Mind Soup

Founded in 2012, Game Cooks is a collective of artists, designers and developers with a shared passion for gaming. Based in Lebanon and catering to the world, the team creates fun and feel-good type games, with a twist, which people from the region can relate to and players from all over the world can enjoy. Game Cooks focuses on producing international games for iOS and Android. So far, Game Cooks has launched 7 mobile games, available for iOS and Android, the latest being Cubama, a 3D reflex game, which requires concentration and speed. Here is an interview with Lara Noujaim, Game Cook's marketing manager. How did the idea for Game Cooks begin and how was it funded? Game Cooks was born out of a shared passion for gaming and how games are created! It all started with an idea for a game—and that idea turned into Birdy Nam Nam. Birdy Nam Nam proved to be a great success; having amassed over a quarter million downloads from its first week alone! This was enough motivation for...

A while back, the generous people from Impact BBDO and Nokia sent me a Nokia N9 phone. It was exciting because it was my first non-Symbian phone and I was looking forward to trying something new. It is perhaps one of the most beautifully designed phones that I've ever seen. Nokia have outdone themselves with product development this time. The finishing is perfect, especially the way the screen is embedded as part of the device making it unified and beautiful. The curving on the edges also make it sleek and stylish. In addition to that, the minimalistic design adds to its beauty and makes it very simple to use. The device has only three buttons (two for volume control and a lock-screen button). It fits very comfortably in a person's palm and doesn't feel as big as it is mainly due to the curves on the sides. I will not be covering the all the phone specifications in detail, but if you are interested in the full specifications, check out this link. Below, I w...

Beirut, Lebanon - Nokia thinks that way too many phones are being held hostage in the wrong hands by users who own the latest Nokia devices yet are not installing the applications that make these devices thrive the way they were meant to. So Nokia have unleashed an “App Patrol”, a group of dedicated “Smartphone law” vigilantes who don’t take application matters lightly. These patrols will be on the lookout for the most serious Nokia application offenders, ready at the drop of an app to arrest and fine these violators! Keep an eye out for the App Patrol as they have planned raids at universities, malls, cafés, cinemas and other application offender hotspots in Beirut. The App Patrol has issued a public warning on their YouTube channel to notify all the application criminals in Beirut to take heed and make sure they get the right applications for their Smartphones in order to avoid being prosecuted by the Nokia App Patrol. Patrol warnings and the right thing to do: ...

PC WORLD : Saudi Arabia has ordered the suspension of Research in Motion's BlackBerry service as of Friday, as it does not meet current regulations, according to the country's telecommunications regulator. The suspension will cover all services, including e-mail and instant messaging, said an official from the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), who requested not to be named. He did not specify what were the current local regulations that BlackBerry did not comply with. The CITC has meanwhile instructed three mobile service providers in the kingdom to discontinue the BlackBerry service, the official said. These are Etihad Etisalat, which uses the brand name Mobily, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Zain Saudi Arabia. The operators had been asked over a year ago to ensure that the BlackBerry service complied with local rules, he said. RIM's BlackBerry service has come under scrutiny from regulators in other countries as well. BlackBerry's s...

OUR MAN IN BEIRUT : Ladies and gentlemen, following this exclusive online guide is a sure-fire way to be mistaken for a Lebanese. Driving: The driver's seat must be in an uncomfortable and impractical reclined position at all times. No more than one hands shall be on the wheel at any time. The other hand should be on the window frame. Alternatively it may be located on the gear-shift or your girlfriend's leg. Profuse use of horn is encouraged. Religious symbols are to be attached to dashboard at will. Clothes: Shirts are never to be tucked in. A minimum of three buttons must be undone to reveal chest hair and optional gold medallion. Brand names are to be exposed on every visible area of clothing. Technology: Ownership of mobile phones released more than two months ago are a big no-no. Be sure to keep your phone visible at all times. Keep it in your hand and place it on the table during diner or coffee. Fiddle around with the menu at all times, to seem like you are alw...

MIND SOUP : Apparently, Apple doesn't think very highly of its customers. According to The Independent, the iPhone 4 that was released in the UK ten days ago has a major fault. The phone that costs £599 (around 900 US dollars) has to be handled very delicately as not to touch the aerial which is embedded inside the casing. Angry costumers were told to pay an extra £25 ($37.5) for a rubber bumper which presumably solves this problem. Apple has reportedly told its employees not to promise the costumers free rubber bumpers even though the flaw in the phone is the company's fault. In a leaked memo, Apple says "We ARE NOT appeasing customers with free bumpers – DON'T promise a free bumper to customers." The memo also instructs staff to tell costumers not to cover the lower left hand corner of the phone and explain to the customers that "the phone's wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped." The Independent stated that "the...

At 6:00 PM (+2GMT) today, Mind Soup was relaunched, and this time it finally got out of Beta Testing after almost 3 months in this stage. The relaunch included a attractive design which new colors and less clutter. Most of the problems that were in version 2.0 are fixed, these include: The reactions buttons are now working. The comments section is now working. The date and time is also showing up on posts. Less broken links than before The changes that you might notice is that there are much fewer widgets in the sidebars, and this was intentional to speed up the site and keep the focus on the blog posts themselves. Chat has been removed and this might be permanent now the comments section is working. However, many options are still available through the bottom toolbar. These options may not be present in the sidebars, but you can access them through the toolbar. These include: Newest notifications, twitter summary page, facebook fan page, sharing button, RSS feeds, more than 1...

As you might have noticed 0ver the past few days, I have been working hard to update my blog with new and interesting features. I am proud to present to you Mind Soup in 8 different languages which you can choose from the header. Also, I have just launched the lite mobile version of Mind Soup which enables the reader to view the last ten posts from their mobile phone for very little internet consumption. You can point your browser to http://mippin.com/mindsoup from any internet enabled mobile. There is also the chat features which you will find in the sidebar. The Gtalk feature will allow readers to talk to me in private when I am online via Google Talk. This feature does not need any installation. Another chat feature is the Mind Soup Chat room which is available under the Gtalk feature. It enables readers to chat with each other or leave quick messages. You can also check my latest tweets on twitter and follow me using the twitter application under that Chat box. Also new...