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Earlier in the month I posted about my quest to find a good car cam, a camera I can use to record what’s happening on the road while I drive. My thinking was I might one day capture something interesting that I could later upload onto YouTube and post about on the blog. I was looking for something affordable with decent video footage and after a bit of research I was leaning towards the Muvi Micro camera. A reader then pointed out that X-Cite were selling the same brand so I emailed my contact and managed to get 3 cameras sent over to review.

Muvi Micro Pro vs Muvi Atom
I’m going to start the review comparing these two cameras since they are priced similarly and offer nearly the same quality footage. Both these cameras are extremely small, if you look at the picture on the top of the page, they’re the two tiny cameras in that photo. The Atom is the smaller of the two and comes with slightly more accessories but both come with the very important clip. The clip snaps on to the back of the cameras and you can then clip them anywhere including your rear view mirror (if it’s not very thick).

Both these cameras don’t do HD but at this price point and with this physical size I wasn’t expecting them to. The video footage from both cameras is practically identical in terms of quality. The only difference I found is that the Micro Pro’s footage was slightly sharper when compared side by side with the Atom. But, the Micro Pro also has an annoying time-stamp that’s imprinted on the bottom of the video which killed it for me. Battery life for both these cameras is not that great, the Micro Pro lasts for around 90 minutes while the Atom just 45. On the bright side they both can be powered by USB and record while charging at the same time.

If I had to choose between the two I would most likely go for the Atom just for the fact that it doesn’t have the time-stamp on the video. The footage from both the cams aren’t that great but for YouTube they should work out fine as you can see in the sample videos below. I uploaded two videos shot simultaneously so you could compare the quality of the footage between the two cameras. I start off the video in an underground parking lot so you could see the low light performance and then I’ve got outdoor footage after that.

Veho Muvi Pro Sample Footage
Veho Muvi Atom Sample Footage

Muvi HD Pro
The HD Pro is larger than the other two cameras but it’s really not that big, it’s just that the other two that are really small which is why the HD Pro looks more bulky. Unlike the other two cameras the HD Pro has an LCD screen so you can actually see what you’re shooting instead of just aiming and hoping for the best. The HD Pro also shoots full HD (1080p) and has a battery that lasts up to 3 hours. So that’s three major advantages over the other two. The camera also comes with a ton of accessories most of which are mounting adapters including a windshield mount. You’re paying for all these extra features and accessories though since the HD Pro is double the price of the other two cameras. There is a more affordable option called the HD10+ which is the same camera but comes with less accessories and the price ends up falling between the HD Pro and the other two cameras.

Check out the comparison videos below between the HD Pro and the Muvi Pro.

Veho Muvi Pro Sample Footage
Veho HD Pro Sample Footage

Originally I was leaning towards geting the Muvi Micro from Amazon (a step down from the Micro Pro featured here) but after seeing the difference in quality between the Micro Pro and the HD Pro I realized it’s better to spend and get the best quality footage I could afford. With that mindset I ended up ordering the Contour+ which I’ll post about once I test it out. If you’re looking for an affordable camera to shoot video with while driving, walking (you can clip the Micro and Atom to your pants) or maybe mounting it on your RC car, then these cameras are worth looking into.

All the camera’s in this review were supplied by Alghanim and their prices are listed below: (They’re more expensive than Amazon)

Veho HD Pro KD89
Veho Muvi HD10+ KD69
Veho Atom KD40
Veho Muvi Micro Pro KD39

Loving
Parks and Recreation
The Office
Boardwalk Empire
Breaking Bad
Modern Family
The Walking Dead
American Dad
Homeland
Boss
Party Down

Enjoying
American Horror Story
The Ultimate Fighter
American Chopper Senior vs Junior
House (barely on this list)
Family Guy
Chasing Classic Cars
Up All Night

Watching when I have nothing else to watch
Pan Am
90210
Terra Nova
Dexter
The Simpsons
Cleavland Show
Falling Skies
Kitchen Nightmares

Bored of and hating
Grey’s Anatomy
Desperate Housewives
Persons of Interest
How I met your mother
Hawaii Five-O
CSI (all of them)
Rules of Engagement

Still need to watch or get back into
Bored to Death
Wilfred
It’s always sunny in Philadelphia
How to make it in America
Friday Night Lights

Not a fan of
Fringe
The Big Bang Theory
Two and a half men
Supernatural
Community

Note: This is a list of current shows I’m watching or are running which is why you won’t find Louie, Entourage, Mad Men, Weeds, True Blood, Game of Thrones, Eastbound And Down, Suits etc..

Digumz is a local video game rental website which I posted about back in March. Three weeks ago I decided to sign up and try them out and I’m really loving them so far.

Registration was a pretty simple procedure and I had two options for payment, K-net but I would have to leave a deposit or credit card and no deposit. I opted for the credit card payment and once the account was setup proceeded to order my first game. I went with Gears of War 3 and they managed to deliver it the same evening. They drop off the games and pick them up when you’re done and there are no delivery charges which is fantastic.

Their website is really easy to use and practical. Ordering a game is pretty simple and quick. You flip through their site, find a game you want and then click on the “Rent Now” button and it will be added to the queue list. If you don’t have anything on that list the game will be dispatched to you immediately. You could then continue to add games to your queue list and arrange them according to your priorities.

When you want to swap a game you go to your “Games I have” list and click on the “request game exchange” button and the next game on your list gets dispatched. In case your first choice isn’t available they will dispatch your second, if the second isn’t available the third and on and on.

Now there really aren’t any negatives, at least not for me since when I signed up their prices started at KD7 a month. For that price I can rent as many games as I want per month but only 1 game at a time. A couple of weeks back though they increased their prices and now the most affordable package starts at KD15. Lucky for me and everyone who signed up before the price increase, our memberships will continue to be renewed at KD7 a month which is great. At KD15 a month I don’t think I would have signed up since I am probably going to be renting only 1 game a month. For KD15 a month I might as well buy a game a month instead of renting. If you are planning to rent at least two games then KD15 a month would make more financial sense. They also have other packages in which you could rent more than a game a month but of course those packages also cost more.

Here is the link to the Digumz website [Link]
They also have another website where they sell games, here is the link to that website [Link]

At KD7 a month I’m really loving Digumz.

Ok so you won’t really be destroying Aramex but it’s still fun specially if you’re upset with their recent price increase. State Farm Insurance in the US has a website where you could plug in a street address and then watch a giant robot destroy it. People are supposed to put their home address and their real names but it’s a lot more fun my way. Just put your KWI XXX mailbox as your name and copy paste this address “182-21 150th Avenue” and then watch the robot do it’s part. [Link]

The 99 Unbound film premiered at the New York Film Festival earlier in the month. The animated series will be starting soon so this featured film was a way to launch it. I’m not sure when we’re going to get to watch it here in Kuwait but for now you can watch a short clip from the film above. You could also read a review of the film [Here]

My iPhone 4S arrived from the UK yesterday and so I managed to spend more time with the device and now have a few things I want to highlight, mostly the negatives.

Reception
According to Apple they’ve improved the reception on the iPhone 4S. I never had any issues with the reception on the original iPhone 4 but I do have an issue with the new “improved” reception on the 4S. Although the phone signal now spends most of its time with full signal bars which is great for people who use the phone to call people, another problem has come up instead. The phone now spends a lot more time on Edge instead of 3G internet. I hadn’t seen the little “E” icon on my iPhone for ages but now it’s popping up all the time. I first noticed it in my underground parking, I used to get a weak phone signal before (say 2 bars) but would have 3G. Now I have full signal bars but Edge instead of 3G. I figured it’s not an issue since I don’t spend too much time in the basement checking email or tweets. Once I got out of the parking it swapped back to 3G, but then once I hit the traffic light near Corniche Club on the Gulf Road it was back on Edge. It swapped back to 3G again before going to Edge once I got near TGIF. I even got the Edge signal at the Kuwait Stock Market traffic light. And I’m not talking about Edge appearing briefly and disappearing again, I’m talking about Edge being there the whole time while I’m waiting at the traffic light.

Edge SUCKS. I might as well not have internet since Edge is that horribly slow. I don’t know what Apple did to the reception but I hope this is just a bug that will be fixed in the next software update because I would rather have 2 signal bars and 3G instead of full signal bars and Edge.

Siri
She’s great but I have an issue and it’s not that she doesn’t understand me sometimes (check above). In my previous post I mentioned how I wanted to use Siri to remind me of stuff when I get home or get to work. For example “Remind me to walk my dog when I get home”. Siri is supposed to know when I get home and remind me to walk my dog. Problem is because we are in Kuwait we can’t teach Siri where home or office is. Siri uses Google Maps address to learn our home and office locations and right now Google Maps addresses only work in the US. What I don’t understand is why Siri won’t learn the locations using GPS positioning. If you use the Reminder App without Siri you can teach it locations using your GPS position. I already has a saved location in the Reminder App called “Work” and I can tell the App to remind me to do something once I get to the location “work”. Why can’t Siri use the already saved location information or why it can’t learn locations using GPS instead of street addresses doesn’t make any sense.

Finally another issue with Siri and I don’t know if this problem is only happening with me or not but Siri refuses to make phone calls. If I tell her for example to call my wife or call my brother, she will start the calling process and show me she’s dialing the number but then she replies back apologizing that she can’t call them. I’ve tried it with a bunch of different people in my contact list, I’ve removed the +965 from numbers, I tried everything and Siri will keep telling me she can’t call them. Again a strange issue which hopefully will be fixed in the future.

Speed
The phone is fast, for day to day operations it’s not noticeably faster than the regular iPhone 4 but just run any game and you’ll instantly see a huge difference. Most games were loading and opening instantly and even games like Rage were loading in just a couple of seconds. If you’re a gamer you’re gonna love the 4S.

The only thing really left to test is the battery life and I can’t do that right now since I’m too busy playing with Siri and the new features. Maybe once my phone use goes back to normal in a weeks time I’ll be able to compare it to my previous iPhone.

If anyone has any questions or anything they want me to try just ask in the comments below.

Update: My guy at Alghanim just called to tell me they’re selling the iPhone 4S 16GB for KD289 and they already started delivering the phones to people from yesterday. I purchased the phone from the Apple Store in the UK and with shipping it ended up costing me around KD230. But I guess if you want the phone right now and don’t want to wait 2-3 weeks for it then this is probably your best option.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Alghanim Electronics sent over an iPhone 4S for me to try out. I’ve been using it for a few hours and thought I would share my first impression on two of the most important new features.

The Camera
Thew camera on the iPhone 4S is a much better camera when compared to the regular iPhone 4. I saw some sample shots on the Apple website and they looked great but those shots were obviously taken in perfect lighting with an amazing photographer. I was curious to how the camera would fair in boring regular situation with random light and a not so great subject. Since the weather today is a mixture of humid, hot and dust, I decided to go to the roof and take a landscape shot.

On the left is the iPhone 4S shot and on the right the iPhone 4. Although it doesn’t look like that dramatic a difference when you zoom in at 100% it’s a complete different story as you can see below.

As you can see the iPhone 4S photo had a lot more details and a lot less artifacts. Another advantage of the iPhone 4S camera is that the lens is brighter which means better shots in low light situations. Below is a photo I took indoors.

Again zoomed out like this the details don’t show as much but once you zoom in at 100% (check below) you’ll see that the iPhone 4S shots are a lot less noisier and a lot more sharper.

One of the main reasons I purchased the iPhone 4S is because of the camera. I take a lot of shots for the blog and although I should, I don’t usually carry my good cameras with me all the time. Most of my shots are taken with an iPhone so the ability to take better shots is a great advantage for me. If like me, image quality is something you care about then the difference between the iPhone 4 and 4S is actually pretty major. You can download the full resolution images I shot and used above from these links:

Landscape with iPhone 4S
Landscape with iPhone 4
Low light with iPhone 4S
Low light with iPhone 4

Siri
Another reason I got the iPhone 4S is because of Siri. I’m a huge Stark Trek TNG fan and Siri reminded me a lot of the computer on the starship Enterprise. Even though Siri is limited when compared to the computer on Enterprise (it can’t prepare meals for example), it’s still very impressive and I love it. Siri is going to get even better in the future and I honestly can’t wait.

There are a few things that won’t work in Kuwait though. If you ask Siri for the best burger joints in Kuwait it will tell you it won’t know. Some of the Siri features are US only for now but it does do a whole bunch of other things. You could ask it to convert currency for you, find out the population of countries as well as other trivia. More importantly for me it can take notes and set reminders which is a big deal for me. I’m a very forgetful person and also very lazy so even when I usually remember something I never write it down or set a reminder. Now with Siri, once I remember something I can just tell it to write it down or remind me when I get home or work to do something. She’s really going to be my personal secretary/assistant.

Siri didn’t have that many problems understanding me. I do tend to mumble and I did have a few instances when Siri wouldn’t know what I was talking about but I also found Siri pretty forgiving. For example I might start saying “tell me” and then mid sentence change to “I mean what is the capital city of Kuwait” and Siri would still understand and tell me “Kuwait City”. Yes it does feel weird (ie stupid) talking to a phone but I’m sure I can get over that.

I ordered my iPhone 4S last week from the Apple UK store but for those of you who haven’t ordered yet and just want to walk into a store and pick one up Alghanim Electronics will have them in stock starting tomorrow. I asked about the price but as of this post they still hadn’t finalized it yet.

Update: The prices for the iPhones has been released by Alghanim and they are the following (don’t shoot the messenger):

iPhone 4S 16GB for KD350
iPhone 4S 32GB for KD390
iPhone 4S 64GB for KD420

Nicely shot film by Timothy Carr on Al Sawaber, the PK Jaguars and Parkour. This is the description attached with the video:

Al Sawaber is a Kuwaiti housing project built in 1976. This once beautiful complex is now a run down slum known for housing the worst of Kuwait’s criminal element. It is also an amazing parkour spot filled with unique architecture mixing harsh concrete edges and organic landscaping quite nicely. With its rooftops, elevated walkways, massive stairways, parks and unique architectural touches the PK Jaguars, Kuwait’s first and best Parkour team have made it their favorite spot to train. This is a film about Al Sawaber, the PK Jaguars and Parkour.

The film is nearly 10 minutes long which makes it a bit repetitive and I’m also not sure how accurate the description is about Al Sawaber housing criminals is. Still, it’s an interesting video to watch. [Vimeo]

Thanks Anes

[YouTube]

Last Friday the finals for the Red Bull Breaking competition took place in Jordan. This is the biggest break dancing event in the region and two b-boys from Kuwait took part, b-boy Hush and b-boy Shady. They didn’t end up winning but you can still watch an edit of the finals in the video above or you could watch the qualification process that took place in Kuwait below. For more information on Red Bull Breaking you could visit their website [Here]

A reader going by the nickname “La Revue de Koweit” posted the comment below under the Avenues fight post and I thought it was funny but yet made sense at the same time. Below are 7 fight preventative actions that should be taken:

1) Serious shoppers should avoid going to the Avenues over the weekends and public holidays.

2) Increased presence of law enforcement officers on Segways throughout the mall and mounted on horseback in the parking lot.

3) Videowalls in the courtyard areas with live streaming videos from different fashion houses from Milan, Paris, London, New York and Tokyo plus exhaustive coverage of all the fashion weeks would be a useful distraction to keep the Jahra and/or Saudi set yobs engaged.

4) Rope in LoYAC to arrange activites that excite youth such as, kite flying, skateboarding and karting outside the mall.

5) Organize frequent blood donation drives and free health checks: mobile health camps to make possible blood draws for screening of thalassemia, blood glucose etc, all of which serve as small but rather useful diversions for channeling of youthful energies and making the national sport of weekend birdwatching seem less macabre and more civil.

6) Holding of spelling bees at That-el-salasil.

7) Naming and shaming policy can be a rather useful deterrant. Mugshots and names of the yobs involved in a fight should be displayed on a special bulletein board – the Avenues Fight Barometer for all and sundry to see.

[YouTube]

I posted this video earlier in the week on 248PM but it feels appropriate to post it here today. I’ve been a Mac guy since before the iPod but it’s hard to deny how much the iPod has helped Apple. So I flipped through my photo archive and found some pictures of my original iPod. Steve Jobs didn’t invent the iPod, but he did make it happen and Apple is what it is today because of him.

Below are some shots of my original iPod. The picture taken in front of the Kuwait Towers is actually Nibaq, we took the picture for iPod Lounge back in 2002.

According to an article on KuwaitNews.com, the municipality is going to be closing down some streets in the city and opening them up to pedestrians. The municipality is hoping to make the city a nicer place by doing so. They will be closing down Abdullah Al-Salem Street which is the one next to Liberation Tower as well as Palestine Street which is near Safat Square and the old souk. Both streets will be opened up to pedestrians from the first of November.

Although I find it a bit strange they’re closing down those two streets specifically, I do hope this experiment becomes a success since I want them to do the same to Salem Mubarek Street. Now that’s a street that would make more sense open only to pedestrians. Here is the link to the article [Link]

Thanks Ads2Blog

Update: Looks like it’s not the main Abdullah Al-Salem Street but the smaller branch of it on the opposite side of Safat Square (pictured above). It seems they’re closing the streets in and around the old souk which makes a lot more sense. I’ve highlighted in red on the map below what I understood are the streets they’re closing.

Thanks Barrak

Q8Car, my favorite car site now have an iPhone app. I tried it out and although I found the graphics a bit clunky I found the app fast and practical.

On a basic level you could use the app to simply browse for cars. They have a good car search feature similar to their website where you can browse for cars based on specific options like brand or color for example. Once you submit your criteria get a list of all the cars available in their database.

Now if you are a registered member on Q8Car you get additional features you can take advantage of. Using the app you access your inbox messages for one thing but more importantly, you can also upload a car you’re planning on selling as well as check up on your current listings.

The Q8Car iPhone app is available right now in the Apple store as a free download and you can get it from [Here]

I just got the following email from Aramex. I really hope they don’t mean from now on I need to pay ANOTHER KD1 on top of the KD1 I am already paying for packages that go to customs.

Hello,

This is the most recent update with regard to Kuwait Customs: As per Kuwait Customs Authority in their directive number 94, effective immediately, all shipments undergoing clearance (Tasfiya) now require a 1 KWD government stamp fee. This stamp fee is being imposed on all Express shipments including Shop and Ship packages pending customs release as of today.

We thank you for your understanding and look forward to your continued support. For more information on Kuwait Customs please contact us at [email protected]

Shop and Ship Team

Update: It’s confirmed, they will be taking KD2 on every package for customs clearance. KD1 which they were taking before and now another KD1 for customs clearance stamp. Now my question is what is the KD1 we were already paying for? I thought we were already paying KD1 for customs clearance.

Update2: The extra charge is in effect starting right away. How do I know? I just got an SMS saying that my package weighing 0.15lb (that’s 68 grams) is out for delivery and the charge including customs is KD5.150. That’s for a package weighing under 100 grams… talk about expensive!

In my previous post I mentioned how the Central Bank of Kuwait was originally designed by Arne Jacobsen. Well I managed to get more information on the Central Bank project in form of a PDF which you could download from [Here]

Update: Found some more pictures of the Central Bank, my favorites are below but you could see them all [Here]