MORE Magazine

TELECOm

ContentsSeptember 2009 | Volume 2 | issue 3

COVER STORY

When a cell phone is kept near a beehive, the worker bees were unable to

return home, leaving the hives with only the queens and eggs and resulting

in the collapse of the colony within ten days

An incredible piece ofmachine which does not

let you down whether youmake calls, browse internet or

watch movies on its megascreen. First set of its kind tohave introduced such a movieand camcorder features.

EnERGY

ELECTRiCiTY GEnERATiOn in PAKiSTAnBY WinDmiLLSThe coastal belt of Pakistan is blessed by GodAlmighty with a wind corridor that is 60 km wide

16

TELECOm ADS, A LiTTLE OVERViEWA good honest ad always catches the fancy of mil-lions even if it doesn’t have celebrity faces all over it.

12iTCn ASiA WAS A SUCCESSITCN Asia 2009 was one of the best IT shows in Asia.The exhibition was organized in Karachi in 3 Halls,

13TELECOm COnSUmER RiGhTS ASSUREDChairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority(PTA) Dr. Mohammed Yaseen recently declared that

14

FEED VEGETABLES TO YOUR CARI think about pouring Dalda Cooking Oil down my carfuel tank and I still burst out laughing. What is next,

15

42

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TEChnOLOGY

Oh ShE iS BEAUTYFULL ThAnK YOUTEChnOLOGYScience and technology has benefited humanity incountless ways.

22

hUmAn ERROR CAUSES 60% SECURiTYBREAChESYour information is secure only if you keep a constantcheck on your employees,

24

Wi-TRiBE 512K COnnECTiOn, OUR FinDinGS FOR YOUAll- in all, if we tell you about our experience, Wi-Tribehas definitely lived up to the slogan

37

YOUR CELL SELLS YOUThe production of too many useful things results intoo many useless people

20

RAmADAn APPLiCATiOn 2009 Ramadan applications for 2009 are available on OviStore. The updated free mobile applications

19

REViEWS

SAmSUnG LED, SLimmEST AnD GREEnESTThe display took care of every line of a DVD sourceand the shots were clearer than the other LCDs

34

PLAY hARD WiTh F305It offers all the latest mobile handset features that a userwants in a device. Especially the motion Gaming feature,

30

LATEST in TEChnOLOGYVirginia Tech students build car for blind38inViSiBLE DOORWAYS OR PORTALS A STEPCLOSER TO REALiTY, CLAim SCiEnTiSTS39SAmSUnG DUALViEW CAmERAS: PUTTinGThE PhOTOGRAPhER in ThE PiCTURE!40

mOnTh in FOCUS44-49mOBiLE PhOnE50-51GADGETS 52-54

49 48LG Electronics, Global Chief Mar-keting officer, Mr. Dermot Bodenand Mr. K. W. Kim, CEO, ME&Aregion recently visited Pakistan

The Nokia Siemens NetworksBoard of Directors has appointedRajeev Suri as Chief Executive Of-ficer, effective October 1, 2009.

Talking about the enterpriselevel printing, Shahid KhanDirector Marketing, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Pakistan

Rashid Khan, President & CEO ofMobilink, has been nominatedfor “The CEO of the Year” Awardby the World CommunicationAwards (WCA) 2009.

Intel Pakistan Corporation in collaboration with the Pakistan Telecom-munication Authority (PTA) and National Database & Registration Au-thority (NADRA), recently launched a program to provide...

MORE Magazine published by Mudassar Jehangir Mufti at 2nd Floor, Ali Mansion, 41-A, Lower Mall, Lahore Tel: 042 7321920, 2106737 Email: [email protected]

Editor-in-Chief Mudassar Jehangir Mufti | Group Editor Sumaira Mudassar | Editor Halima Qureshi | Content Coordinator Zubair Rehman | Advertising Manager AbdulQayyum (Lahore) | Ahmed Malik (Lahore), Iqbal Yousaf (Karachi) | Designer Assad Chughtai | Marketing Executive Syed Faisal Ahmed | Zain Zahid | International Correspondent Ireland: Alina Amir |US: Ovais Qureshi | Contributor Ambreen Salman, Fahd Chishty, Halima Khan, Sacchal Mufti, Safia Aftab, Maryam Aftab,Urooj Khan | Legal Advisor Abdul Fayaz Registration No. PCPB 286 Price: Rs. 150

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8 | More | September 2009

COVER STORY Mudassar J. Mufti

n The most crucial part of the wireless communications channel is when

the signal enters the wireless medium. Whatever the source and nature of the

signals, there are always a lot of hurdles in the way to make a better communi-

cation possible. One of the most basic parts is the tower. It is the only medium

for communication between your mobile and your network. Though pivotal, it

causes a lot of troubles and potential hazards as well.

Just recently PTA, along with Frequency Allocation Board (FAB) conducted a

survey to test the harmful effects of radiations on human health which are gen-

erated by the cell phone towers during normal wireless communication process.

After this extensive survey the results say that the radiation produced by any BTS

is much below the prescribed limit which has been defined by Ministry of IT and

World Health Organization.

when a cell phone iskept near a beehive, theworker bees were unableto return to home, leav-ing the hives with onlythe queens and eggs andresulting in the collapseof the colony within tendays

“

”

September 2009 | More | 9

COVER STORY

As far as the radiation emission is con-

cerned, they did their job but they missed

to address the other problems deliberately

or undeliberately. The tower-density in our

country is increasing day by day which is a

cause of degradation of scenic beauty and

the environment. Not only GSM but CDMA

and now WiMax structures are also being

erected with each coming day.

Secondly, we must not rule out that

BTSes consume a huge electrical power

thus putting a massive load on the grid or

burning fuel if connected to the generators

thereby increasing their environmental im-

pact or “Carbon Footprint”.

These huge towers can be replaced by

the smarter and greener technologies

which are available today. The size of the

equipment can be reduced to such a level

that you can easily hold it in your hands.

Technically speaking, the actual size of BTS

is very small. The reason for having these

communication towers is completely differ-

ent, there is a history behind it, normally

mobile switching centres are connected to

the BSE’s and BSE’ are connected to the BTS.

The BTS actually communicate with

your terminal or mobile phone. These

BTSes have to be connected to each other

and eventually to the BSE. When GSM net-

work started to roll out in Pakistan there

was one way of connecting one BTS to an-

other and eventually connecting it back to

the switch was through microwave radios.

Microwaves work in the Line of Sight

only. Therefore, to establish Line of Sight,

you have to take the tower to a height

where it reaches the point where you get

Line of Sight with no obstruction between

tower one and tower two.

This is the reason we have so much

towers installed all around the country. Nor-

mally, in the western world, towers are built

on highways and in rural areas. In the urban

areas site A is connected with site B

through fiber.

80 percent of theenergy consumptioncomes from the radiopart including the towersand the BTS. If measuresare taken from the regu-lator and the investor inorder to reduce energyconsumption in the radiopart, we can end upachieving quite a lot ofsavings

“

”

Telecom towers and related equipments have become as im-portant as food and water. This technology has served themankind in all the areas of life but at the same time it is raisingfew questions. In India, just recently the radiations coming outof these towers and cell phones have caused the honey bees todie which may disturb out echo system


TELECOm

Unfortunately, in Pakistan, when wireless network started to

roll out there was no fiber optic available everywhere and there

was no concept of fiber network in the metropolitan areas. The

only available option was to build towers so they could commu-

nicate with each others. Communication among towers is possible

due to microwave antennas which are on the highest level

whereas RF antennas that play with your phone are installed at

much lower height.

In the developed countries, RF antennas can be seen on a two

or three story building which communicates with the rest of the

equipment through fiber cable network.

Towers are no more required today, if we have to expand a

network in the present time but still we see the tower erection as

a normal activity. Today, the fiber optic network is present in al-

most in every big city. No company is willing to shift on the mod-

ern model as it requires investment.

According to telecom analysts, now a BTS can be stored under

a park bench and the RF antenna can be placed on a light pole or

traffic signal poles which are already abundant in our cities. This

model is already in place in the third world countries as well. Delhi,

India is one such example.

Just recently, in Saudi Arabia, National Society for Human

Rights from Jeddah has asked the telecom companies to stop in-

stalling the mobile phone towers in the residential areas as it is

against the Telecom Law issued in 2001.

There have been lots of debates on the issue whether radiation

being emitted from telecom towers and phones are harmful to

humans or not. World Health Organization has mentioned clearly

in its reports in 1999 that “current scientific evidence indicates that

exposure to RF fields, such as those emitted by mobile phones and

their base stations, is unlikely to induce or promote cancers. Several

studies of animals exposed to RF fields similar to those emitted by

mobile phones found no evidence that RF causes or promotes

brain cancer.”

This was in response to worldwide public concern over cell

phone usage, towers, and RF frequencies being implemented at the

time of this report. These findings have not yet, overturned so far.

This debate actually started when a US resident David Reynard,

sued the cell-phone industry over the death of his wife from brain

cancer. Reynard insisted there was a connection because the

tumor was in the shape of a cell phone antenna and for his claim

he appeared on many popular TV shows.

The court ruled out his claim later but a recent study in Indian

state Kerala has again raised the alarms. Study says, electromag-

netic waves emitted by the towers and the cell phones are harm-

ing the honey bees.

It was found after several experiments that bee population has

experienced a sudden fall due the harmful effects of cell phone

towers installed near beehives. The waves emitted by the towers

crippled the “navigational skills” of the worker bees that go out to

collect nectar from flowers to sustain bee colonies, said the re-

searcher, Dr. Sainuddin Pattazhy. He says when a cell phone is kept

near a beehive, the worker bees were unable to return to home,

The tower-density in ourcountry is increasing day byday which is a cause of degra-dation of scenic beauty andthe environment. Not onlyGSM but CDMA and nowWiMax structures are alsobeing erected with eachcoming day

“

”

current scientific evi-dence indicates that ex-posure to RF fields, such asthose emitted by mobilephones and their base sta-tions, is unlikely to induceor promote cancers

“

”

A compact example of modern Flexi by Nokia Siemens


TELECOm

leaving the hives with only the queens and

eggs and resulting in the collapse of the

colony within ten days.

Honey bee population is declining

tremendously in the US since 2006. Accord-

ing to a survey conducted by Apiary In-

spectors of America and the U.S

Department of Agriculture, nationwide loss

is 29 percent from all causes from Sept.

2009 to April 2009. Their colonies have died

of colony collapse disorder (CCD), a phe-

nomenon in which worker bees from a

beehive suddenly disappear.

In Pakistan, we do not go into these

kinds of details, I don’t know if PTA was able

to think in this direction or not but stake

holder must consider measures to provide

safe technology. Eliminating any element

of our echo system will result in a greater

disaster in the long run.

There is no proven statement so far in

the favor of either side. But we have plenty

of options available to minimize the effect.

Tower erection in the densely popu-

lated areas may be replaced with the instal-

lation of RF and BTS on buildings or light

poles. This would restore the scenic beauty.

Secondly it will help save a lot of energy

that is being consumed by all the telecom

towers.

Currently we are facing a severe energy

crisis. We are short of hundreds and thou-

sands of Mega Watts.80 percent of the en-

ergy consumption comes from the radio

part including the towers and the BTS. If

measures are taken from the regulator and

the investor in order to reduce energy con-

sumption in the radio part, we can end up

achieving quite a lot of savings.

Typical consumption of BTS deployed

around Pakistan by various operators con-

sumes about 1600- 2000 watts whereas,

new technologies take lesser than 800

watts.

I would simply say, technology is defi-

nitely a way forward but it should not harm

those who use it. The good part is solution

any technological problem lies in the tech-

nology as well so we have to upgrade our-

selves in order to save ourselves and the

Mother Nature. n

In India Standard Chartered is forecasting an increase in

the number of towers from around 240,000 today to 450,000

by 2014. In the country the traditional model of towers own-

ership has been commonplace for many years. Towers are

built by network suppliers (such as Ericsson) and sub-con-

tractors and are ultimately owned by the network operator.

The new towers model involves the transfer of the towers

into a special purposes vehicle ("SPV" or "Towerco"). The net-

work operator leases back the towers from the Towerco and

acts as an “anchor tenant”. The Towerco then leases spare ca-

pacity on the towers to other operators. Typically, the bigger

the tower is the higher the number of potential new tenants.

Value is then monetized via the sale of a stake in, or all of, the

company to third party investors.

This new towers model satisfies at least two main objec-

tives of the network operator. Firstly, value monetization gen-

erates cash for the company which can be used for

expansion, for example, M&A or spectrum acquisition. Sec-

ondly, value is realized for the operator’s shareholders - either

through owning equity in the demerged Towerco or through

the receipt of cash from the sale of equity.

The towers model very common in North America and

Europe. The model is less suitable to some Middle Eastern

countries where there are just two or three operators in a

market. In India today many of the network operators have

created Towercos.

Bharti has two Towercos – Bharti Infratel (with around

30,000 towers) and a stake in Indus Towers, where it has

pooled a combined more than 100,000 towers with Voda-

fone Essar and Idea. Reliance has established Reliance Infratel

(48,000 towers) and earlier this year, Tata Teleservices and

Quippo merged their tower businesses into a combined

company with around 18,000 towers.

So with some 200,000 towers to be built there are likely

to be a number of investment opportunities in the Indian

towers industry over the coming years. Courtesy: Reuter

By: Tony Worthington

n The battle of the sexes now seems to disappear in

thin air with the ongoing battle of the telecom compa-

nies. Who will be the victorious party and the knight in

shining armor, only the number of customers can tell. Is there a limit

or a boundary? No I don’t think so. They believe that all is fair in love

and war, so what’s the worry?

A battle, well how advertisement can be a battle…this thought

led me to search for the true definition of advertisement, which ac-

cording to Wikipedia is: “Advertising is a form of communication used

to help sell products and services. Typically it communicates a mes-

sage including the name of the product or service and how that prod-

uct or service could potentially benefit the consumer. However,

advertising does typically attempt to persuade potential customers

to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or

service. Many advertisements are designed to generate increased con-

sumption of those products and services through the creation and

reinvention of the "brand image". For these purposes, advertisements

sometimes embed their persuasive message with factual information

using measures beyond limits too.

The telecom industry thus has done the same, attacking the view-

ers and bombarding them with SMS guns and call charge missiles leav-

ing no one unharmed. From Mobilink to Zong every company is trying

to buy the consumer either by hiring celebrities or by touching the

funny bone. The first time a big ad campaign was launched by Mobilink

with many big names endorsing the brand. Hence Mobilink has been

able to attract consumers by luring them into the web of celebrity light.

If you see the ever charismatic Jamal Shah and the courageous Iman

Ali using Mobilink who would not want to do the same! When the bat-

tle became fierce the rest of the telecom companies also started fo-

cusing on their ad campaigns and today on television you either get

to see the political talk shows or telecom company ads.

With claims such as Mobilink’s “reshaping lives” Zong’s “sub kah do”

Ufone’s “tum he to ho” Telenor’s “talkshawk” and Warid’s “life ka network”

who would one consider?

Where Ufone is trying hard to make people happy and attract to

Ufone by the comic element Zong has launched a campaign to make

the consumer aware of what they are providing and what other com-

panies are introducing with time. Zong ad campaign has very impres-

sively countered the challenge of other companies by their tag line“

very smart…..meray aziz…Zong kay customers pehlay din say 75

paisay mian bat ker rehay hain…aur yehi nahin…belkay kisi bhi net-

work kay aik No per 50 pasiy main”.

We saw Ali Zaffar going bonkers in this maze of telecom industry

and helplessly hanging on to the locks of Mobilink when his old brand

didn’t renew the contract, after all ab kamana bhi to ha. Telenor doesn’t

seem to have any botheration with this contract as they move on cast-

ing fresh faces spreading their message loudly and clearly. What can

one say it’s their commercial? Ufone tagging along well catching the

singing and dancing spirit of its competitor irrespective of Zong’s slow

and steady monologue. The battle of gaining more customers and

becoming more successful made Ufone go beyond board, but Zong

responded back forcefully, but wisely– without using insulting words

and doing the trick as well.

No matter how fancy they make their ad campaigns and how

funny they look on television if the company is trying to trick the con-

sumer into buying their product it won’t work for long. They should

have the decency to tell the truth about their products in their ads. In

the end of every ad you can always notice a little asterisk on the side


TELECOm Ambreen Salman

A good honest ad always catchesthe fancy of millions even if it doesn’thave celebrity faces all over it. Hencecompanies should try focusing onhonest marketing than over budgeteddishonest marketing

“

”


TELECOm

of the price they are selling so loudly on every television channel and

every asterisk has some little writing on the screen which cannot be

even read by the consumer.

A good honest ad always catches the fancy of millions even if it

doesn’t have celebrity faces all over it. Hence companies should try

focusing on honest marketing than over budgeted dishonest marketing.

Since the last 5 years telecom advertisement in Pakistan has

come a long way and in the battle to prove ones worth I hope it

become even better and one day compete with advertisements

of our neighboring country. India’s telecom ads are in a league of

its own and they are so strong substance wise that they hardly use

celebrity power to sell their product to the consumer. If we only

take Vodafone ads you will agree with me when I say that they are

innovative and a pioneers in their style of advertisement which

does not in any way include ridicule on other brands and are totally

customer oriented. I hope one day we can prove to the world just

how creative we are, till then good luck to the efforts being put in

by our telecom industry advertisements. n

n ITCN Asia 2009 was one of the

best IT shows in Asia. The exhibition

was organized in Karachi in 3 Halls,

where over 130 exhibitors from more

than 15 countries participated. The

Event was attended by approx. 117

foreign delegates from Canada, China,

France, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong,

India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nether-

lands, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, UAE,

U.K & USA. A number of overseas Pak-

istanis also attended the Event.

The unique and colorful Inauguration

Ceremony was held on August 11, 2009

with the “Multiple Ribbon Cutting” by

Naguibullah Malik, Federal Secretary IT &

Telecom along with Dr. Khursheed Nizam,

President, Ecommerce Gateway Pakistan

(Pvt) Ltd, Walid Irshaid, President, PTCL, Mo-

hamamd Sadiq, CEO, Wi-Tribe Pakistan, Dr.

Muhammad Yaseen, Chairman, PTA,

Usman Sheikh, MD & COO, KHL, Pervez

Iftikhar, CEO, Universal Service Fund Pak-

istan, Raheel Kamal, Senior Director, Global

Business Development, Qualcomm Inc.

USA, Sikandar Naqi, Senior Executive Vice

President, PTCL.

On the occasion, Mr.Walid Irshad

expressed hopes that despite tough

competition and local market impacts

of the telecom sector the PTCL has

great extent of potential to go ahead

as a global trendsetter leader.

Warid, Telenor, and Mobilink were not at

the exhibition. But Ufone came along with

PTCL. Internet Broadband operators showed

their presence with Wateen, WiTribe and

WorldCall’s appearance at the expo.

During the three day event many

local and foreign companies displayed

their products in the halls. Dell Pak-

istan’s booth was very prominent in

the hall number 1. I t had displayed

Laptops and other hardware products

for the general and advanced users.

Dell also asked the university students

to pose for them by wearing Dell T-

Shirts.

CIO WebStudio’s booth was there

to know the people’s opinion on the

event and to record product reviews.

Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA,

recorded an ITCN Special of “In The

Line Of Wire”.

The Exhibition was very promising

especially the ZONG stall had a large

wall where students were scribbling

they hearts out.

Overall the exhibition was a suc-

cess, a lot of students, foreign dele-

gates and industry people visited the

exhibition and appreciated the efforts

of the people who organized the exhi-

bition. n


TELECOm

n Chairman Pakistan Telecommunica-

tion Authority (PTA) Dr. Mohammed Yaseen

recently declared that PTA would soon

launch number of new services to protect

consumer rights including introduction of

668 service through which a mobile con-

sumer would be able to know all SIM connec-

tions issued against his name by just sending

single SMS.

He was speaking at Consumer Forum or-

ganized by PTA in Karachi with a theme of “To-

gether for Consumer Rights”. The Forum was

attended by senior representatives of telecom

operators, consumer rights organizations, ac-

ademia, media and other stakeholders. Mem-

ber Technical PTA Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar

and other senior officers also attended the

Forum. Chairman PTA said that PTA was work-

ing on formulation of Spam Regulations under

which consumers would be facilitated against

unwanted and obnoxious SMS and calls. He

said that PTA has already introduced Con-

sumer Regulations 2009 wherein issues such

as misleading advertisements, call charges and

problems related to tariffs of mobile compa-

nies have been addressed.

Chairman PTA said that PTA is cognizant

of telecom consumer’s grievances and taking

number of steps to resolve their issues. In this

regard PTA has revamped complaint han-

dling mechanism of mobile companies, PTCL

and other telecom operators. A subscriber

can launch a complaint with its relevant op-

erator and in case complaint is not resolved

consumer can approach PTA Consumer Cell.

He further said that PTA would switch on

to a new service in September which would

enable a mobile user to know all SIM connec-

tions details issued against his name by just

sending his CNIC to 668. This would help in

detecting real identification of a SIM user. This

new service is part of PTA’s efforts to block all

illegal SIMs and clean the data of mobile

users. Under the new regulations, operators

have been asked to seek consumer consent

before activation of any new package. While

responding to various queries of participants

the Chairman said that PTCL management

has been working to improve its system and

they have ensured PTA to make appropriate

steps to provide its consumers best services.

The overall teledensity in the country has

reached 61.80%. There are currently 94.30 mil-

lion mobile subscribers with mobile penetra-

tion reaching 58.20%. Cellular segment leads

the share in total teledensity by 94.10% fol-

lowed by FLL 2.60% and WLL 3.30%. There are

total 10,148 cities/towns/villages covered and

28,124 cell sites installed by all cellular opera-

tors covering almost 92% of the land area of

Pakistan.

Total fixed line subscribers (FLL) in Pak-

istan stand at 3.7 million yielding a teledensity

of 2% (as of March 2009). The Wireless Local

Loop (WLL) solution in relation to fixed line

requires less investment with high returns.

Today WLL services are available in Pakistan

and value added services like EvDO are also

available. The WLL services are getting popu-

lar especially in rural areas and total sub-

scribers of WLL stood at 2.6 million with 1.6%

teledensity. There are currently more than

11,669 cities/ towns/villages covered by WLL

services. The Long Distance & International

(LDI) segment of the Pakistan telecom sector

has gone through developmental and

growth phases in a very small period. Tariffs

of LDI witnessed stability. Broadband is expe-

riencing healthy growth since last year and

companies are providing broadband services

with DSL, Cable, FTTH, WiMax and EvDO tech-

nologies across Pakistan whereas DSL is the

most popular technology. There are currently

411,067 broadband subscribers.

On this occasion Mr. Aamir Ibrahim CSO,

Telenor, Mr. Sikandar Naqi SEVP (Corporate Af-

fairs), PTCL , Mr. Pervaiz Iftikhar CEO USF and

Mr. Naseem Ahmed Vohra, Consultant Wa-

teen Telecom gave detailed presentations on

cellular mobile, fixedline and uplift of telecom

services in rural Sindh. Mr. Mujahid Bralvi sen-

ior journalist and Mohtarma Fatima Surrya

Bajya, an pronounced intellectual also spoke

in detail on behalf of telecom consumers.

Chairman PTA presented shields to the par-

ticipants on this occasion. n

From L-R, Mr. Sikandar Naqi SEVP (Corporate Affairs), PTCL, Mr. Aamir Ibrahim CSO, Telenor, Chairman PTA, Dr. MohammedYaseen, Fatima Suriya Bajiya, Mr. Pervaiz Iftikhar CEO USF and other dignitaries are seen in the picture


Halima Khan EnERGY

n Those greens will have you going all

the way to your old age, I remember my

mother reminding me of that ultimate

truth every meal. What she missed out on

was how these vegetables will run my car

to old age too. Shocked! Join the club. The

first time I heard vegetable oil playing dual

rule of car fuel was in the Allen Show. She

was having a go at our humor bone like she

usually did when she brought up vegetable

oil as energy conservation alternate.

I laughed like everyone else watching

that show must have especially when a pic-

ture popped up to substantiate her ‘point’.

What was hilarious then became a drilling

reality soon enough. America’s invasion on

Iraq did not exactly do what they hoped

for; the impeding fuel crisis came anyways.

Myth busters a Discovery show ran a similar

story on vegetable oil as alternate car fuel

to petrol etc. The story wasn’t so hilarious

anymore! They substantiated their conclu-

sion with a test run on a Mercedes Benz,

vegetables are miraculous no doubt. Myth

busters conclusion was that vegetable

oil/cooking oil can be used as car fuel.

The fact is hardly as amazing as it was

when the show was run. From T.V shows and

comedy talk it has been taken to science

laboratories. It is seriously under considera-

tion for its potential as energy conservation

fuel. This alternative fuel has a prettier name

too now, biodiesel. Personally I do prefer call-

ing it vegetable oil car fuel, not

only because I am a proud layman but also

because as a woman my ‘favorite’ kitchen

health ingredient is doing me proud on the

road now. It is such a household title unlike

all those fancy names these white coat peo-

ple keep branding simple things as. For once

there is something anything un-mechanical

about the car that will not be whooshing

past my head.

This new technological advancement

is no e=mc2, it is pretty simple. Cholesterol

free, weight friendly vegetable oil extracted

from vegetables I never liked but was

forced fed to eat feeding car engines inex-

pensively. It is as healthy for our environ-

ment as it is for our anatomy. It is cheaper

than petrol and even cheaper than diesel

and gas, prices of which are almost as high

as petrol now. When you go shopping for

grocery you buy vegetables when you can’t

afford meat, no? So maybe when you go

get your tank full you save up cash by

going for the vegetable option.

Uncle Sam! No need to invade more oil

fields anymore, target vegetable fields now.

Maybe eh!

Biodiesel as vegetable oil or animal fat

reacted with alcohol components to get an

alternate fuel. Wow! Impressive.

Oil crisis has not only been a blow to the

economy world over but this energy crisis

has directly blown out the light from our

world; ahem load-shedding. Blame reces-

sion, inflation everything and anything even

corruption on the oil crisis if you feel like it,

since this crisis of natural resources is hardly

as umm easily remedied as planting a tree.

Shrug! Just as corruption the incurable

can’t be remedied by the very exhaustible

natural resources. There has been talk

about solar energy and wind energy has

been roped in too in the list of alternate en-

ergy options alongside to thermal and nu-

clear energy. Nuclear energy stands

disputed because of its byproducts. While

the other natural resources are heavy in-

vestments if the are to be manually manu-

factured. The latest fad in this alternate

energy source hunting is going organic.

Vegetables help the go green cause too.

That is an added benefit. It is getting all the

hype probably only because it still has an

underline of amusement.

I think about pouring Dalda Cooking Oil

down my car fuel tank and I still burst out

laughing. What is next, desi ghee maybe?

Vegetables get excused from the din-

ner menu, hey Vegetarian save some for

biodiesel conversion, please!

Mom, I am saving the vegetables to run

my car. My sacrifice, its gain! n

n Mankind has been harnessing the

wind's energy for many years. From Holland

to traditional farms around the world, wind-

mills were used in the past for pumping water

through primitive irrigation systems or used

to grind grain. Then, the wind turned large

"sails" which were connected by a long verti-

cal shaft that was attached to a grinding ma-

chine or to a wheel that turned and drew

water from a well.

history of windmillsResearch by the prestigious Franklin Insti-

tute revealed that the first windmills were in-

stalled at the beginning of the Islamic

civilization (7th century) and the concept

spread until windmills appeared on the farms

of Western Europe in the 11th century.

By the 17th century, the Netherlands had

become the world's most industrialized na-

tion by extensive use of wind power to drive

trading ships, to power grinding mills, and to

pump water from lands that were once be-

neath the sea.

Advancement in the science and tech-

nology sector has enabled today's turbines to

utilize the energy of the wind to turn large

metal blades which in turn spins a generator

that manufactures electric power.

Anatomy of thewindmill

Windmill electricity tur-

bines, unlike the machines of

old, are mounted on very tall

towers in order to capture the

most wind energy available. At 100 feet (30

meters) or more above ground, wind turbines

can take advantage of the faster and less tur-

bulent wind. Turbines catch the wind's en-

ergy with their propeller-like blades. Usually,

two or three blades are mounted on a shaft

to form a rotor.

A blade acts much like an airplane wing.

When the wind blows, a pocket of low-pres-

sure air forms on the downwind side of the

blade. The low-pressure air pocket then pulls

the blade toward it, causing the rotor to turn.

This is called lift. The force of the lift is actually

much stronger than the wind's force against

the front side of the blade, which is called

drag. The combination of lift and drag causes

the rotor to spin like a propeller, and the turn-

ing shaft spins a generator to make power.

The wind turbine operates for 363 out of

365 days a year and stopped only for two

days during the whole year for carrying out

its scheduled maintenance.

Applications of windmillsStand-alone windmill electricity turbines

are typically used for water pumping or com-

munications. However, homeowners, farmers,

and ranchers in windy areas can also use

wind turbines as a way to cut their power bills.


EnERGY Sacchal Mufti

The coastal belt ofPakistan is blessed by GodAlmighty with a wind cor-ridor that is 60 km wide(Gharo to Keti Bandar) and180 km long (up to Hyder-abad.) This corridor hasthe exploitable potentialof 50,000 MW of electricitygeneration through windenergy

“

”


EnERGY

Small windmill electricity systems also

have potential as distributed energy resources.

Distributed energy resources refer to a variety

of small, modular power-generating technolo-

gies that can be combined to improve the op-

eration of the electric power delivery system.

Windmills for electricity in Pakistan

We Pakistanis are very much conversant

with this menace of loadshedding. Pakistan is

at present short of hundreds of Mega Watts

(MW) of electricity. Well this shortage cannot

be overcome in just a few days, but steps are

needed to be taken at a very high level to

curb this shortfall.

First of all what needed to be analyzed is

what our present means of generation of

electricity are. Our prime sources are the fossil

fuels but time has shown that this method or

mean is extremely costly as oil prices keep

fluctuating, generally having an upward

trend. So we need to look for other resources

mainly using the alternate energy resources.

Windmills usage in AsiaGeneration of electricity through wind is

not something new in this region of world.

India, the fourth in line of countries in the

world for the generation of electricity, is pro-

ducing more than 8000 MW of electricity by

utilizing wind turbines. The big advantage is

that they are exporting windmills or wind tur-

bines as well.

China has a distinction of having the

largest wind-power system infrastructure in

Asia as an alternative way of producing cheap

electricity, particularly in far away regions. Ac-

cording to experts, a wind turbine farm of

100-megawatt power can be set up for an ini-

tial investment of $50 million having no con-

currence cost or extra expenditure.

Advantages of using windmills in Pakistan

Pakistan is gifted with innumerable gifts

from God. We have an excellent weather, an

ideal geographic location and many more.

We can use this windmill source for electricity

generation at its fullest. We have an abundant

cheap manpower, cheap raw materials and

technical expertise all that can be used at its

utmost to develop this capability of electricity

generation through wind.

Recently Air Commodore (Retd) Azfar A

Khan who has been MD of a factory at Pak-

istan Aeronautical Complex, Kamra and who

also delivers lectures on wind and solar en-

ergy wrote a very comprehensive article for

using windmills in electricity generation

through wind.

He argued that as we are facing a major

shortfall in electricity so devising alternate

means is the need of the hour. He com-

mented that as we require a huge number of

wind turbines to curb this shortfall so that’s

why we need to develop these turbines and

windmills indigenously. He gave various ex-

amples proving that our technicians are no

less skilled than their foreign counterparts

and these assets can be used for developing

windmills. In his article he also pinpointed all

the industrial facilities and their locations

which can be used for manufacturing differ-

ent parts of windmills that is blades, control

box, cables and steel towers etc

Wind corridors in Pakistan In Pakistan we possess a lot of wind re-

source in the province of Sindh and coastal

areas of Baluchistan. The coastal belt of Pak-

istan is blessed by God Almighty with a wind

corridor that is 60 km wide (Gharo to Keti Ban-

dar) and 180 km long (up to Hyderabad.) This

corridor has the exploitable potential of

50,000 MW of electricity generation through

wind energy

Steps taken by the government

The government of Pakistan has taken

various steps in gearing up the efforts to use

alternate energy resources for electricity gen-

eration. But more steps needed. Following are

Recently a remote areafisherman Shah Kamalstarted generating electric-ity through the use of wind-mill for several householdsin his village about 150 kilo-meters south of Karachi. Heis using small scale wind-mills or wind turbines togenerate electricity for anisland which had no elec-tricity supply

“

”

Long coastal belt of Pakistan. source: Google Map

various steps taken and developments re-

garding wind energy which are undertaken

by government.

Establishment of ADEB (Alternate Energy Dev Board)

The establishment of ADEB is indeed a

great step by Government of Pakistan. This

board is specifically made to explore alternate

energy opportunities in Pakistan and to de-

velop feasibility plans in this regard.

According to Director Technical AEDB,

Irfan Afzal Mirza, Pakistan would be able to

produce another 1,000mw power through

wind energy within a few years. The Alternate

Energy Development Board has said that they

have accorded 23 projects. Each project

would be able to produce 50mw power. So

the country would produce 1,000mw energy

through wind within a period of next three to

four years.

According to a report generated by AEDB

23 investors have been allotted land in the

main wind corridor. 8 companies have final-

ized their feasibility and eight investors have

been given power generation licenses and

four investors have even been issued tariff.

Pakistan is also collaborating with and In-

dian company Suzman for getting wind tur-

bines of 100mw each.

Wind power plant in SindhPakistan first ever wind power plant is in-

stalled in Jhumpir, Thatta in Sindh. This project

would be able to generate a major chunk of

electricity demand in rural

Sindh. Recently it was told by

ministry of Water and Power

the government had set a tar-

get of 5 percent of electricity

generation by 2030 from alter-

native energy sources through

the Alternative Energy Devel-

opment Board (AEDB)

Local fishermanusing windmills

Recently a remote area

fisherman Shah Kamal started

generating electricity through

use of windmill for several

households in his village about

150 kilometers south of

Karachi. He is using small scale

windmills or wind turbines to

generate electricity for an is-

land which had no electricity supply, and fish-

ermen residing there felt that Government of

Pakistan is not well placed to provide electricity

– hence, they took the initiative and installed 5

turbines to lit 100 homes with 2 bulbs each.

Steps like these can really exploit this

source in our country and our government

should facilitate local investors to invest in

these ventures.

Our country has all the potential in the

form of natural resources and manpower. We

can use these God gifted resources to the ut-

most of our advantage and can curb this

huge shortfall of electricity in our country.

Steps needed to be taken at higher level as

the ground is all set for the development. n


EnERGY

The wind turbine op-erates for 363 out of 365days a year and stoppedonly for two days duringthe whole year for carry-ing out its scheduledmaintenance

“

”

A view of Wind Power plant at Jhumpir. courtesy APP

Small Wind Millinstalled by alocal fishermanin Karachi courtesy: APP


TEChnOLOGY

n Ramadan applications for 2009 are available on Ovi Store.

The updated free mobile applications tailored for the Holy Month

of Ramadan are available on the compatible Nokia devices directly

from Nokia’s Ovi Store.

“Last year’s applications were very well received, as we saw

over 2.4 million Ramadan applications downloaded. And based

on the feedback we had received from Nokia consumers, we have

further enhanced the offering this year to include additional ap-

plications as well as upgrades to some of the existing features. The

applications this year also support a wider range of devices, to in-

clude both touch and non-touch Nokia devices,” said Imran Khalid

Mahmood, General Manager, Nokia Pakistan.

This year’s Ramadan applications are feature packed, and in-

clude the Holy Quran, Prayer Times, Hadeeth, Zakah Calculator,

Mozzaker, Hajj and Umrah and Cards. New features include Quran

recitation from multiple recitors, which users can choose to down-

load, based on their preference and in MP3 form. Prayer timings

and Qibla direction are provided for 1000 cities in 200 countries,

along with the ability to add, remove, update and edit any location

using the GPS. The new Zakah Calculator helps Muslims calculate

Zakah based on their income.

Ramadan applications for 2009 are compatible with a range of

Nokia devices including Nokia N97, Nokia N86, Nokia E75, Nokia E66,

Nokia 7210, Nokia 6730c, Nokia 6720c, , Nokia 6303, Nokia 6300,

Nokia 6120c, Nokia 5800XpressMusic and Nokia 5130, . The user in-

terface for the applications is in English, Arabic, French and Urdu. n

n New sales mark reached in just 4 months, faster than

any previous Samsung mobile

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading mobile phone provider,

announced that sales of the Samsung Star, its hugely popular touch

screen mobile phone, surpassed the 5-million mark this month. The Star

(model number S5230), launched in May, is the fastest model in Samsung’s his-

tory to reach the milestone.

Launched first in Europe, one million of the touch screen devices were sold in the

first month and a half alone, after which the company expanded sales efforts to include

markets in CIS, Southeast and Southwest Asia, East-Central Africa, China, and Central America.

More than 700,000 units of the Star were sold in May and more than 900,000 in June. Monthly

sales in July and August were 1.6 million and 1.8 million, respectively. Based on the current trend,

Samsung projects total cumulative sales to reach 10 million globally by November. n


TEChnOLOGY Safia Aftab

n Society is an entity which can be ana-

lyzed independently of the actions and the ac-

tors which comprise it. Hence all events and

phenomena can be understood by referring

them to the wider social forces acting as an in-

dividual shaping his responses while staying

beyond its control. This is exactly what is hap-

pening now, thanks to technology. Why I am

bringing in such a dry subject and linking it with

one thing everyone loves, cell phones would

be the question in your mind right now. So give

me the chance to elaborate and tell you exactly

how we have put ourselves to the mercy of a

tiny machine. “The production of too many

useful things results in too many useless peo-

ple.” Karl Marx said this and even though I

might not agree with his sociological

theories but I must say by

saying this he has nailed

the coffin and now

whatever I will say

might not do justice to what already has

been said.

Recently my friend started her first job

after graduating from college and what

she did with her first pay is not surprising

anymore because almost everyone is

doing exactly the same thing. Before

her first pay came I asked her what she

will do with her pay, her reply was that

she will buy herself a blackberry as that

gives you a “business woman” look. Does this

sound familiar? I am sure it does because that

thought is probably yours as well.

Every woman wants a mobile phone

which will make her the showstopper of every

place she goes to. And every man wants a cell

which will have all the applications and yet be

as masculine as them. A woman with a chic

pink phone will catch every other woman’s

fancy and the attention will elevate her. And a

man with a black manly cell will have the awe

of every man and the women will fancy him.

It saddens me to think that we have been

so blinded by the little toy of communication

that we cease to register the impact it has on

us. Cell phone is just not a tiny machinery made

to stay in touch with someone but it has em-

braced the whole world within itself. If I take my

friend’s example again and tell you that her

blackberry is no more than a status symbol for

her, how will you react? You probably won’t

react at all for that is what cell phones have be-

come for us; mere status and style symbols.

Around me most of my friends bought

blackberry when once they started working but

sadly none of them used blackberry for the extra

features it is proud to have but for the soul pur-

pose of feeling like a “business woman”. Most of

them don’t even know what blackberry prides

itself to be, for them it is a device they use to

show off, call from, SMS and take pictures which

they later upload to their facebook.

We are such obedient slaves to fashion and

technology that we cannot resist to buy a 20

grand or more worth cell phone even though

we do not need the special features made to

cater to a certain class of people.

Long time back I used to judge a man by

his shoes and the co-ordination of shirt and tie

but now I weigh him on the basis of his mobile

phone and its ring tone. And how he says “hello”

is the making or the breaking point of his im-

pression on me. When I realized this I was

shocked at the change time has brought and

what technology has made us. Hence the peer

pressure is intense and the race competitive

and only those will survive who can stay with

the flow and let the technology give them a

smooth sail.

Only just I was going through a book on T.S

Eliot and I came across this saying by him on

the invention of radios back then, “It is a

medium of entertainment which permits mil-

lions of people to listen to the same joke at the

same time, and yet remain lonesome.” What he

will have to say about today’s technology

boom, one wonders. I for one would have

loved to know his view on the wide spread

madness of buying the most latest and the

most “in” cell phone just so you can be the one

delivering peer pressure and not the one re-

ceiving it! n


Fahd Chishty TEChnOLOGY

n Beauty is

skin deep. The per-

son who said this was nei-

ther mocking the Goddess of

beauty nor criticizing Cleopatra, He

was just a realistic man who knew

beauty is a trait you are not born

with; beauty is very much acquired.

Well don’t call me blasphemous I can

prove it to you. Have you ever been to a par-

lor? Too predictable! Then have you ever been

to a gadget shop? If your wallet is full beauty

can be easily bought.

Science and technology has benefited

humanity in countless ways. It has not just in-

vented ways of saving human life but has also

succeeded in making a brunette a blonde. A

curly haired damsel does not have to die with

her curls; she can straighten them in five min-

utes everyday. Science let us all bow to its

wonders.

The tools and gadgets that are designed

to help us put our best face on, to the nifty

gadgets we use to maintain anything else

about our appearance, some of us may not

even know these tools exist. Most women are

unaware of the difference between skin care

and makeup application with a specialized

beauty mirror. Well the step mothers in fairy

tales can pass as the brain behind this.

“mirror, mirror,on the wall, who inthis land is the

fairest one of all?’’

That is the tag line behind this great in-

vention. A mirror specifically designed for

cosmetic application and facial cleansing

can make all the difference in the world -

the difference between fine detail and seeing

things you would not otherwise know are

there. These mirrors come with their own spe-

cial lighting as well as one side that is magni-

fied. They are great for getting into detail with

makeup as well as spotting areas on your face

that need extra attention.

New versions of straightening andcurling irons are bombarding the market.

Irons come with features that add shine to

hair, combat frizzness and fight against heat

damage to the hair. Most come in ceramic

form. Moving on to giving you a haircut your-

self, it was never so simple and easy. One-

length or short hair everything is doable with

the new haircut machine. All you do is set the

notch to the desired length and run it across

your head. It will save money and works great

for the kids as well. In car hair salon is the next

step to this easy hair do journey. It is cordless,

portable, ceramic strengtheners you can

charge at work or even in the car. This product

banishes bad hair days for ever.

Technology has even combated beauty

salons out. So many palm top beauty equip-

ments have been introduced that work more

efficiently and give results in minutes. The

exfoliator is one of such inventions. It has

small, round, rotating pads with a jagged sur-

face that work with crystals to remove dead

skin cells and expose new and fresh skin. One

such palm top wonders can even fight old


TEChnOLOGY Maryam Aftab

Science and technologyhas benefited humanity incountless ways. It has not justinvented ways of savinghuman life but has also suc-ceeded in making a brunettea blonde. A curly haireddamsel does not have to diewith her curls

“

”


TEChnOLOGY

age .The machine tones facial muscles and

give the skin a nonsurgical lift. Sends an elec-

trical micro current through the muscles to

make them contract and plump up. The cur-

rent also boosts circulation to help drain tox-

ins and calm puffiness and eye bags.

All the fairy tale villainish Knights and

Lords should be glad they only had to fight

dragons and pretty dames. Their empires and

magic powers would have been shunned by

the technology ghost had they existed in this

age and time.

Next is mascara on the acquired beauty

list. It comes with a little button on the appli-

cator to make it vibrate as you use it to coat

your lashes. This thin mascara is capable of

7,000 vibrations per minute for perfect for-

mula application; it coats each individual lash

with 360-degree coverage. Lashes are ex-

tended, reshaped and appear to be multi-

plied. Ready to beat Bambi!

A semi-permanent, natural lipstick can

make you look glossy and pink even in bed.

Lip Ink is a semi-permanent make-up range

that is used by most celebrities. Lip gloss for

teeth can instantly make them look pearly

white. The instant pedicure machine can suck

the strain and tiredness out of your body and

make your feet look clean.

Name any part of the body, come up

with any problem or to put it bluntly, if you

dislike any natural feature in your body, tech-

nology can mould and redo it for you. God

created but technology modified and taught

man the instant ways to hide and mend any-

thing they want. Beauty is skin deep. n


TEChnOLOGY Fahad Chishty

Every single

organization in the

world faces the

threat of Information

hijack. In the present

scenario, every com-

puter that is con-

nected to the net is

vulnerable to external attacks. This increases

the importance of Information and IT security.

With a view to enlighten people and

company officials about the threats that they

can and do face, we talked to Ms. Attiya

Akram, Manager IT Solutions at Trillium Infor-

mation Security Systems. She is one of the few

CISSP certified officials in Pakistan. Trillium of-

fers a wide variety of corporate level security

solutions for a number of platforms including

Windows, Linux, Novell, Lotus and probably

for Mac in the future. Kaspersky is one of the

products that they provide being the official

distributor. She explained that information se-

curity and IT security are two dimensions

apart. People and organizations regard secu-

rity as a cost factor and not as an essential part

of the organization. IT security is related to

your computers and the network whereas In-

formation Security demands a whole lot of

policies, procedures, regulations and enforce-

ments. IT security is the responsibility of the

computer or network administrator while In-

formation Security is that of the Board of Gov-

ernors. No organization can be secure if the

higher authorities are not aware of the infor-

mation security procedures and guidelines. As

a matter of fact 60% security breaches are due

to human error. Suppose you have installed

an excellent anti-malware system and a num-

ber of Firewalls and other IT security measures,

if an employee of the organization unknow-

ingly(or intentionally) makes a wrong click, by-

passing all the security measures that have

been put, then how much is the IT security

going to be effective.

Your information is secure only if you keep

a constant check on your employees, you

know how and where to invest your money

and how well to define your security policies

for the employees besides having a good anti-

malware and intrusion prevention measures

installed. We at our end tend to provide the

best support to our customers.

To a question about comparison with other

anti-malware products, she said “Kaspersky is

light, efficient and the world’s best rated anti-

virus solution. The databases are updated after

every two hours and all the updates are tested

i.e. they will certainly not harm your system. This

update rate is the highest among all other anti-

viruses which accounts for the fact that viruses

are written every minute in the world”.

Mac is the most secured OS, does it need

security measures? She said “indeed Mac is the

most secured OS yet with very little malware

issues but it will always be a universal truth

that thefts happen mostly on the corner

houses. This is because it is easy for the people

to monitor those houses, discover their loop-

holes and breach into the security. Same is the

case with these two OS, Windows being the

most used is most vulnerable and prone to at-

tacks from its evil genius users. As the trend is

now shifting towards Mac nowadays, there

are a few reported issues of Mac as well. And

since we tend to provide preemptive meas-

ures, Kaspersky team has started working on

a Kaspersky product for Mac Hosts as well”.

In a message to the students of IT field

and their teachers, she said that the course we

study at the universities is very much out-

dated. When we come into the market freshly

graduated or after a master's degree, we don’t

have any idea of the industry position. I often

recommend my old class fellows who are

now instructors at various respectable insti-

tutes to revise their syllabus according to the

industry standards.

We always have to take 6 months in

teaching the fresh degree holders the require-

ments of the industry in the security depart-

ment. Therefore the institutes should be more

industry oriented. If the research that a student

is conducting has no application in the market

then the market has no requirement of such

an individual.

Moreover the students should also take

pain in learning beyond their books and

course. Only then they will be able to survive

easily in the market.

Your information issecure only if you keep aconstant check on youremployees, you knowhow and where to investyour money and how wellto define your securitypolicies for the employeesbesides having a goodanti-malware and intru-sion prevention measuresinstalled

“

”

Ms. Attiya Akram


saddads TEChnOLOGY


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REViEWS

movies of over 1:30 hrs each, normal calling,

FM radio and music player remained active

off and on. We were also able to do a little bit

of browsing using WLAN option. The con-

sumption of the battery largely depends

upon the nature of content you watch and

listen to along with the display settings. For-

tunately, the phone also gets charged when

connected to PC through data cable.

Touch Wizi8910’s default home screen is Samsung

default Touch Wiz where you can place as

many widgets as you can. Soon as you slide

open the widget bar, 3 small shortcuts at the

top appears letting you place the widget on

three different home screens. Send back the

widget bar and the screen short cuts are

gone. Widgets are icons or small programs

meant to open applications or display

needed information on the screen. It has be-

come quite a handy technique to avoid long

unfolding of menus.

A little sweep to the right on the home

screen will take you to the Photo contact fea-

tures and sweep to the left opens the main

menu. There are other ways to open your

basic applications by using the four buttons

at the bottom of Touch Wiz which are Tele-

phone, Contacts, Messaging and Menu.

First time Samsung has used Symbian

S60 5th edition OS which you will find in

other phones like Nokia’s N series. If you forget

about the home screen Touch Wiz, main

menu and the rest of the software will look

like N86 and the likes.

Omnia’s inner menu is well planned dis-

play. Unlike Samsung Jet, there are no three

menu screens. All the related applications are

packed logically so that everything is accom-

modated on a single menu screen.

Menu can be displayed elegantly in the

grid as well as list format. Accelerometer ro-

tates the display quite well, other than the

menu items which always maintain their ver-

tical display.

messagingLike the earlier touch phones from Sam-

sung, built-in accelerometer automatically

turns the input display to vertical or horizontal

position. Typing is easy with large buttons

may it be SMS, MMS or Email.

Though it is very easy to type on the vir-

tual keypad but doing it with speed may miss

the letter, very seldom it happened with the

spacebar.

Well built email client performs every typ-

ical task that an email client supposed to do.

Configuration was easy but manual. You can

customize various options just like sending

emails at a specified time to avoid wasting

data traffic.

For SMS, MMS and Email, Alphanumeric,

Querty and Hand Recognized key pads are

available.

Video PlayersOmnia HD is rich for playing HD video. A

Real Player application and Samsung’s propri-

etary video player that supports DivX/XviD

video are a gift for movie geeks.

Playing the movie through Real Player is

good but it got better when we played the

same movie on Samsung’s own video player.

The mega 3.7" display and double speak-

ers on each corner (if you are watching tilting

the phone horizontally) gives you a feeling of

real mini LCD which it actually is. When I put

on the Samsung’s earphone, I can simply say,

it was awesome. I was able to save almost 10

to 15 movies though they were a reduced in

size but this phone really partnered me dur-

ing all my travels. At home, I even attached

the external speakers with my amplifier set

and I was able to have a feeling of small the-

ater. Yes it is a mobile theater.

Samsung player support the subtitle also

that you can customize according to you

wish. It can play the movies of variety of for-

mats except for the .MKV for which we had to

transform it to AVI

High Definition video is a complete fun,

we tried high definition “Angel and Demons”,

“Transformers”, “Iron Man” and couple more.

Never during the movie session the phone

got hung or it missed any frame, thanks to

ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz and PowerVR SGX

graphics chip. Recording a HD movie through

this phone was a magical experience as well.

One more thing, you can watch all your

videos fullscreen on your TV and the phone

handles this quite excellently. Use the TV-out

cable and connect your phone with it. TV’s

screen orientation remains stable no matter

how you rotate your phone. The cable does

not transfer the HD content to the TV but still

it replaces the normal CD player and you can

always watch from a variety of movies and

programs stored in your phone’s memory.

Omnia HD connected to a regular TV

Om

nia

HD

Touc

h W

iz

Omnia HD QWERTY pad


REViEWS

ideal music playerWith internal memory of 8 GB you can

store a huge collection of songs without

needing a microSD card that will, for sure,

double your storing capacity.

Player support 3.5 mm audio jack, a

unique experience of 5.1 channel Dolby Sur-

round. To further increase the voice quality

DNSe 2.0 audio enhancement option is pres-

ent but 5.1 channel and DNSe 2.0 do not

work simultaneously, you have to turn any of

them off to activate other.

Searching any track is easiest as you do

not need to recall entire track name, you can

narrow down the search just like in contacts.

Couple of other shortcuts are available for ex-

ample you can choose any track to make you

ring tone. 3D visualizations to the music

player are eye catching but consume battery;

therefore, we always turned it off.

Fm RadioA simple and elegant FM player has the

ability to auto scan for an alternative fre-

quency. If you travel out from your area, i8910

will scan the available stations automatically.

Six shortcuts on the screen can be handy

if you keep toggling among stations very fre-

quently. The selected stations on these but-

tons can be changed through the menu. The

radio can be minimized to play in the back-

ground. Recording directly from your FM is

also available in Omnia HD along with the

RDS support.

Office Office has some nice application really

helpful to the people who work in offices.

“Converter”, “Note”, “Smart Card”, “Quick Of-

fice”, “Smart Search” etc. Due to the space

limit we are unable to discuss all the fea-

tures of this mega machine. But you can

find the detailed review on apnatime.com

or vop.com.pk. But we will mention the

Smart Card here.

Smart Card, we liked the most in office

package. You do not need to copy and write

the details of visiting cards of your business

contacts. Just use this small application and

it will capture the image of any visiting card

just like the camera does and store the infor-

mation in the respective fields very smartly in

the contact book. Very seldom it missed the

information. Normally it follows the standard

format on the visiting card.

Connectivity and browsingOmnia HD comes with all kind of connectivity

options which the smart phones normally are

known for.

Bluetooth, USB 2.0, WLAN, DLNA, along with

GSM based Edge, GPRS and 3G facility are all

the options which will make this machine a

strong competitor among other smart phones.

Both USB and Bluetooth are version 2.0 and

the latter naturally also sports A2DP. Wi-Fi with

UPnP support is also at hand. There is no

shortcut key for the Wi-Fi manager, but it can

be easily found in the Connectivity menu and

connecting to a WLAN network is two taps

away. DLNA is also present for sharing digital

content to other devices or computers on the

local network

We remained connected to web mostly

through WLAN using Wi-fi as it gave us the

speed we always look for in the absence of

3G in Pakistan. Web browsing on Omnia HD

is superb, when connected to WLAN; you

never get anything less than a computer

using its 600 MHz processor.

Omnia’s web browser works like a computer’s.

Built-in flash player and java support help you

Opened Excel file in Omnia HD


REViEWS

open any kind of flash based site directly from

your browser without needing anything extra

plug-in.

On this big screen and high resolution, read-

ing a text was not a problem, never it hit our

eyes. There was a little issue with zooming any

content and then sliding it back in front of

your eyes. It took some time. Very seldom you

will miss your desired link to click, even when

there are too many hyperlinks tightly packed.

Multiple websites are easy to handle through

multi webpage display.

Camera: Photo modeOne of the major strength of this phone

is its 8MP camera. Easy to activate the camera

is through a key at the right side which opens

the application even the phone is in lock

mode. Very simple menu displays all the op-

tions and shortcuts clearly and you can

change according to your desire.

With or without LED flash light, of course

in the day light, the result is impressive. Mul-

tiple options including white balance, satura-

tion, sharpness, contrast and face smile

detection are supportive enough to make

yourself a good mobile photographer. In the

absence of any digital camera you can make

use of it during any party or function and it

won’t let you down.

If your picture has more than one people

smiling at the same time, it will capture who

ever smiles first and take the picture and will

not wait for the rest of the smiles. So you bet-

ter be careful with your important events.

Blink detection is a good function that Sam-

sung has been including recently in its touch

camera phones but to us, it is not a big deal.

More in the package is built-in GPS re-

ceiver that records the location of your photo

and WDR (Wide Dynamic Range) which im-

prove the shadow area in your picture.

Captured photo on Omnia’s LCD looks

pretty sharp and accurate but when you trans-

fer it to your PC it changes its sharpness and

brightness to a little extent. Reason behind this

may be Samsung’s efficient photo software

along with high resolution LCD and PowerVR

SGX graphics that gives you perfect display of

the photo. Therefore, for keeping both the

quality same on your phone and PC, you will

have to tweak up contrast and brightness.

Camera: Video modeEarlier, there were poor VGA recordings

which resulted in a blurry out put. 720p HD

video recording is a dream come true for the

mobile phone users. Certainly the future

models will be more perfect but this piece of

machine is much better in results. We

achieved a frame rate of 24fps that gives you

a good quality video which can be used later

on any media including PC, LCD, and LED etc.

Various options will give you a feeling of

camcorder. The recording time was not a

problem; we were easily able to record some

30 minutes movie, though didn’t go beyond

that. After the recording it processes the

video clip and save it in the memory that re-

quires some time.

Sample videos can be seen on apna-

time.com or vop.com.pk

GamesA little disappointment for games lover,

Omnia HD comes with only one preinstalled

game which can be played by titling your

handset for the movement of your car. Ac-

celerometer based controls are responsive

enough to enjoy your game. There are number

of other games which can be downloaded at

an extra cost. Gamers usually press the buttons

hard which is not available in Omnia HD there-

fore, we won’t recommend playing games on

this phone or you may end up ruining your

machine before the expected life.

VerdictIn the presence of all what I have men-

tioned earlier, it’s hard to avoid anything

that could satisfy you and serve your every

need. The phone is a bit heavier than the

normal phones and too much touch re-

sponsive, it may be hard for those who are

big fans of buttons but believe me you

won’t like to come back to a button phone

once you use it. n

Pict

ures

take

n by

Om

nia

HD



n Sony Ericsson, a pioneer in Music

mobile phone technology, has brought its

F305 Gaming Mobile phone in Pakistan

that is not only light on pocket but also

comes with power packed features like

motion gaming, media player, FM player,

web surfing and an integrated camera to

store movies and pictures of your loved

ones.Targeted for youth, Sony Ericsson has

put gaming at the heart of F305. With 96 x

47 x 14.6 mm in dimension, it can be easily

carried in your pocket.

Outer DesignWe got a cool looking Sony Ericsson

F305 slider phone for testing just recently.

The company has fabricated this phone

with great care; the white ceramic plastic

body definitely gives the phone a sleek and

neat look. Sony Ericsson F305 comes with

a small 2-inch display screen that delivers

decent image quality. This phone is mainly

targeted for youth and the two round but-

tons above the 2-inch screen with letters

“O” and “X” makes me remember some-

thing, yes! I have seen these buttons before

on my Playstation’s game pad. There is a

button with Playstation gamepad en-

graved on it on the lower-left of the D-Pad

on front, which quickly launches all the

games stored in it. The gaming buttons are

very prominent and are very easy to spot

even in low light because of their promi-

nent placement and backlight. Other than

this, the phone has menu and music but-

tons right below the screen and calling and

canceling buttons on the left and right of

the D-pad respectively. Its alphanumeric

keypad is hidden which can be seen by

sliding the screen upward. On the right

panel of the phone you will get a camera

quick launch button and zoom-in or zoom-

out buttons. The buttons on the phone are

well placed keeping all the aspects of er-

gonomics that we didn’t feel any discom-

fort during usage.

2mP Pixel CameraSony Ericsson F305 comes with a 2MP

camera that can either be invoked by nav-

igating through the phone menu interface

or by pressing the camera shortcut button

situated on the right side of the phone. The

2MP camera sports an easy to use interface

that offers two camera modes: Normal and

Burst. In Normal Mode the camera per-

forms regularly with the zoom option dis-

abled but in burst mode, a user gets more

control on the camera. Using this camera,

you can take pictures with a resolution of

1600x 1200 pixels. Sepia, Negative, Black

and White and Color picture options are

available in this phone to enhance your

photographic skills. Overall, the quality of

pictures taken with F305 camera were

passable, a little bit of noise was seen in the

pictures. Using its built-in feature “Photofix”,

we tried to fix some pictures but still noise

was visible in the pictures.

It offers all the latestmobile handset featuresthat a user wants in a de-vice. Especially the motionGaming feature, it is notonly interesting to playmotion games but an ex-ercise for the people whoare less mobile or don’t liketo play physical games

“

”


REViEWS

GamingAs we have told you before that Sony-

Ericsson has introduced F305 as a full gam-

ing phone, so as gaming enthusiasts it will

be a bad thing if we miss them especially

when this phone is offering Motion gaming

where by you can control games with the

flick of a wrist or the swing of an arm. The

phone comes with 11 pre-installed games

like Bowling, Bass fishing, Jockey, JC Does

Texas, Tropical Madness, Racing Fever GT,

The Sims 2, Jewel Quest 2, Lumines Block

Challenge, Asteroids, and Quadrapop. Let’s

check some games that we liked in this

phone.

The Sims 2It is one PC popular game that revolu-

tionized the PC gaming once and for all and

now it is available in F305. In this game, you

can socialize with other virtual characters by

either playing a male or a female character.

Your character can make new virtual friends,

eat, sleep, take care of their hygiene, get into

a relationship, go to job and do all the

chores that we do daily but only in a safe

environment and within the confines of

your phone.

Racing Fever GTHere you ping-pong between three

major events. There's the crash derby,

where you try to run as many microbuses

off the road as you can; the car jump, where

you get the power and points by jumping

off wooden ramps; and the two-wheeling

events, where special wedges in the mid-

dle of the road turn you onto one side of

your car, and you try to hold the position as

long as possible.

BowlingMotion Bowling is a very nice game

and now you can hit the targets with the

swing of your hand. Just bring the handset

towards your face and than by tilting the

handset set the direction of the ball and

then press the launch button so that the

ball can hit the targets.

Bass FishingBlack Bass is a game fish known for its

large size in North America. Now you can

catch this fish with F305. For playing this

Motion sensing game, just swing your

hand forward to cast a fish line, after some

seconds when the fish is hooked than tilt

and twist your handset to catch the fish. At

first catching a fish was not easy but soon

we caught some really fat ones, but unfor-

tunately we couldn’t cook them.

JockeyBecoming a jockey is one thing but

taming and riding a horse is another thing,

both are very difficult things in real life. But

now you can not only ride a fast horse but

you can be a jockey as well. SonyEricsson’s

phone comes preloaded with Jockey game

that supports motion gaming. Just tilt your

handset forward to increase horse speed,

tilt left or right to move left and right on

horseback. Just repeat these movements

on every stage and you are a winner.

JC Does TexasAn amusing game, in which Johnny

crash has to accomplish few missions by

becoming a human cannonball on his va-

cation to Texas. The game consists of 12 dif-

ferent levels in which you are given


REViEWS

different tasks like bang with vultures, air-

planes and hot air balloons; land on an oil

derrick or on the bed of a moving pick-up

truck. Up to four players can play on a sin-

gle handset and extreme stunts are stored

in a scrap book to make you remember the

vacation fun.

AsteroidsOne of the early PC games has been re-

vived again. In DOS, it was available in black

and white, but Sony Ericsson has colored

the rocks and your plane. The basic theme

is still the same i.e. “Destroy the rocks before

they destroy you”.

Lumines Block ChallengeIt is a puzzle game which requires you

to clear the blocks by arranging the two-

color shapes falling down the screen into

solid color squares. Always watch for the

blocks, if they stack up dangerously high,

you won’t have much room to move things

around, and the game will be over soon.

Overall, Playing Games like Jockey, and

Bass fishing was real fun using advanced mo-

tion sensor technology. Using motion sensor

technology, during the game play the phone

easily duplicates the actions by the user,

whether you are moving left or right on

horse’s back or casting fish lines in the water.

Sony Ericsson has provided users with dedi-

cated gaming keys and stereo speakers

which really enhance the overall gaming ex-

perience on F305. By adding a 2 inches screen

onto this slider phone, Sony Ericsson takes

playing games on mobile to a new level.

Games like Sims2 takes a lot of your time in

playing, although this handset offer 8 hours

of Talktime but still it was a worry for us.

PlaynowIt is one of the main features of SonyEr-

icsson; using it you can directly download

songs, games, ringtones and wallpapers.

We tried to download some songs but as

PlayNow feature is not available in Pakistan,

so this offer was not availed.

Web BrowsingText and image quality was superb,

when browsing the internet using F305. For

viewing images and text in large format,

zooming is made available with this phone,

as it has small 2 inch screen and the whole

website cannot be viewed properly with-

out zooming. A user can view a website in

portrait format but image viewing in land-

scape format is not available. Sony Ericsson

has not really utilized the accelerometer for

web browsing and has only limited it for

games.. Overall, its web browsing speed is

superb and the way it gives information

about the number of bytes you have ac-

cessed while visiting a page is nice.

multimediaF305 media player supports all major

audio/video compression codecs. Built-in

memory of the phone is only limited to

10MB, which was a disappointment for us

but Sony Ericsson has given an M2 card

socket so that you can expand you phone

memory to 4GB. You can transfer music via

a USB connection. The phone features that

you can stream your music directly to a

wireless stereo headset using phone’s Blue-

tooth A2DP profile. You can listen to your

favorite FM radio with the built-in FM radio.

TrackID recognizes the music recorded by

you and sends you information via internet

about the artist, track and release, but this

feature was not available in our region.

Using this phone you can talk to your

loved ones using hands free, or speaker

phone or standard mode. Overall, this

phone performed well in all three modes

and the reception was superb.

The hands free headset provided with

this phone are not easily adjusted in every-

one’s ears but using third party’s manufac-

tured headphones, we really enjoyed

playing games and listening to music was

an outstanding experience.

Connectivity Sony Ericsson F305 supports GSM 850

/ 900 / 1800 / 1900 2G networks. It does not

support WLAN but has given you USB con-

nectivity so that you can connect to your

system and transfer data to and from you

device. Blue Tooth is also available as a stan-

dard option in this phone.

ConclusionIn this time of recession when everyone

is in search of phone that offers perform-

ance and comes at a fair cost, Sony Ericsson

has definitely answered the question by

bringing this handset to Pakistan. It offers all

the latest mobile handset features that a

user wants in a device. Especially the motion

Gaming feature, it is not only interesting to

play motion games but an exercise for the

people who are less mobile or don’t like to

play physical games. Sony Ericsson has done

the same just like Nintendo has done in

Gaming consoles. Unlike Nintendo,instead

of holding a heavy gaming console, you can

keep it in your pocket. F305 is an all time en-

tertainment at home, office or on the move.

Sony Ericsson did not use its accelerometer

in applications other than gaming, had it be

the case if would have been more fun. Over-

all, it is a phone for active people, and who

can be more active than youth! n

Overall, the quality ofpictures taken with F305camera were passable, alittle bit of noise was seenin the pictures. Using itsbuilt-in feature “Photofix”,we tried to fix some pic-tures but still noise wasvisible in the pictures

“

”


REViEWS



n Going green and slim is the talk in town. We have seen

the race among cars, computers, mobile phones, LCDs and

dozens of other manufacturers achieving this landmark. Sam-

sung’s recent LED technology has added a jewel in the crown.

With Sony being engaged in its own issues and LG not making

good score in this segment, Samsung outshines with its new

product range.

Beauty and smartness have a high price. In 2009 family of

Samsung LCDs, which is now termed as LED, the most affordable

is series 6 which is even expensive than normal LCD TV. That

doesn’t mean the upper series are just too expensive but in fact,

they offer much more hence justifying their value.

Unpacking the 40 inch LED of series 6 (UA40B6000) was a

thrilling experience. We wanted to see what Samsung has put

inside which has created a storm in the world. With a width of

938 mm and height of 631mm, it is one of the slimmest and

smartest TV of the world. It’s beautifully designed Rose Black

Glass frame is really a heart winner and a big treat for your eyes.

The display took care ofevery line of a DVD sourceand the shots were clearerthan the other LCDs we no-ticed. Its noise reductionworks perfectly fine to elimi-nate unwanted low qualitypatches. We also connectedthe machine with PC andour camcorder

“

”


REViEWS

Outer DesignThe unit comes with wall mount and table stand option facility.

On the back side panel of the LED are four mounting screws for

wall mounting. The front panel is subtle red surrounding the screen

which gives a blackish look in dull light environment. Beautifully

placed on the red panel is a transparent and tapered panel which

overlaps the red one giving a much desired and awesome look.

You can honor your room by placing this LED on a matching

stand, also edged in red giving a unique look to the entire unit. A

transparent pedestal on the stand adjusts this beautiful LED on it

and let it swivel to either side. We used the stand option for our dis-

play which gives an equally impressive look.

Back side of LED has the connectivity options for Antenna

Cable, PC IN, PC/DVI Audio IN, 4 HDMI IN, USB, Audio OUT. The con-

nection bay is slimmed down to give a fur-

ther slim look. You may find a little

difficulty while inserting the PC cable due

to the larger male cable plug but it will

eventually be fixed smoothly. Don’t play

with this slot very frequently as it may

loosen the LED female slot.

Two built-in speakers with TruSor-

round HD options are also found on the

back.

On the front panel, just below the

Samsung logo is the On/Off button and

other more frequently used functions, for

example Channel, Volume, Menu and

Source, are placed on the bottom right

area of the panel. These are touch based

button and can not be located easily but

you will always use remote for themIts slimness measures as 1.2

inches deep and it runs much cooler than other LCD and plasma

displays producing an equivalent amount of light.

A decent large Remote is comfortable to hold, buttons are well

spaced, backlit and easy to play with. It is protruded from rare that

makes it easy to click on a flat surface. There are few direct accesses

like Tools, Source, and Picture Size etc. An attractive feature while

watching movies in the dark is its backlit option which can be

turned off and on through a button at the top.The glossy black fin-

ish keep showing your figure prints just like the LED panel after few

touches.

menuMenu is the area you can play in real way with this machine. It

matches the overall color scheme of this edge-lit LED. Red and

blackish borders along with the transparent background help read

the menu options very clearly. Textual words are big enough to

remain unnoticed. Best thing in this menu are the help tips at the

bottom for every highlighted option for even a novice.

First in the list is Picture, 4 modes are there to let you choose

from Dynamic, Standard, Natural and Movie. You can set the

Brightness, Contrast, Backlight, Sharpness, and Color according to

your taste.

You can play with Black Tone and Gamma to control the black-

ness on the dark areas of the scenes as well as the black shadow.

But when we increased the Gamma value to almost 3 in order to

prevent dark areas getting darker, the grayscale lost a bit of accu-

racy in the dark areas.

Color Tone has multiple options we set it to normal for normal

TV programs and Warm2 and Warm3 were the options while

watching a movie. More higher you go more color temperature

there will be.

100 Hz refresh rate and judder reduction processing are some-

thing of interest for quality lovers.


REViEWS

When de-judder mode is active, the machine’s processor kicks

in and interpolates extra frames between the ones that actually

exist. Imagine the processor drawing extra pages, in real time, in

the flipbook, as many as four extra for every original page, to bridge

the visual gap between the true frames that were originally cap-

tured. What you see is more information in the moving video,

which you interpret as more smoothness.

We noticed it working more on the tickers scrolling at the bot-

tom of the news channels. The words were sharp and scroll was

even smoother.

Samsung claims the displays use 40% less power than conven-

tional Energy Star-certified LCD TVs of similar size.

Three power saver options further reduces the energy con-

sumption and that you can change from the Tools menu. Low

would consume greater and similarly Higher would consume less

but you will have to compromise on picture quality.

“Samsung support” is present in the Menu where you can per-

form the Self Diagnosis to check the picture and sound. Software

Upgrade and HD Connection Guide is also present there. We did

upgrade the software from 1004.0 to 002000 and it was easy like

transferring the data from the PC to USB and putting into your LCD.

Upgraded software is available on Samsung’s website.

You can store movies,

songs and pictures of your de-

sire inside the USB and your

UA40B6000 will play them flu-

ently. It would be a fun watch-

ing blue-ray movies stored on

your stick. We had the sample

machine and it did not have

the option to play a movie

from USB but we are told that

commercial pack will have this function.

The overall performance of UA40B6000 was impressive with rel-

atively deep black levels, accurate colors and excellent performance.

Its numerous picture controls allowed us to calibrate to achieve an

excellent grayscale.

In addition to the three preset strengths of its Auto Motion Plus

dejudder processing, called Clear, Standard, and Smooth, Samsung

added a Custom mode this year, and its adjustability makes it the

best implementation of a dejudder we've seen so far. Custom offers

two sliders, one called Blur reduction that affects video-based sources

and one called Judder reduction that affects only film-based sources.

When connected to a standard-definition source, Samsung

UA40B6000 produced solid picture quality. According to the tests, the

display took care of every line of a DVD source and the shots were clearer

than the other LCDs we noticed. Its noise reduction works perfectly fine

to eliminate unwanted low quality patches. We also connected the ma-

chine with PC and our camcorder. It resolved every line of a 1,920x1,

080-pixel resolution image with no over scan or edge enhancement.

We have come to know that 7 series have the WLAN connec-

tivity and the Yahoo Widgets that means you can remain con-

nected online for news and other stuff. n


MORE IN-HOUSE REVIEW REViEWS

n Suddenly we are experi-

encing some aggression in the Wi-

Max market, though players have

nothing to boast right now but

certainly down the road, it is the

future of data communication.

One thing is of core importance,

quality and customer services

should be of highest standard.

First we thought to review the

Wateen’s Wi-Max connection but

finally we had to forget about this

as we haven’t been lucky enough

to catch the signals at our office

nevertheless it is one of the busiest

area of Lahore and we are 3 stories

up from the ground. We have

bothered their sales team dozens

of time and they have always

been helpless.

Instead, we chose Wi-tribe to

start with, they do not have cover-

age here as well but unlike Wateen

they accept they haven’t installed

the network yet, I have heard that

couple of un-served areas in La-

hore will be up by the end of this

year along with the voice service

also. We got the connection at our

home and chose 512Kbps pack-

age which cost us some Rs. 1600

including all the securities, equip-

ment and the balance.

Other than this Wi Tribe is pro-

viding two more packages of

256KBps and 1.0 MBps to facilitate

the needs of its customers.

We were impressed to see a sleek and smart modem

from Motorola. All it had to take was a power cord and

the data cable. In the area of Iqbal Town, Lahore we were

happy to see four consistent signals.

As a first test we selected free version of Avira An-

tivirus. It took about 9 minutes to download a 32.39MB

of file from download.com at a max download speed of

61.0Kbps. Throughout the download, it maintained a

steady rate which kept toggling between 60 Kbps and

62 Kbps. I believe it was an easy task for it, we therefore

started some multiple downloads. We selected a

YouTube to MP3 converter and GOM Media Player.

The converter with a size of 7.15MB in size main-

tained a speed of 24KBps and GOM remained constant

at 40Kbps. We could see a clear division of data speed

between the two files.

Web surfing experience using the Wi-tribe connec-

tion was a cool experience and we were happy to see

heavy websites loading within seconds. It even showed

great caliber, when we started watching movies on

YouTube, a single movie of 5 minutes duration runs very

smoothly on it, simultaneous second one also runs with

a little bit of buffering when we tried to play a third video

clip from the YouTube, then all the trouble of waiting and

sweating started.

All- in all, if we tell you about our experience, Wi-Tribe

has definitely lived up to the slogan “Online with No Line”.

Using the internet services by Wi-tribe is a worth try, we

hope that their telephony service will be as good as the

internet connection. We didn’t find any problems with

the connection during its entire usage, although during

one session, Windows Taskbar was showing that net-

work address is not acquired but still we were able to surf

the internet.

The smart device provided by Wi-Tribe, was contin-

uously showing signal strength of connection between

two, three or four but it never went to the fifth position,

changing signal strength didn’t have any effects on our

downloading, which was a sense of relief. One thing

about this connection is that after first time settings it

never asks you about your login-id and password, every

time you start your browser.

This option keeps you from the hassle of remember-

ing your password but on the other hand it can take your

child to the unsafe environment of cyber world, so Wi-

tribe should check this option. Those who are in search

of a high speed internet at reasonable rates, we recom-

mend Wi-Tribe to them. n

Motorola supportedModem being suppliedby Wi-tribe


LATEST in TEChnOLOGY

n Virginia Tech undergrads packed an all-terrain buggy with tech-

nology lifted from the university’s DARPA Urban Challenge entry to

create a car the blind can drive. The semi-autonomous vehicle uses

a laser range finder, voice software and other sensory technology,

and it worked flawlessly when blind drivers took the wheel on a

closed course. Advocates for the blind joined the lead researcher in

calling the vehicle a breakthrough in independent living for the vi-

sually impaired.

The car was born of a challenge the National Federation of the Blind’s

Jernigan Institute issued in 2004 when it called on universities to de-

velop a vehicle for the blind. Virginia Tech accepted the challenge in

2006 — the only university to do so — and received a $3,000 grant

to begin the project.

The steering wheel is hooked up to a distance monitor that gathers information from laser range finders, and it uses voice software to tell the

driver how far to turn the wheel. For example, the monitor will tell the driver “turn left three clicks.” As the driver does that, the monitor makes

three clicking noises. A vibrating vest provides cues to follow when accelerating and decelerating. The vest vibrates in different places — the

back, the belly and the shoulders — to convey different commands. When the entire vest vibrates, it means, “Slam on the brakes!”

Virginia Tech students build car for blind

n Research In Motion (RIM) has come up with

a new model of the BlackBerry Smart Card

Reader -- a lightweight, wearable, ISO 7816

compliant card reader that enables proximity

controlled access to a user's BlackBerry smart-

phone and computer. The BlackBerry Smart

Card Reader uses Bluetooth 2.0 technology

with advanced AES-256 encryption to enable

secure pairing and communications between

the reader, the BlackBerry smartphone, the

computer and PKI applications.

The new BlackBerry Smart Card Reader features: a sleeker design measuring

3.98”x2.4”x0.57” and weighing 2.26 oz. It also features a larger display and backlighting

for easier viewing, as well as power management features that can extend battery

life between charges (900mAh integrated lithium ion battery).

Instead of inserting the smart card into a stationary reader or bulky peripheral at-

tachment, which can easily be left behind, users now insert a smart card into this

sleek lightweight reader and wear it on a lanyard. If the user is no longer in proximity,

their BlackBerry smartphone or computer will automatically lock.

The new BlackBerry Smart Card Reader is expected to be available in September.

n IBM is looking to the building blocks of our bodies

-- DNA -- to be the structure of next-generation mi-

crochips. Microchips are used in computers, cell

phones and other electronic devices. As chipmakers

compete to develop ever-smaller chips at cheaper

prices, designers are struggling to cut costs. Artificial

DNA nanostructures or "DNA origami" may provide a

cheap framework on which to build tiny microchips.

"This is the first demonstration of using biological mol-

ecules to help with processing in the semiconductor

industry," said Spike Narayan, research manager, IBM.

RIM Launches Next-GenBlackBerry Smart CardReader

DNA: The Struc-ture of Next-Gen Microchips



n Finally, we are in the future -- Heathrow Airport is

rolling out those driverless pod taxis it announced two

years ago, and they look just as adorable as ever. The

ULTra Personal Pod cars are fully automated battery-

powered pods that zoom around at up to 25mph on a

special road network, and can transport four passen-

gers and their luggage between Heathrow's Terminal

5 and its business car parks.

n Stealth Computers has

launched their latest addi-

tion to the rugged portable

computer line up. The NW-

2000 (NW stands for Note-

book Warrior by the way) is

one special rugged laptop,

not only has it been well

equipped with plenty of pro-

tection but on board is actu-

ally a convertible tablet notebook with a resistive, 13.3-inch touchscreen display.

Running on Intel’s 1.06GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, the NW-2000 has 2GB of RAM (4GB

maximum), a 160GB shock-mounted hard-drive (or optional SSD), WiFi a/g/n, Blue-

tooth, gigabit Ethernet and GPS, optional HSDPA, a standard DVD burner, PC card

slot and fingerprint scanner.

In terms of how tough this tablet laptop actually is, the NW-2000 has a spill-resis-

tant keyboard and can cope with being dropped 91cm onto a wood-covered

concrete surface 26 times in succession without suffering any impairments to its

functionality.

Heathrow taxipods, driverlessreality

Stealth NW-2000Rugged transformerNotebook

Invisible doorways orportals a step closer toreality, claim scientistsn Using a technique known as transformation optics, the researchers have revealed

a way to alter the pathway of light waves that could eventually allow them to create

portals that are invisible to the human eye.

Pushing the laws of refraction and reflection to the limit, the team from Hong Kong

University and Fudan University in Shanghai, describe the concept of a “gateway that

can block electromagnetic waves but that allows the passage of other entities”.

The gateway uses transformation optics and a "superscatterer" made from photonic

crystals to create an 'optical illusion', forcing light and other forms of electromagnetic

radiation into complicated directions to hide the portal.

The breakthrough, described in the New Journal of Physics, also has the added advantage of being able to be switched on and off remotely.

Dr Huanyang Chen, from the Physics Department at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said that “people standing outside the

gateway would see something like a mirror". However, despite being theoretically possible many practical issues have to be overcome, the

team admitted. In Harry Potter, wizards catch trains at platform 9 and 3/4 at King's Cross station in London. The platform is invisible to humans.



n We love our mice, really we do. Sometimes, however, such as when we're sitting

on the couch watching a DVD on a laptop, or when we're working across the room

from an MP3-playing PC, it just isn't convenient to drag a hockey puck and click on

what we want. Attempts to replace the venerable mouse--whether with voice recog-

nition or brain-wave scanners--have invariably failed. But an alternative is emerging.

Compared with the intricacies of voice recognition, gesture recognition is a fairly sim-

ple idea that is only now making its way into consumer electronics. The idea is to em-

ploy a camera (such as a laptop's Webcam) to watch the user and react to the person's

hand signals.

Gesture recognition systems are creeping onto the market now. Toshiba, a pioneer

in this market, has at least one product out that supports an early version of the tech-

nology: the Qosmio G55 laptop, which can recognize gestures to control multimedia playback. The company is also experimenting with a TV

version of the technology, which would watch for hand signals via a small camera atop the set.

Gesture recognition is a neat way to pause the DVD on your laptop, but it probably remains a way off from being sophisticated enough for

broad adoption. All the same, its successful development would excite tons of interest from the "can't find the remote" crowd. Expect to see

gesture recognition technology make some great strides over the next few years.

n The next time you take a look at a photo album from a recent family trip or

get-together, you’ll more than likely notice that there’s always someone missing

— the photographer!

Samsung has announced two ground-breaking digital cameras that will solve

the issue of the “missing photographer”. We’re talking about Samsung DualView

Cameras - the new TL225 and TL220. With one LCD located on the front of the

camera and another one on the back of the camera, photographers can now

step out from behind the camera and join their subjects in the photo.

It’s also a handy feature for those involved with social networking Web sites,

such as Facebook, as it provides the ability to take the perfect profile pics! Since

you can see exactly what the camera sees in the front LCD, you can better frame

yourself in the photo and capture the shot the way you want it – the first time.

The new TL225 in particular impresses with a huge 3.5 inch wide touch-screen

LCD. At 1,125K resolution, the TL225’s LCD screen offers one of the highest resolutions of any display on a digital camera ensuring the best

viewing experience, even in direct sunlight. Samsung DualView Cameras also offer the intuitive Smart Gesture User Interface. This new user in-

terface simplifies the way users change camera settings, and makes it fun at the same time. Each time an option is selected on the LCD touch-

screen, the camera will respond with a short and subtle vibration. Additionally, users can take advantage of shortcuts, such as the ability to

rotate an image by drawing a circle, or deleting it by drawing an “x”, right on the LCD screen.

The Future of Entertainment: Gesture-Based Remote Control

Samsung DualView Cameras: Puttingthe photographer in the picture!


saddads TEChnOLOGY


TEChnOLOGY Urooj Khan

n In today’s economic times, businesses

and their shareholders need to know that

when they make an investment in a product,

they are doing so responsibly and securely.

Window 7 has technology that lets busi-

nesses prosper in a consistently changing se-

curity landscape. If there is a single reason for

small business users to move to Windows 7,

it will be because Windows 7 will be more se-

cure than Windows XP. Some of the key ben-

efits for businesses include:

An operating system that worksthe way customers wants

Windows 7 Professional improves on the

fundamentals, while delivering the latest in

mobility and user experience. It is fast, stable,

and compatible—with both third-party ap-

plications and third-party devices.

A cost-effective, simple installation process

Windows 7 Professional simplifies the in-

stallation process and helps speed up cus-

tomer order fulfillment. In addition, new

deployment tools have been designed to in-

crease flexibility, speed, and efficiency in

product development, thus helping to re-

duce costs.

Partner opportunities for offering Windows XP mode

Windows XP Mode provides the flexibility

to run many older Windows XP productivity

applications in a virtual Windows XP environ-

ment. Customers benefit by being able to use

the productivity applications they’ve already

invested in, while not having to worry about

potential operational downtime as they switch

systems. A great feature, Windows XP Mode is

only in Windows 7 Professional and above, and

is only available either through OEM pre instal-

lation or post purchase installation.

An opportunity to offer high-value recurring services

The release of Windows 7 Professional

provides an opportunity to both upgrade

customers’ software or hardware and deliver

IT-related services such as setting up data

backup, configuring hardware and acces-

sories, and optimizing network settings based

on customers’ unique needs. Operating sys-

tem has been optimized to work well on

many different hardware specifications. This

gives the opportunity to offer a range of PCs

targeted toward what makes the most sense

for businesses. It also allows you to have the

flexibility to customize your customers’ PC ex-

periences with prominent placement for your

value-added software and hardware—a

great feature not available in Windows XP.

Virtual Desktop infrastructure(VDi) Optimizations

It delivers desktop functionality in Win-

dows 7 using virtual machines hosted on

servers—a solution known as Virtual Desktop

Infrastructure (VDI). VDI enables users to ac-

cess their desktops remotely as well as the

ability to reuse virtual machine (VHD) images

to boot a physical PC.

A modern operating system for today’s businesses

How people buy, use, and experience

technology has changed dramatically since

Windows XP shipped in 2001. While Windows

XP was a great operating system almost a

decade ago, you can now provide a better op-

tion for business customers who need PCs that

reflect today’s business environment. This in-

cludes delivering the fundamentals of per-

formance and improved battery life; fast

startup, shutdown, and resume from Standby;

advanced search and indexing; and sophisti-

cated networking capabilities. For businesses

that have been running Windows XP, Windows

7 Professional presents a great partner oppor-

tunity to help them update their systems.

multi Lingual User interfaceThe Language Packs in Windows 7 en-

ables the system to support up to 36 different

languages using a single Windows master

image rather than creating a separate image

for each language used in the organization.

Finally another advantage for small busi-

ness users is Windows 7’s simplified configu-

ration from easy-to-use interface for

workgroup networking, which allows de-

tailed control of who has access to what. Far

too many small businesses run with few or no

access controls due to the lack of technical

knowledge about configuring access to

shared resources. n


Uroos Ahmed TOURiSm

n Initi


mOnTh in FOCUS

n Recently, Hewlett Packard Pakistan organized a dealer function

at a local hotel in Lahore to announce the broad expansion of its im-

aging and printing portfolio for large businesses. The theme of the

function was “Alternate Thinking about Printing”.

During the function HP representatives made presentations on

different HP enterprise level printing products, services and new of-

ferings. The new offerings include HP LaserJet printers, enterprise-class

scanner for document capture, access control printing solutions, print-

ing services, certification and test program for HP’s software solution

development partners along with other solution.

HP representatives told the audience about the benefits of using

new HP print cartridges instead of the used ones.

“Living of the Dead Cartridge” movie was shown to the audience

to further solidify HP’s claim against the use of refurbished cartridges.

Mr. Rajesh, Director HP, talked about cost saving in enterprise print-

ing. He said, “Typically IT managers and CFOs don’t know about the ex-

penditures they are making in printing, HP in facts wants you to print

less and save more. Most organizations print without the need of print-

ing, and we help these organizations to understand the need of print-

ing and cut costs in printing by using intelligent solutions from us”.

HP’s latest offerings help enterprises manage secure and simplify

their imaging and printing environments and improve workflows to

reduce costs and enhance productivity.

Talking about the enterprise level printing, Shahid Khan Director

Marketing, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Pakistan said, “In today’s

economy when everything is going down people are thinking about

cost cutting, jobs of people are at stake. Hp being the Industry leader

of printing, thought about giving something back to the society. Our

range of printing solutions, if deployed intelligently by organizations

they will end up saving a lot of costs on paper and electricity. Using

our office solutions IT Managers can optimize their infrastructure, man-

age their environment and improve workflows”.

At the end of presentations, questions by media and HP’s main

dealers were answered. n

9th int’l Telecom Conference held in Karachi9th Int’l Telecom Conference inaugurated recently byNaguibullah Malik, Federal Secretary, Ministry of InformationTechnology & Telecom, Govt. of Pakistan at Karachi Expo Cen-tre. President Ecommerce Gateway, Dr. Khursheed Nizam ac-companied the Chief Guest.The conference was co-chaired by Dr. Muhammad Yaseen,Chairman, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. Walid Ir-shaid, President, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd.,

Abdul Aziz, President & CEO, Ufone GSM were the Guest of Honor. The Speakers of inaugural session were Walid Irshaid, President,PTCL, Mohamamd Sadiq, CEO, Wi-Tribe Pakistan, Dr. Muhammad Yaseen, Chairman, PTA, Usman Sheikh, MD & COO, KHL, PervezIftikhar, CEO, Universal Service Fund Pakistan, Raheel Kamal, Senior Director, Global Business Development, Qualcomm Inc. USA,Sikandar Naqi, Senior Executive Vice President, PTCL.Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, Konnect Holding Ltd., Wi-tribe Pakistan and PAKSAT sponsored the conference.

In the picture, Shahid Khan,Director Marketing, IPG, HPPakistan and other digni-taries from HP are seen


mOnTh in FOCUS

mobilink CEO nominatedfor CEO of the Year

Rashid Khan, President & CEO of Mo-bilink, has been nominated for “The CEOof the Year” Award by the World Commu-nication Awards (WCA) 2009. Rashid Khan is the only Pakistani to havebeen shortlisted for CEO of the YearAward, winners of which will be an-nounced in November this year after avigorous voting process. A forum thataims to bring together over 500 influ-encers and decision-makers, CEOs andsenior executives from the communica-tions industry, WCA recognizes the bestindustry players every year for their con-tribution. Commenting on the recognition, thecompany spokesperson said, “We are ex-tremely humbled to represent Pakistanpositively on international forums and itis extremely inspiring to see our veryown CEO being ranked with the best ofthe best. Such a prestigious global ac-knowledgement from the WCA for Mr.Rashid Khan’s leadership brings a greatsense of pride and accomplishmentamong the individuals and teams work-ing at Mobilink.” The World Communication Awards wereestablished in 1999 and recognize excel-lence amongst global telecom operatorsin various categories. Previous winnersinclude Bharti Airtel, Etisalat, O2, Orangeand VNL.

Telenor Pakistan, most preferred employerTelenor Pakistan has been chosen as the most preferred employer for their HR practicesin a survey conducted by ROZEE.PK, recently. The survey is an initiative of ROZEE.PK, Pak-istan’s online recruitment company with the objective to connect talent with opportu-nity. As a part of their research program, ROZEE.PK developed a poll for the visitors andthe registrants of the web site about their perception of top ten HR brands of Pakistanfrom 2005 to 2009. Country Consultant, Google Pakistan, Badar Khushnood, ManagerHR, United Bank Limited Asma Ahmed, Director, Head of HR PakistanTobacco CompanyLTd., Q. M Shahed, Manager HR Development TCS, Sajid Mehmood Khan are some ofthe best Human Resource specialists who served on the Advisory Board for the survey.Vice President Human Capital Division Telenor Pakistan Nayab Baig said, “Telenor Pak-istan is pleased with the results of the Top Employers survey conducted by Rozee.PK.We appreciate the initiative and believe that such surveys help to create an in-depthunderstanding of our culture, environment and perception of HR practices in the mar-ket. Telenor Pakistan is dedicated to improvement through our people which we be-lieve are our greatest strength.” A total of 13,753 fully completed surveys were receivedwhich were further analyzed and validated by employing statistical software. 739 com-panies were covered by participants in this survey and 126 universities were repre-sented by survey respondents. More than 66% of respondents are workingprofessionals. Telenor Pakistan was voted as the most preferred employer by a pool ofprofessionals between the ages of 22 and 40.

mobilink introducesBlackBerry Storm 9500!Mobilink once again takes the world bystorm by proudly introducing for the firsttime in Pakistan, the next generation offunctionality mixed with the perfect blendof style: The BlackBerry Storm 9500.

The BlackBerry Storm 9500 is a first-of-it-kind BlackBerry, as it provides a touch-screen which responds to your everytouch – whether you are typing away anSMS or email, playing games, or simplybrowsing the internet. Along with thiswonderful new technology, it providesusers with high-end email and Web capa-bilities, and is equipped with a 3.2MegaPixel camera with auto focus and 2xdigital zoom that will bring out the pho-tographer in all of us. A crisp and brilliantdisplay (480x360 resolution), larger inter-nal memory (expandable up to 16 GB),various multimedia features, built in GPS,and lots more that just fits perfectly intoyour hand and your life.

mobilink’s RatingsRaised To 'B-' Standard & Poor's Ratings Services saidit raised its long-term corporate creditrating on Pakistan Mobile Communica-tions Ltd. (Mobilink) to 'B-' from 'CCC+'.The outlook is stable. At the same time,we raised our issue rating on the com-pany's US$112.2 million senior unse-cured notes due 2013 to 'B-' from'CCC+'.Rashid Khan, President & CEO Mobilink“Despite a very challenging operatingenvironment credit fundamentals ofMobilink have been broadly intact andit has managed to retain trust of inter-national and local investors. The up-grade in rating reflects an improvementon the operating environment that wasweighing negatively on our rating pre-viously."We raised the rating on Mobilink to re-flect our opinion of the improvement inits funding profile and Pakistan's macro-economic situation," said Standard &Poor's credit analyst Yasmin Wirjawan.This follows Standard & Poor's decisionto raise the long-term sovereign creditratings on Pakistan (B-/Stable/C).Pakistan's cellular market continues toface intense competition, resulting inlower subscriber numbers and marketshare for Mobilink. Nevertheless, Mo-bilink has maintained its No. 1 marketshare both in terms of subscribers andrevenue in Pakistan's wireless market.


mOnTh in FOCUS

Telenor Pakistan launchesTelenor Smart menu”Telenor Pakistan becomes the first telecomoperator to launch Telenor Smart Menu,that brings access to all value addition serv-ices by dialing *345#. Telenor Smart Menu enables direct accessto the user’s account, its utilities, News up-dates, Sports updates, Infotainment, Smarttunes, Music and Movie charts. Packageplans can be changed and information onavailable packages can also be easily ac-quired by using the menu. Friend and fam-ily options can be effectively managedthrough the service. No third party soft-ware installations or set up procedures arerequired to use this menu. A menu appears on the handset screenwhen *345# is dialed. The options can beeasily scrolled through and selected by en-tering the number listed next to the serv-ice. Music and any other content that areordered through the menu are deliveredvia SMS or MMS. The *345# menu can beaccessed at any time of the day for anynumber of times. The access and use ofthe service is totally free for Prepaid (Talk-shawk, Djuice) & Persona Postpaid Cus-tomers. Charges only apply once aparticular service in the menu is used.Chief Marketing Officer Telenor Pakistan,Lars Christian Iuel sharing his thoughts onthe launch of ‘Telenor Smart Menu’ said,“Telenor Pakistan is pleased to have takenthe initiative to bring Smart Menu servicethat enables easy availability to all value ad-dition services with just a dial of a number.In current times, where subscription num-bers are on an increase and the potentialof this increase is enormous, such servicesare the need of the hour.

Ufone launches Live Customer Support with Web chatUfone while expanding its already elaborate Customer Services has now introducedlive customer support through Web Chat facility, a 24 hour facility to provide its valuedsubscribers an opportunity to have online assistance from Customer Services Repre-sentative via its website. There will be no charges on subscription of this service and initially the service will beavailable to post pay subscribers only as the management plans to extend the serviceto its pre pay customers in the next phase.Customers will access Web Chat through Web Chat (Live Support) option available onUfone’s website www.ufone.com; after accessing the website the customers will haveto register through 'Register New Customer' option. Afterwards subscribers will haveto select 'Login' option and enter the Login Credentials in order to proceed, after suc-cessful login subscribers will have to click on 'Request text chat'. The subscriber willhave to enter the nature of Query and Subject and click 'Start Chat'. The service alsohas the facility of resending the forgotten password to the clients through an SMS.

Ufone introduces “Utrack” to track allUfone has devised yet another unique tracking service known as Utrack which not onlylocates friends but also allows users to find or locate anyone amongst friends and familyor just monitor employees and work force based on the location of the tower. This locationbased service is the only improved tracking version available in the market so far.Mr. Akbar Khan, Head of Marketing, while giving details of this unique service confidedthat all ufone services are aimed at improving the life style of its customers no matterwhat their priorities are. Utrack tops the list of our wide range of services which havebrought about healthy changes in telecommunication. The service he has been dividedinto four segments Utrack Find, Utrack Buddy, Utrack Family and Utrack Business whilethe last one is offered on post paid package only”.Utrack Find can help find out the whereabouts of one’s friends besides finding one’s ownlocation while Utrack Buddy can help locate the availability of friends in surrounding areasby typing “Sub” and sending it on 2010. Ubuddy will inform/alert whenever you and yourfriend are in the same area. U Find will let user locate the whereabouts of the desiredMSISDN, following is command for UFind – find<space>Number to short code 2002. Usercan also locate POI by sending a SMS to short code 2002 (Find<space>Near, for list of cat-egories). The customers through this service can also take care of their family members while stillbusy at their work place. The service will update the location of family members. The cus-tomers may avail the facility by typing “Sub” and sending it on 2004.The amazing service of Utrack Business can help track all employees besides tracking thelocation of an individual employee. This service is available for post package customerswho have an option to select a package by typing “Sub’ and sending it either to 2310,2320 or 2330 according to one’s need.

Warid promotes youth through “TOm, DiCK & hARRY”Warid Telecom (Pvt.) Ltd. in its efforts to provide a platform to the talented youth of Pakistan, has sponsored Pakistan’s largest EnglishPlay ‘Tom, Dick & Harry’ by Centre Stage Productions. Making people of Islamabad feel great with the hilarious extravaganza that is pro-duced by Omer Hameed and directed by Shah Sharahbeel and choreographed by Wahab Shah. The talented team of actors has beendrawn from various elite educational institutions of Pakistan. The cast includes Rubada Nasir, Taimoor Shakoori, Ibraheim Kayani, IjlalKhan, Sara Riaz, Shams Aftab, Gohar Rasheed, Amy Saleh and Muaz Raja. Commenting upon Warid’s backing of the play, head of mar-keting Mudassar Bilal Malik said, “We feel proud to be a major contributor in promoting arts & theater in the country. There is no scarcityof talent in Pakistan and we are encouraged to provide them with a platform.”


mOnTh in FOCUS

inTEL, PTA AnD nADRA to provide employment opportunitiesIntel Pakistan Corporation in collaboration with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority(PTA) and National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA), recently launched a programto provide employment opportunities to the unemployed people & increase IT Awarenessand PC Penetration in the country. The program offers a low cost Telecentre starting fromPKR 33,000. NADRA will contribute in this cause by offering e-sahulat to these Telecentersas per conditions of e-sahulat franchise scheme.The Intel World Ahead Program has been working with Ministry of Information Technologyand Telecom to accelerate technology education and usage in the country. David Fosberg, Regional Director, Intel World Ahead Program for Asia Pacific, elaborated,“This is an initiative that aims to bring self employment opportunities for the unemployed& increase PC usage in the country.” It is a scheme which will entitle individuals to earn adecent livelihood by introducing and extending ICT based solutions. Intel has introducedspecial affordable low cost platforms and brought regulators and industry leaders like PTAand Nadra together to offer a sustainable and viable solution under the name of Apna Karo-bar,” he added.Intel has been involved by bringing innovative PC purchase and accessibility programs andintroducing affordable platforms and bringing worldwide experiences as a technologyleader to Pakistan. Intel firmly believes that ICT is a driver and growth catalyst for the econ-omy and well being of the nation, and places a greater emphasis on usage and penetrationof ICT and aims to bring innovative programs to achieve the goal.“The greatness of technology for the shaping of the community and for providing prag-matic benefits for development policies is no longer questionable. While looking at theradical changes introduced by technological advancements in developed nations, one cansimply say that technology plays the most critical role in the development of a country. Itopens new horizons for a better economy”, asserted Mohammed Yaseen, Chairman, PTA.He further added, “Partnering on this front with Intel will enable both economy and tech-nology, and if we keep working together with a healthy interaction, we can transform ournation in a much better shape. It will not only be profitable for the entrepreneur, but foreveryone involved” “With Intel’s help, we aim to stimulate the unemployed to achieve mastery through theuse of technology,” said Saleem Rafique, Chief Operating Officer, NADRA. “With the launchof this program and by making technological impacts our first priority, we can make ournation financially strong by providing plentiful opportunities to people where they can setup their own businesses and earn a decent living in these tough times of recession.”

Motorola, Inc. has launched its MOTOTRBO profes-sional digital two-way radio system in Pakistan. Thedigital system offers improved range, voice quality,security and battery life for use in a variety of RF en-vironments. Professional business customers benefitfrom enhanced voice communications, advanceddata capabilities and lower operational costs.

ZOnG’s Unique Call andSmS block ServiceZONG, the first international brand ofChina Mobile has taken a step ahead of allof its competitors in the telecom industry,with the launch of its unique Call and SMSblock service. Through this service, sub-scribers can block any particular numberfrom making calls and sending SMSs totheir numbers. This facility allows sub-scribers to block a total of 50 numbers. Thisnew service offers great convenience interms of usage. In order to subscribe tothe Call and SMS blocking service, sub-scribers need to dial 9211. Furthermore,ZONG is launching an application on thesocial networking website Facebook,which will enable subscribers to block /unblock numbers and edit their block list.Subscribers can log in on Facebook di-rectly or go to ZONG’s website where theywould find a link to sign in and access thisapplication.

Three illegal gatewayexchanges seized in PeshawarPakistan Telecommunication Authority(PTA) has seized a network of illegal gate-way exchanges at Peshawar which wascausing loss of billions of rupees to thenational exchequer during the last threemonths.PTA and FIA’s National Response Center(NR3C) Peshawar launched a crackdownon the network of three illegal gatewayexchanges and arrested one foreigner.The raid was conducted based on the in-formation obtained through PTA trafficmonitoring facility which detects greytraffic. It was found that the illegal facilityconsisted of three GSM Gateways with 97SIMs installed in the gateways. Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseenwhile appreciating the joint efforts of PTAand FIA teams, has given direction to PTAZonal Directors to expedite actions onsuch illegal activities by conducting raidsthroughout Pakistan.


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Rajeev Suri appointed CEOof nokia Siemens networks

The Nokia Siemens Networks Board of Direc-tors has appointed Rajeev Suri as Chief Exec-utive Officer, effective October 1, 2009. Surisucceeds Simon Beresford-Wylie, who willsupport Suri during a transition periodthrough November 1, 2009 before leaving thecompany. Beresford-Wylie will leave the NokiaGroup Executive Board as of September 30,2009. Suri will be based at Nokia Siemens Net-works’ headquarters in Espoo, Finland.“I am extremely pleased to announce Rajeev’sappointment as Chief Executive Officer ofNokia Siemens Networks,” said Olli-PekkaKallasvuo, Nokia CEO and Chairman of theBoard of Directors of Nokia Siemens Networks.“We began a comprehensive successionprocess when Simon shared his desire to de-part at the appropriate time. That process hasmade it clear that Rajeev brings the right val-ues, experience and industry expertise to takeNokia Siemens Networks forward.”Suri, who currently leads the Services busi-

ness of Nokia Siemens Networks, brings 20years of experience in the telecommunica-tions industry to the role of Chief Executive Of-ficer. Previous positions have included leadingthe Asia-Pacific region during a time of signifi-cant growth in both product and service sales;overseeing teams for important customerssuch as Hutchison; and managing products,such as the early cellular transmission portfolioof Nokia. In previous roles, he has been basedin various locations including India, Finland,the United Kingdom, West Africa and Singa-pore. Suri, 41, is an Indian citizen and is mar-ried with two children.“I would also like to thank Simon for his manycontributions to Nokia Siemens Networks andto Nokia before that,” said Kallasvuo. “I respecthis decision to pursue opportunities in a newindustry after 27 years in the telecommunica-tions infrastructure sector. He leaves a remark-able legacy as the architect of Nokia SiemensNetworks and as a close friend.”

Green Revolution: Smart, Efficient, Cost SavingTechnology for the FutureClearCube ME, a recognized leader in the rapidly growing centralized computingand desktop virtualization market, hosted their first event on the Green Revolution,produced by CIO Custom Solutions Group in Karachi, PakistanGreen computing is dependent on energy efficient hardware such as blades,servers and thin clients which further save energy through the centralization andefficient management of resources. ClearCube solutions provide Network Admin-istrators with greater control and power across their networks enabling them todo more with less through virtualization software, also reducing their energy foot-print in the workplace. ClearCube ME is now in Pakistan to provide its integratedsolutions at affordable prices to a diverse client base that covers the large corporatesector outfits, government agencies, educational, financial institutions, small andmedium businesses and NGOs.During the event, Salman Ansari (CEO, SATC) spoke about Green Computing andits potential in Pakistan, Zafar Ul Islam (Enterprise Technology Strategist, MicrosoftPakistan) gave a presentation themed “Get Virtual, Get Green”, Khawaja Tanveer (CIO,Unilever Pakistan) gave the perspective of an FMCG and the benefits of goingGreen, while Jehan Ara (President of P@SHA) and Hasan Rizvi (CEO, ClearCube ME)covered various aspects of how Green Computing was quickly growing to meetaccelerating demands of the corporate markets today.

Kingston Technology First to Ship 2133mhzmemory for intel Core i5 Platform

Kingston Technology says it is leading thecharge in memory support for Intel’s newLGA1156 Core i5 and Core i7 systems by ship-ping super-fast 2133MHz HyperX running ata low 1.65 volts. HyperX memories running at 1.65 volts areshipping in 4GB kits at 1333, 1600, 2000 and2133MHz frequencies. In late September,Kingston will launch 8GB kits of two in 1333-

and 1600MHz frequencies for users who wish to take advantage of 64-bit operatingsystems.

Etihad Airways donated two Pearl Business Class tickets to London, United Kingdom,to the Rotary Club of Karachi Sunset Millennium (RCKSM) to sell raffle tickets for alucky draw to raise money for two local charities - Panah Shelter Home for Womenand The Brenton Carey Hostel for Girls. Both organizations support young girls andwomen who have been a victim of domestic violence, financial crisis and unemploy-ment, harassment, etc. Picture shows; Amir Khan Country manager Etihad Airwayspresenting the ticket to the lucky winner along with the representatives from RCKSM.

Rajeev Suri NSN new CEO


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LG GLOBAL TOP mAnAGEmEnT TEAmViSiT PAKiSTAnLG Electronics’, a leader in consumer electronics and mobile communica-tions, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Mr. Dermot Boden and Mr. K. W. Kim,CEO, ME&A region recently visited Pakistan to review business and market-ing strategies being undertaken by LG Electronics in Pakistan. The other mainobjective of this trip was to provide LGE’s global support and endorsementto the recently signed deal between LGE and Pak Electron Limited (PEL). Earlier this year, a strategic partnership agreement was signed between LGand PEL after which, PEL became the distributor of LG home appliancesand air conditioners throughout the country. Mr. Boden and Mr. Kim ap-preciated and valued the initiative taken by LG Pakistan Team and discussedvarious strategies to make LG a successful brand in Pakistan.“LG aims to obtain sustainable growth and profits with top-quality market-ing capabilities worldwide. And such goals can only be achieved by gen-uinely understanding the needs of our consumers and by makingmeasured marketing investments”, said Mr. Dermot Boden, “This initiativewill enhance the position of LG as a truly global brand and improve its ex-pansion and wider recognition”. Mr. K. W. Kim said on the occasion, “Home appliances sector in Pakistan’smarket has a remarkable potential for growth and investment. LG believesin achieving its goals by solely focusing on providing the best customerexperience, by making it main concern to understand what its customerreally wants”. This alliance of brands will bring further enhancement in the area of homeappliances and propose better products to the customers.

Lahore: Picture shows, from the Samsung, Mr. George Chung Senior Manager(Right) and Mr. Jaisul Yu, Vice President TV Sales (left) at the IFA 2009.

Ranking of the most dangerouscomputer threats of the last 20years Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of Panda Securityin the month of August, experts from Panda Labs havedrawn up a ranking of the most dangerous threats, forhome users and for businesses of the last 20 years. Thethreats have been selected in line with the notoriety theyachieved through widespread epidemics. So here's theHall of Fame:1. Friday 13 or Jerusalem. Created in Israel in 1988 to com-memorate the 40th anniversary of Israel. Whenever thedate was Friday 13, it activates to infect your computer. 2. Barrotes. This Spanish virus appeared in 1993. It re-mains hidden on the computer and activates on January5, displaying just a series of bars on the monitor. 3. Cascade or Falling Letters. Created in Germany in1997. Whenever it infected a computer, it would makethe letters on the screen fall in a cascade. 4. CIH or Chernobyl. This virus was produced in Taiwanin 1998, and took just one week to propagate and infectthousands of computers. 5. Melissa. First appeared on March 26 in the USA. Thisultra-smart malicious code used social engineering tospread, with a message that read “Here is that documentyou asked for… don’t show anyone else ;-)”. 6. ILoveYou or Loveletter. So famous, it hardly needs in-troduction. This romantic virus emerged from the Philip-pines in 2000. With the subject ‘ILoveYou’ it infectedmillions of computers around the world and even organ-izations like the Pentagon.7. Klez. Created in 2001 in Germany, it only infectedcomputers on the 13th of odd months. 8. Nimda. The name is basically ‘admin’ spelled back-wards, as it was able to create administrator privileges oninfected computers. It originated in China on September18, 2001.9. SQLSlammer. This was another major headache forcompanies. It first appeared on January 25, 2003, and af-fected more than half a million servers in just a few days.10. Blaster. This virus, created in the USA on August 11,2003, contained a message in its code: “I just want to saylove you san!!” (We still don't know who ‘San’ is), and “Billygates, why do you make this possible? Stop makingmoney and fix your software”. 11. Sobig. This German virus was famous in the summerof 2003. The F variant was the most damaging; it attackedon August 19 of the same year and generated more than1 million copies of itself. 12. Bagle. This emerged on January 18, 2004, and hasbeen one of the most prolific viruses with respect to thenumber of variants. 13. Netsky. This worm also came from Germany in 2004and exploited vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. Its cre-ator was also responsible for the notorious Sasser virus. 14. Conficker. Last on the list and most recent, it ap-peared in November 2008. Oddly enough, if your key-board is configured in Ukrainian, it won't affect you…

LG Electronics, Global Chief Marketing officer, Mr. Dermot Boden and Mr. K. W. Kim,CEO, ME&A region recently visited Pakistan to review business and marketingstrategies being undertaken by LG Electronics in Pakistan.


mOBiLE PhOnE

LG Arena looks trendy, with thedark grey polished metal exte-rior. It Measures about 105.9 x55.3 x 12mm and feels solidwhen held. It sports a 3.0” colorTFT touchscreen that provides asharp and lively viewing experi-ence. LG Arena boasts the new S-class user interface (UI) whichresults in better responsiveness.It comes with nice features thatinclude a music player withDolby Mobile, A-GPS, FM radioand FM transmitter. The phonealso has wireless connectivity op-tions including, quad-band GSM,EDGE, HSDPA, Bluetooth withA2DP profile and WiFi 802.11b/g.It has a 5-megapixel camera withautofocus and flash. The phonecomes with an 8GB of internalmemory to store all your picturesand videos.

Dimensions: Memory: Camera: Talk time:

116 x 49 x 9.9 mmMicroSD, up to 16GB3.2 MPUp to 8 h


110 x 45 x 14 mmMicroSD, up to 16GB5MPUp to 8 h 30 min


114.9 x 47.4 x 12 mmMicroSD, up to 16GB3.15 MPUp to 4 h 20 min


98.4 x 55 x 11.6 mmMicroSD, up to 8GB5 MPUp to 3 h


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• 24x Zoom-NIKKOR lens with focal range from 26mm wide-angle to 624mm super-telephoto

• 3-in. vari-angle LCD with anti-reflection coating for greater framing freedom• 12.1 effective megapixels for high-resolution images• Image sensor shift VR image stabilization• Motion Detection for sharp, steady results• Advanced shooting modes including • High Sensitivity up to ISO 6400• Sport Continuous Mode enables shooting at up to 45 consecutive pictures at 15 fps• Optimize image (including monochrome filter effect)• Distortion Control• Quick Retouch for the best balance of contrast and saturation

• 12.3 Megapixel Live MOS Sensor• Two new kit lenses (M. Zuiko 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 and 17mm F2.8 Pancake)• TruePic V image processor• 3.0" LCD screen (fixed, 230k dot resolution)• HD movies (720p) with stereo sound• Linear PCM sound recording• 3.0 fps sequential shooting• Optional Adapters for all ZUIKO DIGITAL & OM lenses• Newly developed GUI for easier operation via Live Control• Automatic recognition of common scenes possible with i-Auto• Dual control dials• Face Detection & Shadow Adjustment

World’s Smallest Professional Camera with interchangeable lenses!

• 1920x1080 HD video recording• 4.0 MP still image capture• 120GB hard disk drive• Built-in GPS Receiver• Map Index function• Face Detection Technology• Smile Shutter Technology

Sony α900, a camera whose stellar image quality eclipses every-thing you have known before. At its heart is a 35mm full-frameExmor CMOS sensor that represents the culmination of a dream.With 24.6-megapixel resolution that captures details so fine, andcolor so rich and natural, you will never be satisfied with anythingless again. In truth, it is a camera like no other.


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