Madina Telecom & Travel's

Most people probably listen to music on-the-go through their smartphone nowadays but there is still a niche market for MP3 players. Sony wants to capitalize on this and is targeting consumers who want to listen to music underwater. Smartphones are not cheap and so for some places they are simply a no-go. Sony wants you to be able to enjoy your favourite tunes underwater and have designed a waterproof MP3 player. To prove just how waterproof it is, the company has decided to sell the device inside a bottle of water. As well as proving the point, it is also an ingenious marketing tactic. Although the idea of listening to music under water is not a new one, it is still not that popular. Sony hope that by having vending machines that provide an MP3 player stored in water, enough curiosity will be aroused in people, motivating them to buy one. Priced at  $99 , this Walkman is not the cheapest MP3 out there but purchasing it through a vending machine and then taking it out of t...

Toshiba  purchased OCZ last month for $35 million after OCZ were bankrupt.  OCZ are starting shipments of a new line of solid-state drives (SSD’s), which offer a maximum storage capacity of 3.2TB.  The Z-Drive 4500 range of Solid State Drives ship in capacities of 800GB and 1.6TB.   The new SSD’s are manufactured using the Japanese company’s latest developing process. OCZ  does already offer 3.2TB drives with the Z-Drive R4 SSD range, but the new drives are quicker, OCZ said in a statement. You may want to break into your savings account if you plan to purchase one though as the 3.2TB drive is priced at $6,533, the 1.6TB at $3,806 and 800GB at $2,355. This SSD range offers endurance of 2.5PB and random read times of 252,000 IOPS and random write times of up to 76,000 IOPS. The Z-Drive 4500 SSD connects through a PCI-Express slot.  The SSD also uses software as a tool to increase the speed of read/write operations.  OCZ is also bundling Windows A...

While  WhatsApp was down over the weekend , people turned to the messaging service Telegram instead; nearly five million people signed up for the app, placing it at the top of the App Store chart. Telegram is now the number one app in the social networking category, beating WhatsApp, Facebook and others. Designed by the Durov brothers, who are responsible for Russia’s largest social network VKontakte or VK, Telegram combines the ephemerality of Snapchat with a design that is not too dissimilar to WhatsApp, as well as a host of advanced security features. According to Telegram’s Markus Ra, it’s not WhatsApp’s acquisition and downtime issues that have caused the sudden increase in users though. “We have been the no. 1 app in Spanish, Arabic, and several Latin American app stores for several weeks before the Facebook deal happened,” he said. “The growth was there — so the WhatsApp acquisition and problems merely multiplied the effect across all affected countries.” ‘It Wil...

Caterina Fake is the mind behind the massively popular  Flickr  photo-sharing site and is looking to eliminate that historical chain with a new location map-based social discovery platform, called Findery. Findery  is currently available on iOS, it becomes clear that the world is meant to be viewed by the user as a blank canvas that is ready for you to fully explore.  You can explore geo-tagged notes on a map to learn about places through experiences from different people from across the planet. Users of the app can post public or private notes with historical data, personalized stories via text, images, videos, and sound clips. The app will then cleverly annotate and then organize the information based on the location. The social network side of the app, uses your current location to bring up appealing notes in the user’s immediate vicinity, thereby making it simple to find stories and pictures relevant to your own experience.  For example, you are expl...

Ever the innovators,  Google  have recently announced version 2.0 of their very popular communication app, Hangouts, for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The new look is fresh and it feels more intuitive.  There are also some big new features. Google Hangouts version 2.0 is the best yet. The app’s interface has been optimized for the larger sized screens of the iPad.  Therefore, visually, Hangouts 2.0 looks even clearer and is also easier to use. Hangouts 2.0 will display a two-pane view on a tablet, conversations on the right and with contacts on the left.  This maximizes the device’s screen. Also this makes it perfect for video calling. A new feature in Hangouts 2.0 brings in support for stickers. Yes, you read that correctly, Google have jumped on the bandwagon when it comes to the current craze of instant messaging stickers. Users of messaging services may be familiar with the use of stickers. The major new function of Hangouts 2.0 is the ability to se...

FastStone Image Viewer is an easy-to-use tool for editing, converting and viewing images. Packed full of features, it supports all major graphic formats and also popular digital camera RAW formats. The latest version, FastStone Image Viewer 5.0, sees an added option to the Slide Show tool, called ‘Crop to Fit Full Screen’. As well as that there is now a larger thumbnail size available to the ‘Thumbnail’ tab and an additional shortcut for the auto-rotate feature. There have also been some minor changes and bug fixes. FastStone Image Viewer 5.0 is available to download now via FileHippo.

I can still hear the sound of the Tyrannosaurus Rex stomping towards the 10,000 volt electrical fence that is no longer operational.  The water in the glass vibrates as Lexi shivers in fear and panic.  Enter the tri-toed claw on the top of the fence.  The once bleating goat disappears from the scene.  Suddenly a bloody goat leg gets thrown onto the plexi-glass topped jeep.  We all have seen it!   Jurassic Park !  A film of epic proportions! But wait a minute hackers!  Do you want to be a part of the movie and relive the moment where Lexi (Ariana Richards) breaks into the Jurassic Park security system and gets the computer system fully operational again?  Because now you can! Tully Robinson  has created a Jurassic Park simulator which is based on the scene where Mr. Arnold (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to figure out what the annoying and completely obnoxious Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) has done to the system.  The name ...

Opera Software ASA has released its latest stable version of the web browser for Windows PC users.  At the time of writing, there has been no official change log released for Opera 20.0.1387.64 but the browser comes packed full of features, including advanced functions like Opera’s E-mail program. If you are first-time user of Opera then you will be prompted to “help improve Opera by sending feature usage information.” There is the option to accept or decline, depending on whether you are happy to share this information. You can  download Opera 20.0.137.64 via FileHippo through this link .

With all the cases of  government snooping and outright requests for user information , not to mention the leaks that have let the cat out of the bag, companies seem to have engaged in a quest to show transparency. Microsoft is one of those who is rather vocal about law enforcement requests, and this week, it released its Law Enforcement Requests Report, which covers July to December of 2013. Law enforcement requests cannot be ignored, and when they are served, a company has to have its own response policy. In Microsoft’s case, their  principles  are: We require a valid subpoena or legal equivalent before we consider releasing a customer’s non-content data to law enforcement; We require a court order or warrant before we consider releasing a customer’s content data; In each instance, we carefully examine the requests we receive for a customer’s information to make sure they are in accord with the laws, rules and procedures that apply. So, aren’t you curi...

Wireless Charging is a cool idea, but I imagine that most of us still need to buy a charging pad to use the wireless charging features available on some devices.  Wireless charging first made it’s way to the Android operating system via the  HTC Droid DNA  last year and has also made it to the Galaxy S4, Galaxy Note 3, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 (2013) and even a few Windows phone models have made the grade. There is a number of wireless charging pads available on the market, but the RAVPower  wireless charger  is pretty small, which is great for travelling. In fact, it’s so small that it covers a Nexus 7! This is a fairly simple to use wireless charger. You just have to plug it into the socket and then put your Qi-enabled device down on the pad and you’re good to charge. The RAVPower pad has a small LED light on the front which lets you know if the charger has completed charging your device or not. As with all wireless charging pads, the technology hasn’t reach...

Everyone knows by now that end of support for Windows XP will end on April 8, 2014. By now, everyone also knows that Microsoft is heavily pushing its newer operating system, Windows 8.1, in spite of the low adoption rate for the latter – or perhaps “because of” is the better term. There is even talk about  Microsoft working on a free version of Windows 8.1 ! Guess what? A LOT of users will be seeing the Windows XP warning popup starting this weekend. According to this chart, almost 30% of Windows users are still on XP. That’s certainly not insignificant! Back to the popup… It will show up on every computer running on Windows XP, and it will continue to do so unless the user opts to click “don’t show this message again”. If you are hellbent on not upgrading, I suppose that’s the first thing you’ll do, right? If, however, you are starting to realize just how serious Microsoft is serious about killing off Windows XP, and you want to make sure your migration is hassl...