Hailstorm Blankets Parts of UAE - Check Out The Photographs

Parts of UAE experienced hail storm.

Some of the areas in Abu Dhabi assumed a white picturesqueness. Check out below few beautiful pics.

The Three Santa Claus Brothers In Dubai

The Three Santa Claus Brothers In Dubai.

Unified Communication can improve productivity of your employees

Collaboration can help improve performance and make more efficient use of company

resources, but organizations need technological solutions to facilitate teamwork in the modern enterprise environment. Business doesn’t happen face to face as often as some would like. Instead, today’s communication depends on conference calls and emails chains that make it challenging to get to know your partners.

At my office emails are definitely one of the many ways employees communicate with each other. Email has been one of the oldest forms of communication used in the corporate environment. 

According to Radicati group,In 2009, the typical corporate user sends and receives about 167 messages daily. Organizations wishing to store all these messages need to allocate a little over 20 MB of storage space per user per day. The average corporate worker spends a quarter of his/her work day on various email-related tasks, which is a waste of time 

A new generation of communications technologies are upon us. They are addressing the new way to work that is permeating workplaces worldwide.

Use of Instant messaging has been increasing over the years in the office. IM has several advantages. It’s real-time. It’s richer than email. And it lets users easily switch to even richer mediums, such as voice or video over the Internet. 

Video conferencing has focused on its ability to decrease travel costs and is certainly used in my office. 

At my workstation in the office - my fav place - helps me stay connected with the world -… http://t.co/I6Q0U6QRxB
— Kapil Bhatia (@Kapilkb) November 5, 2014

Mobile technology - The better the technology becomes the more employers embrace the bring your own device (BYOD) to work philosophy, the more deeply connected workers become to their workplaces, which exist on the same devices as their social networks and family photos.

Check out a video from Fujitsu showing break through in human centric workplaces.




Unified communication increases workplace productivity and that brings an increase in workplace delight. Now wouldn't you like to have such an environment in your office? 

Want to know how you can improve your staff productivity by adopting unified communication?

Visit: http://workplace.global.fujitsu.com/Unified-Communications #masteryourbiz #FujitsuInsiders

Fujitsu M532 - A Review

The Fujitsu STYLISTIC M532 is the newest tablet from Fujitsu which offers great processing capabilities and even more. Fujitsu has been truly a business technology innovator. Some of the features listed in the Datasheet that make the device outstanding for me include :-

• OS – Android 4.0

• Supported capacity RAM 1 GB

• Weight 560 g

• Camera Front camera 2.0 megapixel, back camera 8.0 megapixel with autofocus and flash

• VDI – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (very important feature for corporate companies looking to cut down IT cost)

• Runtime 1st battery video playback 9.5 h

• Multitasking: the quad core Cortex A9 CPU can support all applications and social networks at same time.

• The 10.1-inch multi-touch capacitive touchscreen with 1280 x 800 resolution device can be docked and extended by connecting it with HDMI to an external monitor. A key board and a mouse can make this device work like a light workstation and make wonder with Quad-Core 1.4 GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor.

• Web conference: with front 2mpix camera and lots of connectivity options such UMTS and WIFI.

The two vital elements in the Web 2.0 world for a new gadget are mobility and connectivity. The STYLISTIC M532 is lightweight, slim and that turns into a mobile office on the go. You can access office emails via synchronized Microsoft Exchange, make presentations via the pre-installed software such as Office Suite, file editor and file viewer for documents and presentations.

Fujitsu Stylistic M532's excellent specs position it as a direct competitor to the ASUS Transformer Prime and the iPad 3. What makes this tablet stand out is the fact that Fujitsu clearly markets it as a business tablet.

Technology Innovations - My Timeline

A timeline depicting the introduction of tech innovations in my life from 1989-2011 



Mobile Payment Systems

The below article was published in @QatarToday Magazine - Feb 2012 issue.

The mobile network is evolving at a lightning speed and will thrive over coming years. Recently, introduction of mobile payment systems (MPS) has gained momentum and a greater attention from telecoms and financial institutions. Mobile phones are looked upon as an appropriate medium for supplementing existing payments and settlement procedures.

The cashless society is coming: American consumers now carry more than 750 million credit cards, while paper currency production continues to decline.

The phrase “mobile payment system” can apply to various mechanisms for initiating and accepting transactions using a mobile device.

According to Forrester Research MPS can be divided into two categories: -

• Payment systems that utilize a mobile network to initiate or authorize a transaction.

• Contactless systems that use a mobile phone in lieu of a traditional credit card.

In other words, mobile payment systems apply to: -

• How consumers pay for goods

• How merchants can process transactions.

Lets us look at some of the emerging mobile payment systems in the market that allow accepting credit card payments on mobile: -

Square

Started By – the San Francisco-based mobile technology firm is a startup from Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame.

How does this work - Square enables users to accept credit and debit purchases by swiping cards through a small dongle that plugs into their iPhone, iPad or Android audio jack. The startup has already released software for iPhone and Andriod devices.

Fees - Square charges a fee of 2.75 % on each swiped transaction, no contracts, monthly fees or hidden costs. Users who select to enter credit card numbers manually must pay 3.5 % and 15 cents per transaction. Service will only deposit up to $1,000 per week into the merchant’s account, the rest is deposited in 30 days.

GoPayment

Started By - It is a partnership between popular iPhone accessory maker Mophie and Intuit. Intuit is the company that provides business and financial management solutions and the creator of QuickBooks, Quicken and TurboTax.

How does this work - the pocket-size GoPayment reader plugs into the audio jack of any supported smart phone or tablet and supports the iOS Android and BlackBerry operating systems. Users can swipe cards or manually enter card data. GoPayment processes and authorizes payments in seconds, and funds are then immediately deposited into the merchant’s business bank account. Its 4 million QuickBooks users can sync GoPayment transactions with the most recent versions of QuickBooks for PC and Mac

Fees – Merchants who process less than $1000 a month need to pay 2.7% rate to swiped transactions and a 3.7% rate to manual transactions. A high-volume option, priced at $12.95 a month charges a 1.7 % fee on swiped transactions and 2.7% on manual entries

There are a few more payment systems like Pay Anywhere and Verifone’s PAYware Mobile, which work on a similar mechanism of attaching a card reader to your mobile.

Contactless Payment Technology called Near Field Communication (NFC) enables mobile payments by tapping your phone on the payment machine.

Google Wallet is an app that uses Near Field Communication (NFC) to make secure paments by tapping the phone on any PayPass-enabled terminal. Google Wallet being an app can store credit cards, offers, loyalty cards and gift card. Mobile phones will automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points when a customer taps the phone on a terminal.

In the Middle East region, NFC mobile payments have already been introduced in UAE following a collaboration agreement between Etisalat, MasterCard and Research in Motion. People can pay for their purchase of cinema tickets, and in the future metro tickets, just by tapping their phone at a payment terminal. Nokia has also introduced the NFC enabled phones in UAE for the users.

As with introduction of a new technology, there are security concerns that need to be addressed prior to its commercialization. Merchants that use a personal mobile device as part of accepting payments from customers may not have direct control on the security of the environment in which the device is used. Some merchants feel this is the most convenient way of receiving payments, while some customers feel this is very insecure; any merchant can attach a customized scanning device on their mobile to collect the card info.

London 2012 Olympics will be the first global event where mobile payment systems using NFC will be on display. It could take years before many other merchants adopt this payment mechanism and customers start getting comfortable to use it. You never know next time paying at the local grocery store or buying a coffee with a smart phone may be a regular thing.