right click on the map and choose “Drive to Here” and then go to your start point location in the map and chose “Drive from Here”. The website then displays a detailed map with the best route you can get, it also calculates the distance and the Taxi charge. In this example driving from Jordan University South Gate to KFC near six circle, is 8.8 KM long and costs 1.77 JD by Taxi, which is about what the Taxi fare costs. “The Get Directions” feature is the most important feature, because it provides direction from any location on the map to any other one you chose, this comes handy using the GPS device, however the web version comes short at providing written step by step directions just the rout.

Sharing came to the mind of the developers of Inside Jo, you can share the location of the map using a URL or an Embed option, or you can send current map by email or print it.

The “City Search” of the Inside Jo website provides you with a directory of interest point that spans from Restaurants with all its types, such as Arabic and Fast Food, to Religious Organizations which includes Churches and Mosques. Browsing through the interest points leads to a page for each interest point with its location on the map and the spot phone number, you can also see reviews or add yours and even bookmark or print the page. 

On Inside Jo website the entertainment section offers you with Cinema, TV guide and Radio sections. However for the time being, only cinema section works offering you what is currently showing and when in all Amman Cinemas and the location and phone number of each cinema house.

GPS Device:

The GPS Car Navigator device is called GNav and comes with no monthly fees only one time buying payment, however it is not available yet in the market, but will be available in July 2009, according to InsideJo website.

GNav comes with a touch screen visual and voice navigation system. Auto re-route, 2D or 3D map view, built-in point of interest  database and Customizable Route Methods an important feature to use during traffic jams, where you can  choose the way you want to navigate to use the most freeways, least freeways, fastest time, shortest distance and avoid toll roads. Exclude specific streets or freeways after a route is calculated to get there the way you want.

GNav is 4.3 widescreen, high-quality touch screen,  Weight220 g  and buttery life up to Battery life up to 4 hours, however the battery can be recharged via the car electric outlet (Lighter, 5V). The full list of GNav’s features can be found here.

Here is a video of how the device works:




# Inside Jo
 

TechCONNECT is a yearly networking event orginazed by Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE ). The Event  brings together entrepreneurs, leaders in the technology industry, and those with a demonstrable interest in technology, with the aim of increasing Tech entrepreneurship.

This year event commenced last Monday with around 40 attendees. At the Green Garden in The Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Al Jubeiha, Amman , Jordan.

At least 2 of QRCE sponsors attended the event, Wassef Masri Managing Director, Telecom and IT Service of Optimaiza Solutions the first publicly traded IT company on Amman Stock Exchange. And Elias Darwish Google Account manager MENA who was the speaker at the Art Of online Advertising Seminar I covered here.

I managed to talk with few participants, not with everyone because I had other meetings,  so in this post only 5 companies are crunched.

Akhtaboot , it is a Jordanian based social recruitment website from Middle East. 3 of Akhtaboot team attended the event: Yousef Shamoun Co-founder and head of sales & marketing, Kamle Al-Asmar ROR web developer, and Mais Gousous Marketing coordinator.
According to Al-Asmar and Shamoun Akhtaboot launched a CV writing service recently, but soon they will enhance it with new version that will categories the CV writing service according to career level: Beginning, intermediate and advanced. Entry Level, Mid Career and Senior (UpDate: CV writing is launched see my post here) The other information I got from them is that Akhtaboot team will launch in few weeks, online gaming for middle east built using Java-Script.

As of Today CV Writing service is live fees range from 50$ to 200$, I ll write another post about it.

Moritery Systems: is a participant in the second face of Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Competition (QRNEC) in the security category. This startup is developing Transit vehicle tracking solution that will be deployed by the custom department of Jordan, it replaces the old method of stamping trucks with red wax, with a device that uses RFID and GPS which enables custom officials to know where the truck is  in Jordan at anytime, and it could be accessed with a web interface, the tracking system is integrated with the government mapping system. The startup is co-founded by Ahmad Nausra and Tala Izahran and is currently self funded.

Generic is the company that provides IT outsourcing and has its own product called OneEd, which is a web based school Management Systems ( OneEd) that helps educators perform grading, attendance-taking, reporting, scheduling, health administration and other vital tasks. It is designed for teachers, principals, office staff, technical coordinators, guidance counselors and school nurse. The system is built using Microsoft .NET platform.
When I tried to access OneEd website  today, it  was not operational and gave me the following error:

Server Error in ‘/’ Application,

Object reference not set to an instance of an object. !

Generic has also developed Virtual Reality Systems for Middle East Defense Systems (A KADDB Company) providing virtual prototyping of the company military products.
Generic is founded by Mahmud Shalabi who has many years of experience working with Microsoft in USA in MS CRM and other products.

JO-ALTEN: With the recent huge increase in oil prices JO-ALTEN http://jo-alten.com the Jordanian Russian Company for Alternative Energy Co. wants to provide cheaper solutions using solar energy and wind. The company website claims 70% saving for heating and 80% saving in energy consumption for industrial companies. JO-ALTEN general manager is Dr. Yaseen Al-Husban and it is based in Amman-Jordan.

ELSIRAJ an Online Community Platform, is another participant in QRNEC second face,  the online business category. ELSIRAJ founder declined to provide me with info about the service saying its confidential, he said they will be launch in about a month.

I managed to get some other news from other startup and I will publish them very soon in separate posts.

To read about the last year TechConnect go to Mohammad KHawaja’s post here

Places.ae BlackBerry version allows users to find locations near them by using GPS, making the process of finding locations of restaurants, hotels, shops and so on, more easy and more convenient when on the go.

This move puts places.ae in the LBS (Location Based Services) market, but currently Places.au services are only available in Dubai while more Emirates to be add soon.

Places.ae is a useful, convenient and simple service; it started as a web locations directory for places, submitted by the users, and then expanded into other communications channels such as IM, mobile, and twitter.

Places.ae web interface is very easy to use and straight forward; just type the place (ex. pizza) and where it is near by, while you are typing these entries the web site suggests related words, just like Yahoo search suggestions.

Then Places.ae yields to you the search results where you can click in one of them, once in the place page for example: Oregano, it shows the location on Google map, phone number, descriptions, associated tags, and you can even rate this place and add comments. thus providing users with reviews of each place.

The service does not stop short,  it also provides you with the option to add the place to your favorites so you can find it easily next time. And it lists you at the place page similar places, a way to help you discover more places.

Even though Places.ae is currently useful it can be even more useful if it add more features and services such as: The user can optionally add his default location -such as home and work) on his profile, thereby when searching; he does not have to type his location.  Just type find places near me, and places.ae will retrieve places near his location and how far they are from him. At the same time providing the user with directions to reach that place.

Another one would be adding location based social networking , or possible integration with location based photos and videos from flickr.com and YouTube.com for example when I am at starbucks @ Ibn Battuta Mall page, it would be useful to find photos and videos taken in that location.

I also suggested to Michael Hendrickx the founder of places.ae to add GEO-RSS to the site, allowing users to subscribe to a location’s feed and get that location places update. ( I recommended ArabCrunch sponsor Feedoor to manage the feeds.)

The BlackBerry version has my first suggested feature: it detects the user’s location via GPS to find places near him and it shows how far they are from him. ( my suggestion was for the web)

When the user click the place entry he will see a little static map of the place, And phone numbers are often detected, so it’s very easy to call that place, in case the user wants to.

To access this service you need BlackBerry with GPS device, a mobile data connection and Java script enabled browser.

The BlackBerry version is part of Places.ae ongoing mobile version development , which can also server Windows Mobile and iPhone clients. but for the latter two, places.ae is currently optimizing the interface.

since they have slightly better browsers (and UI) than a BlackBerry.

Before launching the BlackBerry Places.ae launched PAM (Places Answering Machine) to support other communication channels.

Pam is what links the places.ae search engine with other communication channels available on the Internet.

According to places.

Currently PAM supports Gtalk Windows Live Messenger and Twitter. SMS, E-mail and possibly Yahoo! Messenger will be added to PAM soon.

On the future places will launch API

so people can start their own “version” of places.ae”

According to Hendrickx.

Places is the work of Michael Hendrickx -from Belgium is IT security expert who currnelty lives in UAE-   and Spinbits . It was developed using the Rails framework.

weNear a mobile 2.0 location based  platform developed by Alexandria, Egypt based eSpace,  has launched location based applications competition using the weNear API.

The competition is open to the students of The Computer Science Department at Alexandria University, Egypt.

The final submission date is 31 August 2008 11:59 PM Alexandria time. If you need more info about the architecture of weNear, API documentation, and weNear generated client/server communication code in several languages  go here, and to submit your application you can go here.

weNear is  a personal assistant installed on your mobile device that’s always on the lookout for nearby events that are of interest to you.

It business model is based on location based advertising, a market that is projected to reach billions of dollars.

This is a smart move by weNear team, which will help add more applications on top of weNear, adding more value to the end user, but I wonder why they did not open the competition to whole Arab world?

I’ve been privileged to receive an invite to Brightekite privet beta a few days ago, for those who do not know the service it is a location based micro blogging and photo sharing social network, my profile is here.

On BrightKite you can use both the web and mobile to send your status update or photos. From the mobile you have to check in your current location using SMS for example: @2911 Walnut St, Denver, CO, from the web you check in to a location by writing it down and when sending your updates your updates is attached to your latest checked in location.

You can send photos via mobile through email: Email your photo to: s1650@bkite.com and enter a caption for your photo in the subject line of the email. The service is mashed up with Google maps. You can also control the privacy of the of your posts, photos, and locations’ visibility.

The beauty about BK, is that you can know the where about of your friends, and the location of their photos and updates, also you can know who is around you at the moment in 20, 200, 2000, and 4000 radius  whether they are your friends or other BK members, using your web browser or your mobile.   if you are using iPhone, BK’s recently launched cool iPhone interface is ideal for you, BK also allows you to link your updates to twitter.

Currently Brightkite only support the following US carriers: AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Nextel and Boost Mobile.

Imagine if Brightkite would add features such as video posting from the web, and mobile with geo-location, enabling users to tag both photos and videos into relevant tags other than location, add comments to them and provide the option to view photos taken in any location, this could be done through SMS, MMS, and a special mobile application (check twitpic.com- BrightKite will launch mobile application for checking in soon) and adding more profile fields that would give more information about the user than the current Brightkite limited profile information.

These features where basically part of an idea of a startup I was planning to launch 2 years ago and the developers who signed my NDAs know a bet about it. (Note to the people who signed the NDA: it is still valid and you cannot use or share its’ content with others specially the other aspects not mentioned here.)

If these features were added, it would open the world to web 3.0 that could be used in a lot of useful ways such as: Trip planning, hanging out, and discovering places and location based instant social networking.

For example you want to visit a certain street in a certain city; you could go and look at the associated photos and videos to that street. Also you can filter them into any tag type you want -Yahoo has a working privet beta project for sharing your location called Fire Eagle and Google added recently Video locations to its’ map- these videos and photos has comments so you can read them or add yours and get a bigger picture of what is going on. Moreover you can see who has visited this location or is already there and send them messages asking them about the best places to go to. At the end of your trip you can post your videos, photos and updates, such as a photo of a Sushi dish from a Japanese restaurant, giving users insights of the restaurant’s food.

Another example is: If you go to an event, and you want to see who is who? you just login via your mobile browser and view the profiles of people around you, just nudge the people you wana connect with, and if they nudge back, you can start a conversation and build a relationship. See TechCrunch story here.
–Disclosure: ArabCrunch is not affiliated with TechCrunch-