Billing yourself as a ‘multilingual social network’ might be a bit ambitious, but ambition is what fuels the team behind dudu.com. While the site is still in its infancy, its one goal is to create a site that allows users to connect with each other regardless of where they are or what language they speak. It’s a bold initiative that so far sees the site supporting three languages, with scope to add more as the site grows.

We sat down with Abdurakhman Zulumkhanov, Project Manager with DUDU communications, to find out more about the site and its plans for the future:

Can you tell us a bit more about how dudu started?
Dudu was founded in 2007 by Mr. Alibek Issaev, a Russian businessman who lived and worked in Dubai, UAE. The main concept behind the project was to create a platform for free communication between people of the world. With the invention of the Internet people had the ability to communicate over the distance, but there was still last barrier remaining for free communication – the language barrier. The project was in development for about 4 years and in 2011 it was first introduced to public in Alpha version, as a social network with a lot of great new functionality, but mainly – translatable content.

Dudu features a truly multilingual social network where users can chat with each other regardless of what language they are using – can you tell us a bit more about the kind of technology that powers this feature? Was it something developed completely in-house and does it produce accurate translations?
Machine translation research and development dates as far back as the middle of last century. There had been a number of various approaches that were developed to date. We based our work on previous researches and achievements and developed our own system in house. The system combines various approaches, but also features ability to self-improvement. The system has been in development for over 4 years now and was recently launched in Alpha mode. It still requires time to gather and process data and there is some tweaking to do, but we can say that we have reached impressive results that we are ready to share with the world. Another key thing is that the more users communicate on the network, the more posts and comments they provide, the better the system becomes. So every time someone logs in on the website they help us improve the system quality.

The site also recently won at the International Business Awards – what categories did you win and how did it feel for the team?
Dudu was the winner in “Best New Product or Service of the Year – Media and Entertainment” and “Best Software Programming/Design of the Year” at the 2011 International Business Awards, and honoree in “Most Innovative Company of the Year in the Middle East and Africa” and “Company of the Year – Media”. This was a very important event for the team, as it showed recognition of our hard work at a very early stage. It gave the team great incentive to keep up the good work and strive for new achievements.

Dudu also features a virtual currency and Bank system – what can you purchase with the virtual currency?
The virtual currency on dudu (called “Dullar”) can be used to buy and send virtual gifts to users within the website, to pay for upgrades and improvements in applications and games on the website, and will be also used for other functionality later on in the project.

What are ‘Worlds’?
World – is a user’s feeds page that displays entries and status updates by user’s friends, as well as news and entries from pages of interest the user is signed up for.

Are there specific geographical locations where you’re seeing a large number of user signups? Would you be looking to advertise the site heavily to the Middle East as a truly ‘Arabic-friendly’ site? Or do you have some other marketing strategies for the region?
We currently see people sign up from all over the world. Most of new users come from the Middle East, former CIS republics, and Asia. As we are based here, we would like our project to become a major point of access for communication in the Middle East (and later, of course, in the rest of the world as well).

You’ve currently got an iPhone application for the site – are you looking to expand to other markets such as Android or Blackberry etc?
Yes, the iPhone app is available for free at AppStore and we constantly roll out new updates to improve performance and functionality, majorly based on user feedback. We are also busy working on developing apps for other platforms and will introduce them in the nearest future.

Will you be offering at a later stage the ability for developers to plug in apps and games etc into the site?
Yes. In fact, we already have a quite universal API in place, through which developers of apps and games can integrate their products within the website.

What are your plans for the site in the next coming months?
There are currently three languages that are supported on the website – English, Russian and Arabic, so our further steps would be to add more languages, starting from the mostly spoken. We also plan to roll out a lot of unique, new functionality for social networking, which we believe would be a great addition to the existing functionality on the website.

I picked up the HP TouchPad during the firesale and one of the applications that I immediately looked for was one to tweet from. There was just one at HP’s Webstore called Spaz HD which worked but was strictly OK. I began scouting forums and found out that TouchPad owners were looking forward to .graphite, the tablet version of an extremely popular twitter client on Pre phones called carbon.

That name immediately rung a bell as I know the team that developed that app- dots & lines. Saleh Esmaeili, the founder and UX Director, is based out of Dubai and I contacted him about the app. He was kind enough to send it to me and I must say that I immediately fell in love with it. Not only is graphite functional, it is also beautiful- more so than most twitter clients I’ve used on any platform. The following video shows you some of the features and UI of graphite

Now with WebOS’ future unknown, I thought I’d ask Ismail his thoughts on the bigger picture as well as possibly porting his applications to other platforms. I’d like to thank him for his time and wish him the best of luck with dots & lines.

1) Can you please introduce yourself and what you do?

I’m a designer at heart with a little coding skills. Most of my career was involved around brand building and designing online user experiences for Microsites and Online Campaigns. I dived into Mobiles Apps a year ago, and ever since I’ve been hooked and exploring different Mobile OSes for design goodness & product development.

2) What made you decide on developing for WebOS- especially since it was never officially launched in the Middle Eastern region?

My story with webOS goes way back before it was even launched in 2009. I was waiting for an alternative touch screen phone with a keyboard and webOS was that long awaited phone. I ordered the original Palm Pre even though it was locked to AT&T and waited about 6 months ’till the homebrew community finally came up with an unlock solution.

Then came Palm Pre+ and that was when I made it my daily driver and needed a decent Twitter client as I couldn’t buy apps through webOS App Catalog due to Geo Restrictions. So, decided to build something simple for myself. And that was when “Carbon” was born. A few tweets from me with #webOS hashtag and a webOS community member invited me to share screenshots. Four months later I launched it and were among one of the most successful webOS apps ever. Carbon was featured on HP Veer commercial as the Twitter client on the phone. Just a personal need evolved into a widely adapted app.

3) How do you feel about the uncertain future of WebOS?

Awful. Being part of the webOS community and having apps that are still under development for webOS and seeing what kind of brutal fate webOS has come to have has been real painful. Specially that HP is really confused at this point and even their last “All Hands” meeting resulted in another 3 to 4 weeks wait that we’re still hanging on to.

4) What made Carbon successful?

There are a great number of Twitter clients out there for any given Mobile platform. What makes each and every one of them unique for their loyal users is the one-and-only kind of User Experience. And that’s what we did right with Carbon. Apart from parallel timelines and swipe-interface we introduced a great number of fresh features such a gesture that we called “Power Scroll” where swiping up/down on any timeline using two fingers jumped to top/bottom of the timelines.

In Carbon we tried to utilize all of the webOS goodness including the Card views and functionalities and rich notifications. For instance users could open up more than one instance of the application in different cards, that way users could have more than one Account open at any given time as opposed to Switching accounts in other platforms and apps. It’s been a hit and I’ve been very pleased with the acceptance of the users and the great number of loyal enthusiasts who keep asking us what is our next platform that we’re porting to so that they could switch to with us. Been a great Journey.

6) Tell us about some of the key features of Graphite.

Graphite was made with a simple idea–to get all of the Twitter accessible through one screen in a smooth experience that involved interaction rather than tapping or clicking. It’s the kind of app that can be understood only when used. Even screenshots won’t do it any justice either even though our graphics and visual elements are gorgeous you gotta’ swipe around and interact with it.

It utilizes the Sliding Panes for the interface where you swipe around and have screens stacked on top of each other. Having three sliding screens on the home screen that you can access your Profile, Main Timelines, and a new signature feature that we call the Quick Timeline where you can access your Favorites, Search & Saved Searches, Lists, and Trending Topics w/o having to leave the home screen, all you need to do is swipe back to your main timelines. Twitter multi-tasking at its best. Apart from the sliding panes the main timelines are laid in a creosol that even in a deeper level all you do is swiping your way around Timeline, Mentions, and Threaded Direct Messages.

We have high-resolution inline image previews right on the timelines, after all this is a Tablet app and what good it would be if we had to tap/click on a Url to view an image, so we load them in high-res right on your timeline. Interaction with tweets are another unique part of Graphite where while on Timeline users can take all of the regular actions on the tweet in addition to a “Quick Reply” action that is fired when user double-taps on any tweet.

User profiles are as rich as they could get on Graphite as we put that Tablet touch to it loading high-res profile pictures that makes viewing users profiles as smooth as flipping through tablet magazine pages.

With all the UI goodness, and simplicity, Graphite is still rich in features as we support multiple Image uploading services and implemented Bit.ly and Bit.ly pro for Url shortening along with Read Later support for Instapaper & Read It Later.

7) What were some of the challenges you faced during development?

I started working on Graphite when the platform was not public yet. So developing on a framework that is itself being developed and changed at the time of development has been tricky. Lots of changes to the platform was being made that we had to cope up with and be proactive with. We recoded the app three times and redesigned the UI at least five times. All this was due to working on the emulator as once HP generously sent us the Touchpad back in June before the official launch we came to have a different idea about the UI elements of the OS upon physically using it. So some more rounds of redesigns and a great number of set backs and here we are ready to launch.

8) Any thoughts on porting it to other platforms like iOS or Android?

While Carbon(the mobile version of Graphite) is already being ported to WP7 it is going to iPhones as well. We’ve been playing around with porting Graphite to iPad and it has been tried on Honeycomb as well. Of course using a fast porting tool call Phonegap. That really got us hungry and got us started on working on Graphite for iPad using native iOS tools instead.

Did you know that RIM processes 22 petaytes of data per month? FYI, a petabyte is 1000 terabytes. Yes, that’s a lot of data. We found that, as well as some info on the upcoming BBX platform during our session with Rory O’Neill, VP, Software and Services for Research In Motion who was in Dubai for The BlackBerry Innovation Forum last week.

I’d like to thank Rory for his time and am excited about RIM’s upcoming BBX devices scheduled to make an appearance some time next year- hopefully sooner than later.

During GITEX, we had an opportunity to have a small chat with SMART Technologies, the guys behind the interactive white board that we also looked at last year. In this interview, we find out what is new since last year as well as a demonstation on their latest multi-touch capable white boards.

Sennheiser is a brand known for its excellent audio products, be it a full-fledged speaker system, or even normal stereo headphones. The German manufacturers have had a huge presence at both GITEX Technology Week and Shopper this year, bringing the ‘feel and experience’ of its products to the consumer.

We speak to Heston Saldanha, channel manager for Sennheiser, who discusses the company’s most popular products, what the presence at GITEX means to them, and their new range of headsets.

With the number of security issues surrounding the industry, you can never be too safe sitting on your home PC. Thus, its always good to have a reputable vendor looking out for you- especially one that has been around for as long as I can remember. With their recent acquisition by Intel, McAfee is in a unique position of being extremely close to the hardware and the software. We sat down with Toralv Dirro and talked about some of the security issues surrounding us.

We managed to get some time with Mr. Gustavo Fuchs who is the Director for Mobility at Microsoft Middle East & Africa. We spoke to Gustavo about the localization of the platform as well as where it stands in the region.

Overall, how is Windows Phone doing in the region?

We are not treating this as a number game at the moment. we are treating this as an early adaptor soft launch of our phone. We just want to make sure there are official ways for people to acquire devices and what we are paying attention at this point is satisfaction. So the satisfaction of the users is important and more than 70% of the users are happy with the platform and have actually referred it to others. As more functionalities are introduced in this region, we will increase the exposure of the platform.

What is Microsoft doing to localize Windows Phone for the region?

We are working in two stages. Stage no. 1 is working with our partner Yalla Apps to bring Apps to the region. Over the last 6 months we got more than 3000 developers and more than 500 apps. A lot of those apps are Arabic focused like either language wise or culture such as Prayer Times. So that’s stage no.1.

Stage no. 2 is over a longer period of time to have the whole experience of the phones in the local language. I cannot give you a date now not because I don’t want just because the date might change. 

As per my discussions with Nokia , they said they are gonna build some sort of Arabic support into the device and as far as the marketplace is concerned, they said that they are gonna have their OVI store which will be a front end for the marketplace where you will be able to buy the applications from. Can you comment on that, can you say?

So there is a very interesting concept and this is unique for Windows and all that. It is a concept of Store – n -Store. And how this works? So we have our marketplace where users are able to download free apps, download trial apps and download paid apps but when you enter in the marketplace depending on which device you have or which operator you are on, you have a store from that manufacturer or a store from that operator. So for example you have a Samsung Omnia so when you enter into the marketplace and you are going to see that there is a Samsung zone and that’s a Store – n –Store.

The first thing for the manufacturers is that they can make applications that are exclusive to them or they are actually free on their device but paid on a traditional marketplace. And that’s the same for the operator. So today HTC has such concept, Samsung has such concept, LG has such concept and we believe Nokia will adopt this concept as well to provide additional value to users. That’s for the operator / manufacturer.

The other perspective that finding apps the traditional way is of course you have your credit card. But there are lot ways that we are working on to make sure users are happier on purchasing an ap- specifically for this region.

I’ll mention two- first one is a prepaid card right so in this region if I go broader Middle East and Africa so we have two phenomenas. One phenomena is that in the Gulf region people are not comfortable with the concept of using their credit cards online. So prepaid cards is a great opportunity for them. If you go little bit down to Africa, people don’t have credit cards. So prepaid cards is a great way for them to have access to that and we are working to make this available.

The other is operator billing. So if I have a post paid line, you can get apps and the description lies within my bill instead of needing to add a credit card and so forth. So we are working those through deals to make sure marketplace becomes available for others to use in the region. I can’t give you a time frame just because it might change but we are working. That’s in our agenda and we are working very hard to get that done.

 Can you talk to us about the Skype integration in Windows phone and how is it gonna work in this region specifically?

The acquisition of Skype still up for approvals across the world. Europe was just approved but there are lot of other approvals that need to happen but independent of acquisitions you know Skype has announced that they will have an application for Window phones. We don’t have the details yet specific to this market and specific to timeframe. We know that their application will be available this month.

One of the things introduced in Mango is multi tasking by freezing apps in the background. I have tested Whatsup, but it hasn’t always worked properly. At times I have goten notifications 2-3 hours later than I should have. Could you tell us why that happens and is that the application developers fault?

So Whatsup is now available in the Store along with many other chat clients like Kik Messenger. Also, the overall concept of threads like Facebook chat and MSN Messenger are now part of the phone. So for developers we created the new SDK that enables them to take care of such benefits and functionalities of Mango. Specific to Whatsup, they are releasing updates to make sure the application behaves the best possible way. I think it is just a matter of time for them to get it right. I personally use another application that provide the same functionality and that app works quite well.

We want to thank Gustavo for taking the time to have a chat with us. Don’t forget to read my thoughts on Mango.

Storage is something you can never get enough of. First it was at the desktop level with applications and games and then we started recording videos and pictures that lead to an explosion. Now with the uploading of all this content, you have data centers that need the gazillions of bytes to store all our data in the cloud. We managed to get a short interview with Christian from Seagate who told us that 5TB drives are on their way.

It’s alway a pleasure to sit down with Lenovo’s leader in the Middle East- Jack Lee. Jack is never one to shy away about talking current trends, whether others agree with him or not. He is also one that never loses a chance to plug Lenovo in and especially loves doing that while smoking Chinese cigarettes. I had a few minutes with him yesterday and he spoke about tablets, Ultrabooks and where Lenovo stands.

Routers aren’t necessarily the most exciting piece of technology. In fact, for many, it’s a daunting task if they ever want to replace one but Linksys is really trying to make that process easier. And truth be told, you won’t really enjoy your new laptop or tablet or Smartphone if it wasn’t for the wireless router in your home of office keeping everything connected. We had a quick chat with Ulrike Tegtmeier, the VP for Cisco Consumer on their new models as well as why flip was let go.