Eideard

 
The Superbus concept, which could give business commuters and tourists a new luxury high-speed link between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, moves a step closer to fruition in the UAE next week when it will be showcased outside Europe for the first time.

The first prototype version of the Superbus makes its Middle East debut when it goes on show at the five-day UITP Mobility and City Transport Expo getting under way on Sunday at Dubai National Exhibition and Convention Centre…

Carrying 23 passengers at 250 kmh on a dedicated “speed track”, the Superbus will cut the commute time between Abu Dhabi and Dubai to 30 minutes, and is seen by its European designers as the shape of things to come in sustainable transport.

The Superbus is the brainchild of a design team at TU Delft University of Technology in Holland who have brought the prototype to the UAE after an exploratory initial visit coinciding with last month’s Commercial Vehicles Middle East exhibition and conference in Dubai…It has been dubbed the “Dutch solution” to the three ills of public transportation: congestion, pollution, and safety…

“Superbus will have an intelligent routing system rather than a fixed schedule. Commuters will book online or with their mobile phone, and the bus picks them up and drops them at their desired location.”

Offering the convenience of a car, the Superbus is 15 meters long and has eight doors on each side. It would run on a dedicated two-lane highway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and leave the “speed track” in urban areas to drop off passengers at agreed locations…

Produced as a result of feasibility studies by the Dutch government for a route in northern Holland, the UAE is confident it makes sense for interconnections both for business and tourism.

And it rocks!

A secret £7 million weather project in Abu Dhabi has resulted in dozens of man-made rainstorms…

Scientists employed by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the UAE and leader of Abu Dhabi, successfully created more than 50 rainstorms in the state’s Al Ain region last year, mostly in July and August when there is virtually no rain at all. It is believed to be the first time the system has produced rain from clear skies.

They have been using giant ionisers, shaped like giant lampshades, to generate fields of negatively charged particles, which create cloud formation.

In a company video, seen by The Sunday Times, Helmut Fluhrer, the founder of Metro Systems International, the Swiss company in charge of the project, said: “We are currently operating our innovative rainfall enhancement technology, Weathertec, in the region of Al Ain in Abu Dhabid. We started in June 2010 and have achieved a number of rainfalls.”

Bet it works better than Navajo rain dances.

Vettel carrying his race trophy back to the changing room
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel is the new Formula One world champion after winning the title-deciding race in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. The German produced a peerless drive from pole position to take the checkered flag ahead of the McLaren pair of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who led the championship standings going into the final race of the season, could only manage seventh place to see his title hopes ruined.

The 23-year-old Vettel is the youngest-ever world champion in motorsport’s premier class, claiming his fifth victory of the year to take the lead in the standings for the first time in a topsy-turvy season…

“I’m a bit speechless. I don’t know what you are supposed to say in this moment,” Vettel told the official post-race press conference.

“It has been an incredibly tough season, physically and mentally especially. But we have always believed in myself, my car, the team…”

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

The victory left Vettel on top of the standings with 256 points, just four clear of Alonso. Webber finished the season on 242 points with 2008 champion Hamilton on 240.

Red Bull had already clinched the constructors’ title after the penultimate race in Brazil, but a solid display from McLaren left them in second place ahead of Ferrari.

Bravo, Vettel. I’m still a McLaren fan; but, Sebastian Vettel has been knocking at the door for a while, now. His talent couldn’t help but bring him to the top.

Back in 2007, when the government here announced its plan for “the world’s first zero-carbon city” on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, many Westerners dismissed it as a gimmick — a faddish follow-up to neighboring Dubai’s half-mile-high tower in the desert and archipelago of man-made islands in the shape of palm trees.

Designed by Foster & Partners, a firm known for feats of technological wizardry, the city, called Masdar, would be a perfect square, nearly a mile on each side, raised on a 23-foot-high base to capture desert breezes. Beneath its labyrinth of pedestrian streets, a fleet of driverless electric cars would navigate silently through dimly lit tunnels. The project conjured both a walled medieval fortress and an upgraded version of the Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland.

Well, those early assessments turned out to be wrong. By this past week, as people began moving into the first section of the project to be completed — a 3 ½-acre zone surrounding a sustainability-oriented research institute — it was clear that Masdar is something more daring and more noxious.

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It’s the ultimate hole-in-the-wall — a money machine that dispenses pure gold.

But installed beneath the gold-coated ceilings of Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace hotel, where royalty and billionaires come for cappuccinos topped with gold flakes, the machine almost seems part of the furniture.

“The reason we chose Emirates Palace is because it really fits with the surroundings here,” said German entrepreneur Thomas Geissler, creator of the “Gold to Go” brand and chief executive of Ex Oriente Lux.

The exterior of the machine is coated with a thin layer of gold and offers customers 320 items to choose from, ranging from gold bars that can weigh up to 10 grams, to customized gold coins…

Through a computer system, the ATM gold machine updates the gold price every 10 minutes to match international markets.

For now, it takes notes of the local dirham currency, but the option of using credit cards will soon be introduced…

“On the first night we had a lot of demand,” he said. “One customer even bought one item of every product we have.”

Where are all the old-fashioned phishing hackers when you need one?

A spate of companies have announced that they were setting up shop in Abu Dhabi, an island city that is the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The companies are CNN, the book publishers HarperCollins and Random House, the BBC, The Financial Times and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charity arm of the financial news giant Thomson Reuters.

Officials from these companies joined local officials in Abu Dhabi on Sunday to announce they would take space on a new 200,000-square-meter campus, called the Abu Dhabi Media Zone, that the government is building for foreign media companies.

The campus is intended to be an incubator that will mix Western media companies with billions in Middle Eastern oil money. It will offer training programs for journalists and filmmakers from the region but, more important, it will be a base for Western companies to do business in the region — and at the same time help the Abu Dhabi government reach its goal of becoming a cultural and media center of the Middle East.

At least a paragraph devoted to each firm in the article. Enough to get you started on our own research and analysis.

Of course, I’m still waiting for DirecTV to get off their rusty dusty and carry Aljazeera English.

Better than a Burka

U.S. chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc plans to spin off its manufacturing plants into a $5.7 billion joint venture with Abu Dhabi to get a cash injection and shrink debt to better compete against larger rival Intel Corp.

Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), an Abu Dhabi state-owned venture capital firm, said it will invest $2.1 billion for a 55.6 percent stake in the venture, of which $700 million will go directly to AMD, which will hold the remaining stake. The two will divide the venture’s board seats equally.

ATIC also committed to investing another $3.6 billion to $6.0 billion over 5 years to fund the venture’s expansion. The 3,000-person new company will hold AMD’s two plants in Dresden, Germany and make all of its central processing units, as well as chips for other companies.

Another Abu Dhabi government company, Mubadala Development Co, will spend $314 million to increase its stake in AMD to 19.3 percent from 8.1 percent and gain a seat on AMD’s board.

Brian Mata, an analyst at IC Insights in Arizona, said AMD desperately needed the boost. The company has posted seven consecutive quarters of losses and is forecast by Wall Street to report another quarterly loss next week…

The venture will upgrade one of the two plants in Dresden and build the plant in New York to the latest technology standards, AMD said. It said the venture, which will be on AMD’s balance sheet, may ultimately build a fab in Abu Dhabi.

Now, there’s a surprise – an American corporation relying on foreign capital and building manufacturing facilities abroad to better fit a global market.

Change stadium name from Eastlands – to Middle Eastlands

The butt of many a joke only a matter of weeks ago as the full extent of Thaksin Shinawatra’s personal and financial problems emerged, Manchester City’s world has been turned on its head in the space of 24 mind-boggling hours as the former Prime Minister of Thailand sells the club to Arab royalty with wealth that dwarfs even that of Roman Abramovich. The arrival of Abramovich at Chelsea five years ago changed the landscape of English football, but the involvement of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi at City threatens to transcend even the enormity of the Russian’s achievements in West London.

Bankrolled by Abramovich’s millions, Chelsea won the league in the Russian’s second season at the club. Al-Fahim hopes for the same at City. “We are looking to make the same kind of impact at Manchester City that has happened at Chelsea in recent years,” Al-Fahim said. “That is what we want and we think it is achievable. The Premier League is a huge attraction for us. We looked at the likes of Arsenal and Newcastle United but we are very excited about becoming the new owners of Manchester City and have great ambitions.

“The target is to finish in the top four this season and then challenge for the Premier League title next year. We know that will require serious investment, but the bids we have already made for several players demonstrate how serious we are. We want to turn City into one of the biggest football clubs there is.”

Asked if the investors would be prepared to spend £200 million or more next summer to turn City into title challengers, Al-Fahim said: “Yes, if that is what it takes, we will do it.
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