Tech

19
Sep
2014

11 Middle Eastern startups travelling to the Web Summit

Featured Middle East

I am delighted to be part of the Web Summit‘s global blog team, covering the Middle East region for Europe’s largest tech conference. Click here for the full article.

With the technology revolution continuing to spread across the world, one of the regions with the largest growth potential is the Middle East. As the tech ecosystem gains momentum, an increasing amount of accelerators, angel investors and venture capital funds have been drawn to the region, and many investors here who had historically looked at tangible assets, are now investing in ideas. When you consider that the region has some of the highest smartphone penetration in the world (UAE #1, Saudi Arabia #3) and eCommerce spending is continuing to grow at speed, it’s clear that there is certainly plenty of opportunity in this part of the world.

A host of exciting Middle Eastern start-ups from Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia will be making their way to Dublin for the Web Summit this November. Here are a few to look out for.

Click here to continue reading

Posted by Rob in e-Commerce, Ireland, Tech
30
May
2014

Google’s self-driving car and the future of the taxi

Another week, another cutesy PR video, and another one of the Big Four’s moonshot projects gets a little closer to reality. While most articles that were circulating on the reveal of Google’s self-driving car dealt with it’s rather cartoon-like appearance or the multitude of regulations that will need to be negotiated before a concept like this becomes viable, The Irish Times looked at how self-driving cars could revolutionize the taxi industry in big cities.

Detailing a report by Lawrence D. Burns, former VP of R&D at General Motors and now a Google consultant, it was suggested that, if such a project becomes viable, it could reduce the cost of running a taxi service by almost 90%, significantly reducing wait times in the process.

The researchers found that Manhattan’s 13,000 taxis made 470,000 trips a day. Their average speed was between 10 and 11 mph, carrying an average of 1.4 passengers per trip with an average wait time of five minutes.

In comparison, it is possible for a futuristic robot fleet of 9,000 shared automated vehicles hailed by smartphone to match that capacity with a wait time of less than one minute.

Assuming a 15% profit, the current cost of a taxi service is about $4 per trip mile, while in contrast, it was estimated that a Manhattan-based driver-less vehicle fleet would cost about 50 cents per mile.

The fact that Google invested $250m in Uber just last year only makes this a more realistic vision. Imagine a fleet of 9,000 Uber / Google self-driving cars whizzing up and down New York’s streets ferrying people around for next to nothing. It’s all very ‘Minority Report‘, but I like it!

Posted by Rob in Google, Tech, Uber
04
Apr
2014

Digital frame & photo app connects old & young

This is a seriously good idea from Johnson & Johnson Middle East, a great example of how tech can be used to make a real emotional impact. These days, more and more families live outside their home countries, especially in the Middle East. As such, the grandparents in these families are even further removed from their children and grandchildren, lucky if they get to see them every year or two.

The ‘Grandparents Frame’ is a digital photo frame that let’s Grandparents, who typically aren’t on social media, witness their grandkids growing up via a social photo sharing app. We actually pitched to build this app for Impact BBDO but didn’t get it unfortunately. Still a bit of a tearjerker though.

Posted by Rob in Apps, Social Media, Tech
28
Feb
2014

Delivery drones come to Dubai. Kind of

28th February 2014

There’s been a lot of talk over the last couple of months about Amazon’s delivery drone concept and how it could revolutionize logistics and online purchasing in particular. But even Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos admits it is up to 5 years from seeing the light of day due to the multitude of regulations and lengthy approval process required to get such an idea off the ground (pun very much intended) in the United States.

Similarly, the government of Dubai announced at the Government Summit earlier this month that they are also testing delivery drones with the intention of using them for delivery of government documents such as ID’s amongst other things. With the city of Dubai presumably able to fast-track the testing process and waive certain regulations in its continued bid to brand itself as an innovation hub, could drone delivery become the norm in Dubai a lot sooner than we thought?

Posted by Rob in Drones, Dubai, Tech
18
Nov
2013

Is Coin The Solution To Carrying Multiple Cards?

While some of us wait patiently for smartphone payments to become a reality, Coin have taken a different approach and developed a device that allows users to ‘carry’ multiple payment options in a single card.

It’s a great product, and I can see it finding a niche among technophiles, but surely there’s a smartphone app out there that’s capable of doing something similar and building a critical mass, although there’s still the seemingly significant hurdle of changing consumer behaviour first, and that’s where Coin might have an advantage.

http://youtu.be/w9Sx34swEG0

Posted by Rob in e-Commerce, Mobile Payments, Tech