Goodbye i-mate
First it was i-mate’s US staffers who were sacked. Now it’s i-mate’s Dubai Internet City employees who have been told that they are on an indefinite unpaid leave of absence. The bottom line is that UAE headquartered i-mate has gone bust.
A few years back, i-mate’s Windows Mobile-based phones were all the rage. But competition from one time supporter HTC, coupled with a nasty global economy, have sent i-mate CEO Jim Morrison running for cover. There’s no word yet on compensation for the company’s creditors. As for i-mate’s partners, there will be no more deliveries, and for consumers unlucky enough to have bought the handsets — good luck on getting after sales service.
Firearm training simulator
According to Bob Ferris, VirTra Systems’ CEO and president, VirTra has received an order for a multi-screen firearm training simulator system from Saudi Aramco and a multi-screen firearm training system for immediate delivery to Mexico. The value of both sales combined is approximately $500,000.
This sale expands VirTra’s growth in the Middle East and establishes a new relationship with Saudi Aramco. This sale is VirTra’s third in the Middle East. For its Mexican distributor, VirTra will be providing a multi-screen police simulator with recoil kits and accessories. This transaction marks the company’s eleventh South American sale.
Free Wi-Fi in Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) has completed the roll out of free Wi-Fi and Internet access throughout Abu Dhabi International Airport. Fifty new walk-up kiosks are now fully operational in Terminal 3, following the success of 15 walk-up kiosks which were launched in Terminal 1 last year.
The 65 touch screen walk-up kiosks offer 20 minutes of free Internet access per session. The Wi-Fi provides one hour of access per session, with users able to reconnect for subsequent sessions. The service has already received a positive response from passengers, with 250,000 sessions registered in a recent twenty day period. Approximately 25 percent of visitors to the airport are logging onto the service, either through laptops, phones or the kiosks.
Users logging onto the Internet service are hitting the social network sites such as Facebook, Friendster and Twitter. Other popular sites include news sites CNN, BBC and personal e-mail sites such as Google and Yahoo!
Facebook hacked
“Any Facebook account can be hacked,” claim the creators of an online service, which for only $100 offers to provide clients with the login and password credentials to access any account on the popular social networking site. This not only includes accounts belonging to ordinary people, but also to celebrities, politicians and well-known companies. According to network security firm PandaLabs, payments are sent through Western Union and end up in the Ukraine. The domain that hosts the service is registered in Moscow.
The criminals claim to have been providing the “service” for four years with only one percent of accounts hack-proof. In these cases, they offer clients a money-back guarantee. It should be noted, however, that the domain the thieves are using is just a few days old.
Users can get extra dollar-credits to spend on the service when they hack more accounts. They can even become affiliates to help the hackers reach a broader audience. These affiliates receive 20 percent of what they sell in credits for hacking more accounts. A series of images illustrating the sales flow can be found on the PandaLabs blog at www.pandalabs.com
