His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan met with the founders of Maktoob.com, Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury on Wednesday. The King congratulated them on their recent sale of their company to US Internet giant Yahoo!. During the meeting, King Abdullah expressed his happines and pride in the two men’s accomplishment which King Abdullah said it reflects development of the IT sector in Jordan, he also conferred the Al Hussein Medal for Distinguished Performance of the First Order to both Toukan and Khoury.
Yahoo had brough mktoob in August 2009. Maktoob has over 16.5million followers and is an Arabic language website. The deal of the sale was that Yahoo would offer Arabic-language content for the first time and versions of its products and services including instant messaging and e-mail in Arabic.
dazzling Jordanian Royals Abdullah II, Internet, Technology
On Friday, July 24, the King and Queen of Spain officially inaugurated the GTC (Gran Telescopio Canarias) or Grantecan, which is consider the most powerful and advanced telescope with which to observe the universe.
Click to see the image at Casa Real
The new “Crown Jewel” is situated at 2,400 meters above sea-level, in one of the top astronomical sites in the Northern Hemisphere: Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (RMO), on La Palma Island, a declared World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, and a place where Jose Miguel Rodriguez Espinosa, director of GCT, said it is an “ideal observation point, because it is scarcely populated and scarcely illuminated.”
The telescope is composed of a main mirror consisting of 36 hexagonal glass-ceramic elements, each with a 1.9 metre diagonal which is equivalent to a round mirror 10.4 metres in diameter. Acording to RMO representatives, the GTC will allow the in-depth study of the nature of Black Holes, as well as the more distant stars and galaxies in the Universe and the first conditions after the Big Bang. It is expected that the telescope would produce important advances in every field of astrophysics. Read more…
Paty Spanish Royals King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, Technology
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has joined the social networking site Facebook. Sheikh Mohammed has two photo albums which are divided into two parts; My Family and Everyday Encounters as well as an Activities section where the Sheikh talks about his love of poems. “I am passionate about sports, particularly endurance racing. I enjoy and love horse riding with my family members. I enjoy the outdoors, especially the Arabian desert experience,” says Sheikh Mohammed on his page.
In the about me section the Sheikh says “I was brought up in a family that believed in the importance of visionary public service and phil-anthropy and I have tried to live these values in my everyday life.”
Sheikh Mohammed updated his page by asking a question to the people of the UAE “I visited the Ministry of Education today and would like to raise this question: Should the new academic year start during Ramadan or after the Eid holiday?”
Sheikh Mohammed’s Facebook link.
dazzling UAE Royals Facebook, Internet, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Social Networking, Technology
On Wednesday 17 June in Oviedo, the jury of the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research officially announced their decission to bestow the award to Martin Cooper, discover of the the first handheld mobile telephone, and to Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, the man who chose the @ sign to separate local from global e-mails in the mail address.
Click to read the biographies on the two men at the Prince of Asturias Awards website
The jury considers that these two discoveries are among the greatest technological innovations of our time, revolutionizing the way that thousands of millions of people communicate worldwide and contributing decisively to the advancement of knowledge. In particular, they are key elements for achieving the United Nations “Millennium Development Goals” that will enable every citizen on the planet to exercise their right to communicate.
With this Award, the Jury also wishes to recognize the “effort and work of all those people who have contributed to fostering and developing the mobile phone and e-mail services, forms of communication that give rise to a connected world, free from geographical or temporal barriers”.
The Presentation ceremony will take place in the autumm in Oviedo.
Paty Spanish Royals Martin Cooper, Prince of Asturias Awards, Raymond Tomlinson, Technology
Click to see image at Belga
King Albert II of Belgium went on an IT tour along the most important IT sites in the Walloon region. He visited the Google Data centre, which is being built in Saint Ghislain, and afterwards he went to the Microsoft Innovation Center in Mons.
The King was allowed to experiment with some new features Google is developing, among them a new type of chess board. The King was also interested in the ways the Google centre tries to reduce it’s energy waste. The new center in Saint Ghislain is to become one of the most important Internet centers in the world.
In the afternoon, the King also visited the competitors of Microsoft, in the Microsoft Innovation Center in Mons. Both IT centers are part of what is generally called project “Digital Innovation Valley”, a project to attract new investors in the Walloon region.
For an article about this visit, see here (in French)
For more pictures see here for Google and here for Microsoft.
For more information about King Albert’s activities, see this thread.
LadyLeana Belgian Royals Internet, King Albert II, Technology
Today Infanta Cristina, long-time director of the Social Area of La Caixa Foundation, visited the prison of Villalbona to introduce a new project whereby new technologies are taught to the prisoners.
Since March, ten members of the Asturians Older People Voluntary Computing Association have taught 72 inmates some of the new technologies. The project, which is part of the campaign “CiberCaixa Solidaria”, is a pioneering project focused on rehabilitation of the prisoners and is based on the belief that everybody has the right to a new start in spite of having made a mistake.
The prisoners work with 12 computers, and they have learned how use Microsoft Word, and now they are learning about Power Point. Infanta Cristina encouraged them, telling them, “You have a fantastic team and a good opportunity ahead, so to take advantage of it.”
Click here to see photos of the visit.
Paty Spanish Royals Infanta Cristina, Technology
Click to see more from PPE
Today Princess Máxima visited the Waerden Borch School in Holten to attend a presentation on “Girls and Technology”.
The visit was to learn more about the field of technology and how girls can get involved. During the visit, Máxima viewed a presentation on the flow of technical education, and then took part in an experiment with the pupils in building thermoharder and thermoplastic polymers.
The visit aimed to show girls that they can have a career in technology if they wished, because few girls in the Netherlands opt to undertake continued technical training.
More on Princess Máxima’s visit can be found here.
JessRulz Dutch Royals Education, Princess Máxima, Technology
