News

Sajdah Is The World’s First Smart Rug That Helps You Perfect Your Prayers

Sajdah features a built-in LED display, a speaker, and rechargeable batteries, allowing it to display the text of the Holy Quran and play voice prompts to guide you as you pray.

Published

5 years ago

May 6, 2021

Joanna Melki

Sajdah

The Middle East has always had a passion for technology and innovative solutions in general. When the coronavirus pandemic first hit, private businesses and public organizations in the region quickly implemented digital solutions to overcome the challenges presented to them.

While global vaccination efforts are accelerating and paving the way for the eventual transition to normalcy, it will still take a lot of time for the last social distancing measure to be lifted. Until then, millions of Muslims around the world will continue praying at home, not always being sure how to pray without directions.

Qatar-based Thakaa Technologies is now trying to solve this problem with their first-ever smart educational prayer rug, called Sajdah. The rug is available exclusively on LaunchGood, and you can get it with a discount of nearly 50 percent if you hurry up.

“Technology is entering every part of our lives. We’re using technology to communicate, learn, socialize, exercise, and organize our life,” said Abdulrahman Saleh Khamis, CEO and co-founder of Thakaa Technologies. “We hope everyone is as excited as we are and urge our Muslim brothers and sisters to log on to LaunchGood and pre-order Sajdah,” added Abdul Ali, the co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Thakaa Technologies.

Also Read: How To Clean Your Apple Watch Like A Pro

Sajdah features a built-in LED display, a speaker, and rechargeable batteries, allowing it to display the text of the Holy Quran and play voice prompts to guide you as you pray. You can pair the rug with your smartphone through the Sajdah mobile app and use the app to pre-program the parts of the Quran you want to display during your prayer, control the speed of the prayer, and a whole lot more.

At the moment, prayer guides and Quran verses can be displayed in English and Arabic, but Thakaa Technologies promises to add support for more languages with future updates to Sajdah.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

6 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

Also Read: DJI Teases Dual-Camera Osmo Pocket 4P For 2026 Launch

Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.