Pakistan’s First Science and Technology Web TV Channel Launched

Pakistan’s first science and educational web TV channel — with a special focus on education – has be launched in Pakistan.

TechTV.PK is launched by collaboration between Pakistan Science Club (PSC) and Technology Times (a Weekly tech Magazine) and is said to be available with full drive soon.

TechTV will cover all kinds of educational, scientific and technological events from the country. Moreover, there will be special online courses available for the guidance of students.

These free education program will offer online trainings in web application development, project management DIY (Do It Yourself Projects) and various other topics from science and technology domains.

TechTV – in a statement – said that main objective is to promote Science and Technology in the country. Statement said that project will encourage students for scientific research to enhance interest in tech, mathematics and related subjects.

Project is likely to assist students with extra-circular education in addition to formal academic content to ultimately inspire the students to peruse careers in science.

PTI Takes Lead in Pre-Election Online Polls

General Elections 2013 are happening at a time when Social Media usage is on the rise and around 25-28 million population of Pakistan is connected to internet for various purposes.

Similarly, there are over 120 million mobile phone users in the country. This population, which is either connected to internet or via mobile phones, is gigantic.

Collecting data from this population is relatively easy and many folds more reliable than the data that research companies used to collect through hard-core and conventional means.

Even better, we have companies like Pringit and Rozee, having huge audience and registered users who are willing to participate in online polls that can bring us a clearer picture of various things.

Interestingly, both the companies carried out polls on upcoming elections, asking their users about the political parties they support. Here are the results:

Pring Poll

Out of 5 million Pringers, 37 percent voted for PTI – hinting that that young surfers (almost 70 percent of total Pring audience) are indeed in love with Imran Khan. Rest of the results are shown in below infographic:

Rozee Poll

Rozee asked its entire user base about the political party they are supporting. Around 10,000 users participated in the poll and expressed their thoughts that are presented in below images.

Preferred Political Party (City Wise)

While these polls don’t represent the total population, but tens of thousands of users – who participated in the polls – clearly depict that PTI is ready for a breakthrough in upcomng elections.

Still, let’s not conclude anything here and wait for May 11th for the final results.

Linksys, Wireless-N, Dual-Band Extender

Viber, primarily a multi-platform app that allows voice and text chat between phone users, has now released its desktop version of app for Windows and Mac.

This landmark announcement was made yesterday after which Viber is now officially in line to take on Skype that has around or over 600 million users.

Viber said that it has over 200 million users from various platforms, and this user-base is likely to grow exponentially after the introduction of desktop version and nine new languages that were added to the pool just recently.

Viber said that it adds 400,000 new users every day, while 60 million users were added in 2013 only.

Viber said that it will allow Video-calling for those using the app from desktops. Video calling feature is currently in beta and will be rolled out to mobile app versions in near future.

Desktop version users will have to simply use their mobile account to login to Viber. Desktop version of Viber is designed in a way that users can cross communicate (voice, SMS, MMS, video) between platforms. All contacts and other data is also set to seamlessly sync between mobile app and the desktop version.

Here are other main selling features of Viber Desktop:

• Best-quality HD voice calls
• Video calls
• Free text and photo messages
• Group conversations
• No registration, passwords or invitations required
• Contacts and messages sync between your mobile and Windows
• Transfer ongoing calls between devices

It maybe recalled here that Mobilink has partnered with Viber to allow its 36 million subscribers unlimited Viber usage at a fixed daily charge. Mobilink is likely to start offering the Viber bundle by the end of this month.

Luxury Laptop Worth $1 Million with Personalised Features

We have heard and read about bizarre things made into a very expensive item just because of the material used in them. It also seems ironic to have things made of expensive material when the same can be available at much less and still perform the exact function intended. On top of it all, poverty is still a major issue in many parts of the world and such extravagance doesn’t suit sanity.

However, recently, a London-based luxury manufacturer, Luvaglio is offering a laptop worth $1 million. The laptop claims to combine luxury with performance with diamond-encrusted keys and top-of-the-line materials.

The idea is not too practical as well, because when seen from the point of view that the technology will run out of era and newer versions and better tools will be made quickly available to replace the old gadgetry, this whole expenditure will go in waste, though “diamonds are forever”.

The laptop, however, has all the necessary latest specs and features. It has a 17-inch LED widescreen and an anti-reflective glare and it comes with 128GB disk space with an in-built Blu-Ray player. The laptop is indeed an expensive one, but its claim of uniqueness lies in its personalised options.

The laptop is available in stone colours a user wants to have. Although there is no huge market for such rare objects of vanity, but there are some rich and “filthy” rich who wouldn’t mind spending their money on acquiring such a unique technology item.

A Study Says Most Users Don’t Know About Piracy

Online piracy is a sensitive issue, not just because activists make it sound like it, but it is also something that users don’t benefit from if seen closely. Recently, a study by a British legal firm revealed that most of the people don’t even understand what piracy actually is and which of their acts could be considered as indulging in piracy.

According to the survey from Wiggin, respondents actually liberty feigned and pretended that they are not aware, because internet downloading sites are also very clear about copyrights and if any infringe upon these, they are incriminated.

However, despite this, many people really don’t know what could constitute in them passing the line into illegal downloading of any text, image or video, or any other content. Intellectual property rights are safeguarded to protect the integrity and respect the labour of the creative people from whichever sphere they may be.

In Pakistan, cyber laws are not too strong already. There are many advocacy groups, however, that are working to get some sense into what behaviour is acceptable and legal online and where it is crossing the line, especially with piracy laws.

Although, there are many movies, books and even other items which are available in Pakistan in the open market, the law enforcement agencies themselves don’t take a keen interest in stopping it, simply due to corruption and incompetence. But when a user gets into trouble with international piracy laws or infringes upon rights of a copyrighted item from another country, there is bound to be an action against that user.