BMW was present at the Arab Health exhibition held at the Dubai World Trade Center last week and I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Stephan Rauscher, Safety Engineer for BMW Global who explained how BMW is actively involved with passenger safety in their vehicles. Besides the passive features such as your seat belt, there are many electronic features in today’s BMW cars that, through sensors, detect a possibility of collision and accordingly inform the driver or make adjustments to your vehicle. Examples of such situations include your car moving out of the car tracks or detection of an object ahead of you at a slower speed.

Other than these safety features, Stefan also explained about BMW’s call center which is currently not available in the UAE, but is in Kuwait. The call center sends a crash report to an agent informing them of all passengers in the car, the area where the car was hit as well as other data such as the location of the accident. Again, the video below explains how it works by emulating a crash.

As you can see, BMW is really focusing on the safety aspect of their vehicles and considering how fast people tend to drive in the UAE, this is a good thing.

If you’re a fan of the TV show “The Office,” and like Valves evergreen Counter-Strike franchise, you need to see this video. The video shows how a fan of the show has mapped the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Products company in painstaking, bone-breaking detail. The cubicles, the chairs, even the lamps and office supplies are almost exactly like how you would see them placed in the show.

It seems that this project began a good two years ago and the mapper has since logged around 500 hours worth of mapping and amazingly he feels that the map is not yet complete. Since the map is not available for public download, its hard to judge how fun or playable  it will turn out to be.

Apparently, the mapper is now looking for an experienced enthusiast to now take over and take the project through to completion. If you have the necessary skills, do go over to his YouTube page and give him a shout.

Nokia certainly understands cool. Have a look at the video below which is a promo they have done in London for their recently launched Lumia Smartphone based on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS. It’s a bit on the long side at over five minutes but it is one that will make Christopher Nolan proud.

We have a few buildings in Dubai that can pull this off too- anyone at Nokia ME listening?

Not only does competition help the end-user by providing a better products cheaper, but sometimes it also provides good entertainment while doing so. This new ad by Samsung for the Galaxy S II takes a shot at our favorite iDevice and will definitely put a smile on your face.

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.

At the BlackBerry Innovators forum in Dubai, I saw more than a couple of BlackBerry Bold 9900 devices in white and I must say that they look pretty slick. The stainless steel band with the white color looks more premium than the black version. RIM has also changed the back from a carbon-fiber design to a stripes design, adding more elegance.

I’ve been told that Axiom in the UAE might be selling them although no confirmation yet.

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.

Someone at the xda-developers forums has managed to port Google’s latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on to the Google Nexus S. I had a Nexus S with me and decided to try it out. Although this is purely beta, it is looking good and shows us a glimpse on what is to come for our devices in the very near future. Enjoy the video.

The new Motorla RAZR was officially launched in the UAE today and should go on sale within the next couple of weeks for AED 2,599. The new RAZR is the thinnest handset in the world- measuring just 7.1mm and is built of gorilla glass in the front and KEVLAR fiber on the back to make it strong and sturdy.

We were at the launch event and managed to get some time with this sleek device that is also loaded as far as specs are concerned. Check out the following video

Although the RAZR is incredibly thin, I found it be a bit on the big size for everyday use. The following photo compares it to the iPhone 4.

Other than the size, the only other disappointment is the lack of an LTE model in the region. But that is understandable as Etisalat has only launched data services on their LTE network and voice is not yet supported. The Motorola RAZR looks fantastic from every other aspect. It is very well built and surprisingly light. the build quality reeks of premium and the Super AMOLED qHD screen is just gorgeous. We should hopefully be getting a review sample soon

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.