No #Internet? No Problem. Inside #Cuba's Tech Revolution - #ElPaqueteSemanal #Vistar #AlaMesa

An excellent article on the young tech entrepreneurs leading the way in Cuba from Forbes. 

No Internet? No Problem. Inside Cuba's Tech Revolution

Elio Hector Lopez helps to put together El Paquete Semanal, a weekly digital package of movies, TV shows, digital magazines, software and apps that gets copied and distributed throughout Cuba. (Alejandro Gonzalez for Forbes)

Robin Pedraja, a lanky 28-year-old former design student from Havana, walked into the Cuban government’s office of periodicals and publications early last year seeking approval for a dream: starting an online magazine about Cuba’s urban youth culture. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans in recent years have been able to obtain licenses for small businesses, albeit only in a limited set of service categories such as restaurants, hair salons and translation. Media remains under strict government control. An online magazine? Pedraja was laughed off even before he could finish his pitch.

He decided to publish anyway, without identifying the magazine’s creators. The first issue of Vistar came out last March. “We had nothing to lose,” he tells me on a recent visit to his office, a room the size of a walk-in closet in his Havana apartment. Vistar is packed with attitude and eye-catching photography, covering music, art, ballet, food and celebrities. “It’s a reflection of a new Cuban generation,” says Pedraja, who grew up among artists and musicians in Havana. Soon the artsy young Cubans who were reading Vistar all seemed to know who was behind it. So Vistar published its masthead a few issues later, with Pedraja’s name at the top, e-mail address included.

Lybian Uprising Tweets

View Larger Map

Share |

_______________________________________

Check it out on The MasterTech Blog

Tehran times : Saudi king to buy Facebook to end the revolt: report

Looks like they fell for this one!!

Saudi king to buy Facebook to end the revolt: report

In what is being termed as pure Wall Street Gordon Gecko tactics, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has decided to make an offer of $150 billion to buy out Facebook. 

Inside sources within the kingdom suggest that the King is very upset with Mark Zukerberg for allowing the revolt to get out of control, Ahlul Bayt News Agency reported.

In a personal meeting between Mark Zuckerberg and King Abdullah on Jan 25, 2011, Zuckerberg had promised that he would not allow any revolt pages to be formed on Facebook even while he allowed Egypt and Libya revolt pages to be formed.

Left with no option, Abdullah advised by Goldman Sachs has decided to buy out Facebook and "clean out the weeds". The offer on the table is $150 billion. Facebook balance sheet was shown to King Abdullah and his kingdom advisors had mentioned that it is not even worth $1 billion given that it generates no profit. But the King threw the report into the dustbin and fired his advisors and decided to hand over the investment banking mandate to Goldman Sachs who put the value at $150 billion. The deal will be all cash.

Most analysts believe that Zuckerberg will not take the offer and will wait for King Abdullah to up the offer to at least $500 billion. In the meanwhile king Abdullah has now logged on the Facebook and was busy profiling some of the models in the Goldman Sachs presentation.

Plans to provide cheap land for housing

In another development, minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs Prince Mansour bin Miteb said the government is striving to make affordable housing plots available for citizens.

"The Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs has allocated 130 plots for the General Housing Authority," said Prince Mansour, adding that the task of making land cheaper needs the efforts of many government departments.

The prince said the housing authority, which has many plots of land left over from older allocations, will strive to provide houses to as many citizens as possible in all provinces. He added that a few housing projects were implemented in an unscientific manner and had to be redesigned. 

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=236523

Sent from my iPad