Category: Tech

Many find it difficult to make errands in Egypt, especially in the deafening, crowded city of Cairo. But for the founder of Elves app Karim Elsahy it is a nice challenge to make it easier for Egypt’s online users to accomplish their daily life requirements.

Elves app provides online Elves (helpers) who reply on any users instantly once they send a message to the Facebook messaging service asking for any kind of help such as booking, purchasing, or even inquiring about missing information.

“The services we provide are many. We are not only offering the services of booking and purchasing, but we provide many other services users demand from the team online. Also, we are keen on doing this by entering into partnerships with big providers for each service,” El-Sahy noted.

The app was first launched in the US by El Sahy, an American-Egyptian serial entrepreneur. Then, it has expanded to the Gulf and Egypt because the team saw that the Gulf and Egypt are two of the most promising markets.

The story behind Elves app

The app came late in 2015 during the Christmas vacation, when most of the businesses were slowing down in the US. That gave a push to El-Sahy and his co-founders to launch an app that helps assist online users through the messaging service.

El-Sahy said that the main aim of the app is to add a value to each user who is seeking to find a helper in his or her daily life demands, which can sometimes hardly be done in busy working days.

The service is currently operating worldwide. The big surprise is that only 30 elves are the main warriors behind the scene.

“The team is not big because the reply service is operating through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning,” the inspirational entrepreneur said, adding that these two are the main tools used by Elves team to handle large numbers of messages sent on a daily basis.

Asked about the know-how of growing his business, El-Sahy disclosed his recent partnership with Rise Up Summit, one of the leading entrepreneurship-boost event in Cairo. Also, Elves entered recently into partnership with Gourmet supermarkets and London Cab, as two of the service providers.

The app founder also revealed that the service fee is equal to the cost demanded by the service provider, not by Elves. He noted as well that Elves gets his revenue by taking a percentage from the service provider for each user that came through the Elves app or through its Facebook messaging service.

“We are willing to enter in more partnerships with more large service providers to enhance our services. We are also looking forward to penetrating the sectors of food and e-commerce,” El-Sahy added.

(Updated: Jan 22, 12:26pm)

Breaking News website and mobile app will stop providing updates and alerts on Dec. 31.

The parent company, NBC News, has decided to shut down the Breaking News service at the end of the year. BreakingNews.com and the Breaking News app – The Breaking News Team announced today on a blog post

“Now that NBC has announced that Breaking News is shutting down on Dec. 31, our team is looking for work. I’ve listed everyone, but first a little background.” Cory Bergman, GM of Breaking News said in a blog post

The Breaking News service was launched six years ago, it aggregates headlines from different authentic sources and pushes it via mobile notifications and on web – Providing alerts and updates on whatever happens across the globe from major stories, big news near you, emerging stories and more, you can also follow topics and get alerts 15 minutes before anyone else.

The app also allows you to report news from your location, such as accident, fire, earthquake, evacuation or lockdown, flooding, hazard, loud boom, major delay, police activity, power outage, protest, severe weather, storm damage or any other unlisted news, and one of the editorial team on duty will verify the news and send a push notification to all users.

The young artist sprays Cairo’s walls with brisk colors creating three dimensional graffiti murals, while the bold young woman drives a race car crossing new boundaries, and another young man hits the street with his soccer ball showcasing the game’s moves and grooves.

The three characters are part of Huawei’s Nova Plus campaign, which encourages Egyptians to break the routine, release their true potential and defy expectations.

The three characters illustrate Huawei’s Nova Plus features, which is armed with long battery life depicted in the endurance of the football freestyler, sharp colors powered with a 16-megapixel camera portrayed through the graffiti artist, and the superfast 2GHz octa-core processor like the race car.

The leading smart phones manufacturer invited social media fans in Egypt to take the challenge by sending videos that depict defying expectations for a chance to win the new Huawei Nova Plus among other prizes including t-shirts signed by Lionel Messi, Huawei’s global brand ambassador.

“All what you have to do is submit a video on Instagram displaying your skills, using the hashtag #DefyExpectationsEg before the 22nd of December. Make sure to set your profile to public and don’t miss this chance,” wrote Huawei on it’s official Facebook page.

Walking the Extra Mile, Achieving the Impossible

Huawei posted a video teaser of the three characters on Facebook saying they decided to walk the extra mile, change their ordinary lives and defy expectations. “[The] Huawei Nova Plus will be your aid in releasing your true potential to living and achieving the impossible,” the caption read.

Compelling Humans Stories, Competitive Nova Plus

With three compelling human stories, Huawei showcased the competitive features of the Nova Plus in a subtle way that defies expectations.

“Endure till you reach your destination; defying all expectations. You can now go with Huawei Nova plus for miles and miles in your journey of defying expectations with its incredible 3340 mAh battery, no matter how long this journey is.”

[Reporting by Yasmine Madkour, Editing by Sara El-Khalili]

Radio.garden is a free radio aggregator service, that allows users to live streaming radio stations across the globe using map.

Select any region in the earth map and you get top live streaming stations. Only if they’re broadcasting online, of course.

Radio Garden allows listeners to explore processes of broadcasting and hearing identities across the entire globe. From its very beginning, radio signals have crossed borders. Radio makers and listeners have imagined both connecting with distant cultures, as well as re-connecting with people from “home” from thousands of miles away – or using local community radio to make and enrich new homes.

Radio Garden service matches a user’s laptop or mobile location using GPS if enabled, with nearby radio stations, based on to location credentials.

Sharing a specific radio station in Radio Garden with friends

One more powerful and interesting feature that we love about Radio Garden. The service generates a custom link for each radio station in the world – Just copy the link and send it to friends.

For instance

Here’s a live-streaming of Diab FM, you will be redirected to the station regardless your current location.

It’s just epic, must try!

Facebook Messenger rolled out a new in-app camera that includes features like facial masks, photo filters and stickers.

See Also: ? Instagram reaches 600 million users ?

Facebook Messenger already had an in-app camera, but the new thing today is offering all the fun and editing features just like Snapchat.

The company is doing its best to get people sharing more photos and videos with one another on the app. A month ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would be experimenting more with “visual messaging tools.”
“In most social apps today, a text box is still the default way we share,” Zuckerberg explained on the company’s Q3 earnings call in early November. “Soon, we believe a camera will be the main way that we share.”

The updated camera rolled out worldwide Thursday.

Facebook’s Instagram has released a new feature which enables users to save posts for later, right from the feed. The feature was first introduced by Facebook few years ago.

Starting today, you can now save Instagram posts you’d like to remember and revisit, right from feed. If you’re searching for the perfect Dubai weekend now you can easily save posts on the latest Brunches, Beaches and Bars on Instagram, and they’ll appear in a new, private tab on your profile helping you build an awesome weekend itinerary.

How Instagram ‘Saved Posts’ feature works?

When you see a post you want to save, tap the new bookmark icon underneath the post, then you’ll see it on a new, private tab that’s only visible to you.

When you stumble upon an interesting photo or video you want to remember, it’s now possible to save them to see later, no need to take a screenshot and waste your phone memory with screenshots.

The new feature “Saved Posts” is part of Instagram version 10.2, available today for iOS in the Apple App Store and for Android in Google Play.

itagit technologies has signed a multi-territory music licensing deal with Gracenote to power two new features in its TETHER music discovery mobile app.  With access to more than 30 million tracks from Gracenote, TETHER users can now recognize songs being played from any music source and instantly stream or download the song from their preferred digital music service.

TETHER – Music Discovery Central aims to consolidate the fragmented music discovery market and offer a seamless, new and innovative user experience. With new innovative features like music recognition, TETHER offers a more robust interactive and listening experience centered on discovering new music. Users will also experience for the first time a real-time radio playlist identification feature that turns any existing radio station into an instant digital music service, taking music discovery to a new level. No other app in the music space brings together so many key music discovery features in such an easy, fun and fast way.

“Working with Gracenote was central to enhancing the TETHER user experience. Our aim from day one has been to deliver a one of a kind music discovery experience to our users.  We are excited that Grace note’s innovative technologies will further enhance the way TETHER users interact with, enjoy music and discover new music,” said Adham Maghraby, Founder and CEO of itagit technologies.

Tether is available to download on both App store and Google Play.

About itagit technologies.

ITAGIT Technologies owns and operates the MediaWave Digital Platform that offers a unique suite of mobile applications and digital features dedicated to facilitating “mobile based realtime content monetization” – serving the media interactivity and content consumption global market category. Itagit technologies connects to all media forms –  IP / radio / TV / Live venues, identifies and recognizes content aired on the fly, processes realtime content requests by consumers (tags) and facilitates the delivery of this content. The Platform offers TETHER, TVTAG, LIVETAG and ITAGIT, as unique standalone solutions respectively, CONSOLIDATE, TRANSFORM, INNOVATE and ENHANCE the target market category. For more information, visit itagit website www.itagit.me

Cairo, Dubai – Out of the turmoil and challenging times that Egypt went through post its revolution in 2011 and at a time where the Egyptian government is looking at the private sector to showcase its innovation and resilience.  Incubated by serial entrepreneur Moustapha Sarhank, MediaWave Egypt for Technology Solutions after several years in stealth mode, has announced the introduction of its new proprietary MediaWave Digital Platform.

With one US and 2 European patents under its belt, the platform offers a unique suite of mobile applications and customized digital solutions aimed to consolidate, innovate, transform and enhance specific user experiences in the media interactivity and content consumption category worldwide.

MediaWave Digital Platform is established by ITAGIT Technologies, the company offers a unique suite of mobile applications and digital features dedicated to facilitating “mobile based real-time content monetization” – serving the media interactivity and content consumption global market category. Itagit technologies connects to all media forms –  IP / radio / TV / Live venues, identifies and recognizes content aired on the fly, processes realtime content requests by consumers (tags) and facilitates the delivery of this content.

The MediaWave Digital Platform, developed and operated from the Cairo Office, offers TETHER & TVTAG mobile applications on both the Android and iOS platforms. Each app directly focused on a key market segment within the overall media / content consumption market category. TETHER targets the fragmented music discovery market and TVTAG is aimed at the passive TV consumption market opportunity.

“We have faced some considerable obstacles and challenges over the years, but it was the dedication, hard work and relentless pursuit of the vision along with our rock steady faith that has resulted in bringing these new innovative technologies from idea to reality. We are very excited to showcase the depth of these applications to the world and solidify Egypt as a “technology Innovator”. Said Moustapha Sarhank, Chairman of itagit technologies.

TETHER App

Tether music discovery app is available on iTunes and Google Play.

TVTAG App

TVTAG app is available on iTunes and Google Play.

Today, The MediaWave Digital Platform enjoys many features all geared towards connecting consumers with their favorite content in realtime. We integrate with media sources; radio, TV and live events, carry out real-time content processing and recognition using multiple engines and deliver the relevant content to users in realtime.

“Consumers seek choice, they want the freedom that mobility promises, they want innovative mobile apps that are intuitive and merge seamlessly with their existing behaviors, enhancing their experiences and enriching their lives.. Consumers want apps that are personalized, giving them the power to choose what they want to do with the content they are seeing, hearing or experiencing across all media sources whether radio, TV or any LIVE venue.” Said Adham Maghraby – Founder & CEO of itagit technologies

This MediaWave Platform is able to “know” what specific content was tagged off “which” particular media source by “whom” and delivers it to the user instantly. In essence, we transform any media source from a “passive” point of content exposure to becoming “sensitive” to real-time mobile content tagging by users.

In Jan 2016, MediaWave enjoyed its first successful fund raising round. Mrs. Shahira Zeid, Vice Chairman and CEO of MZ Investments invested more than $500,000 at a pre-money valuation of more than $7M becoming a board member of itagit technologies. Mrs. Zeid is the recipient of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award for Middle East and North Africa and was named by Forbes as one of the most powerful 100 Arab businesswomen in 2016.

Under a new corporate structure. Itagit Technologies FZ-LLC was incorporated in Dubai Internet City, to drive regional growth, it acquired 100% of MediaWave Egypt for Technology Solutions, keeping it as the technical core of the company, responsible for the development, and operation of the platform and mobile apps.

It is refreshing to see such innovation coming out of this part of the world, the team at itagit technologies have a vivid vision of the future of mobile media. They are doing some exciting things to help users enjoy digital content. It is a pleasure to be a board member and witness the exciting things this technology brings to the market. Said Mrs. Shahira Zeid – Board Member, itagit technologies.