Mobile Evolution

Sony Ericsson has shown off a new phone, the Jalou that based on the company statement is aimed at the female market. Claimed to be shorted than a lipstick, and coming with a screen that acts as a make-up mirror, the phone also includes more conventional aspects, such as a 3.2 megapixel camera, 3G connectivity and Bluetooth.

It also has an "exclusive fashion interface which automatically updates with zodiac signs and special events throughout the year."

"Structured forms, intricate corners, hidden depths and jewel accents are set to be some of the hottest fashion trends in 2010. You can also expect to see deep and natural jewel colours on the runway next year. Jalou reflects these trends with its delicate facet-cut diamond shape design, clean and expressive lines and variety of different shine and matt finishes, that give depth to the handset," gushed Charles Hunt, Jalou head designer at Sony Ericsson. "The design team wanted the handset to reflect beauty found in nature. They looked at structure, strength and form in various crystalline jewels, which resulted in the unique shape."

Features:

• 3.2 megapixel camera - snap your favourite outfit and send to your friends
• Video recording - film and post clips online anytime
• Stereo FM radio - catch up on the latest songs while on the move
• Music player - with Bluetooth stereo, PlayNow and TrackID
• Bluetooth 2.0 - upload images and videos to your social network site
• Mirror Key - check your hair before a hot date
• Walk Mate step counter - see how far you have walked while out shopping
• Internet - Google search, Google maps, email, instant messaging, picture messaging
• Entertainment - YouTube application, 3D games, video viewing
• Weight - 84 grams

Fashion house, Dolce & Gabbana will also offer a co-branded version of the handset.

Nokia has joined forces with Microsoft to port Microsoft Office Mobile and Microsoft business communications, collaboration and device management software to Nokia's Symbian based smartphones. Starting from next year, Nokia intends to start shipping Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile on its smartphones, followed by other Office applications and related software and services in the future.

Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop and Nokia's Executive Vice President for Devices Kai Oistamo announced the agreement, outlining a shared vision for the future of mobile productivity. This is the first time that either company has embarked on an alliance of this scope and nature.

"With more than 200 million smartphone customers globally, Nokia is the world's largest smartphone manufacturer and a natural partner for us,"said Elop. "Today's announcement will enable us to expand Microsoft Office Mobile to Nokia smartphone owners worldwide and allow them to collaborate on Office documents from anywhere, as part of our strategy to provide the best productivity experience across the PC, phone and browser."

"The scope of the alliance between Microsoft and Nokia, and potential value for the enterprise and individual is significant," said Stephen Drake, VP of Mobility & Telecom at IDC. "By bringing Microsoft's productivity solutions to Nokia's large customer base, the two companies should be better able to serve the needs of the growing mobile worker population, which IDC estimates to reach 1 billion worldwide in 2011."

All Telenor prepaid subscribers get a chance to win Free minutes (upto 1,000) and Free SMS upto (2,500) through the total recharge they do till 3rd September 2009.

How to Participate?

Subscribers can activate this offer through one of two ways:

Dial 206 [charges: Rs. 2+tax/Min]
SMS FREE to 206 [charges: Rs2+tax/SMS]

Free minutes & SMS will be given on the amount of total recharge customers do from the date they activate the offer till 3rd September 2009.

Break up of free minutes and Free SMS, based on recharge is as follows:

For example:

• If total recharge is between Rs 150 – 499 from subscription date to 3rd September, customer will receive 15 free minutes and 50 free SMS
• If total recharge is between Rs 500 – 1499 from subscription date to 3rd September, customer will receive 100 free minutes and 500 free SMS
• If total recharge is greater than Rs 1500 from subscription date to 3rd September, customer will receive 1000 free minutes and 2500 free SMS

Mechanics:

• This is a subscription based offer, customers need to subscribe to this offer either by dialing 206 or sending FREE in an SMS to 206
• Offer is valid for a limited period, and customers have to accumulate recharge from the day they activate the offer till 3rd September 2009
• The offer is valid for all prepaid subscribers i.e. all Talkshawk and djuice subscribers can activate this offer
• In order to qualify for the bonus, apart from accumulation of recharge, customers would also have to spend a minimum of Rs 50 (inclusive of taxes) from the offer activation date till 3rd September
• Free Minutes and Free SMS will be posted by 11th September 2009
• Validity of free minutes and SMS would be 7 days

Facebook acquired Friendfeed and now it is going to launch Facebook Lite. Just moments ago Facebook notified thousand of users including me about beta testing of Facebook Lite. But right after a few minutes the message disappeared.

We are building a faster, simpler version of Facebook that we call Facebook Lite. It’s not finished yet and we have plenty of kinks to work out, but we would love to get your feedback on what we have built so far.
Check out Facebook Lite now at http://lite.facebook.com.

Warid is partnering with UK based Mobile media company 3rd Space to provide advertising supported mobile content for its 18 million subscribers. Warid Telecom, which is jointly owned by the Abu Dhabi group and SingTel, is at the forefront of innovation in new media and the partnership is a reflection of its commitment to providing Value Added Services (VAS) to its customers.

Warid Pakistan subscribers will be given access to free content such as Bollywood cinema, songs and music videos in exchange for watching an advert embedded within the video.

“Our partnership with Warid is vital to providing ‘Value Added Services’ to people who want it. Pakistan’s focus is to engage with International companies and use partnerships like ours as a springboard for international business while supporting local communities.” said Martyn Lock, Director of Sales and Marketing. “We are delighted to be providing mobile TV services for one of the most forward-thinking mobile operators in Pakistan. Warid Group subscribers in Ivory Coast, Bangladesh, Congo and Uganda have an appetite for Mobile TV and we look forward launching advertising supported content like the Africa Nations Cup Football in the near future.”

Farrukh Khan of Warid Pakistan commented “Our partnership with 3rd Space resonates with our commitment to the world markets, our customers are ready to receive world-class content in return for watching video advertising, this is very much win-win for everyone. We are proud to be moving our business forward with 3rd Space Services in the UK.”

Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden have the lowest prices for mobile phone calls among OECD countries, according to the latest OECD Communications Outlook. The highest were found in Canada, Spain and the United States.

Comparing prices on a medium-use basis for a package of 780 voice calls, 600 short texts (SMS), and eight multimedia (MMS) messages, the survey found monthly prices ranged from 11 to 53 US dollars across countries as of August 2008.

The Communications Outlook compares domestic prices across countries for low-, medium- and high-use mobile phone users. The following tables show annual prices in US dollars broken down by fixed subscription costs, calls and messages:

The Communications Outlook says between 2006 and 2008 mobile phone call prices fell on average by 21% for low usage consumers, 28% for medium usage and by 32% for subscribers with the highest consumption patterns.

The report adds that text messaging continues to be a particularly lucrative market for operators and that recent marketing developments are increasingly offering SMS-based packages targeted at young subscribers.

The Communications Outlook says the share of telecommunications sector revenue from mobile phone use had reached 41% in OECD countries by 2008. The decline in operators' revenue from fixed telephone lines has, however, been slowed by the expansion of high-speed broadband Internet as subscribers usually keep a fixed line to receive the service.

It adds that the agility shown by those telecommunication companies which survived the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000 is again serving them well in the current global downturn. Revenues continue to grow while capital investment is being reduced.

OECD mobile medium-usage basket, August 2008, tax included

Note: The existing mobile basket methodology does not include discounted or free calls to pre-selected phone numbers as part of "friends and family" or "preferred numbers" plans. The inclusion of these calls will be considered as part of a future update of the mobile basket methodology. Pre-paid plans are excluded.

This service is the first of its kind, ever introduced in Pakistan by any cellular company. Ufone introduces uconnect – a service to remotely manage your computer’s shared folders, push email service and search files with your handset. These services are provided under secure data transfer protocol and each user gets 512Mb online space for folder sharing, fee of charge.

UConnect provides following features that can be managed from your handset.

* MS Outlook Synchronization
* File Sharing
* Search through files
* Push Email
* PC Tasks

MS Outlook Synchronization:

Access your outlook emails, contacts, tasks and reminders

File Sharing:

Remotely access files stored on any online computer (be it personal or corporate) from your EDGE/GPRS enabled handset. File sharing includes MS-Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe PDF, Notepad, Images (jpeg, gif, png) and Multimedia files (mp3, mpeg, avi, wmv, mid, wav). This needs to have UConnect client installed on your PC.

Search through files:

You can use the powerful search feature to search for files, emails and contacts and much more through your EDGE/GPRS enabled handsets.

Push Email:

You can choose your PUSH email facility to be delivered to your handset as a SMS PUSH or WAP PUSH for every new email. You can configure up to 5 emails accounts simultaneously for an account on your handset. Each email account can be used the same as you would through you computer. This feature can be used on Gmail, Hotmail and POP3/IMAP accounts.

PC Tasks:

This is the most important feature of this service.You can share multiple PC’s and can perform the following PC Tasks can be done remotely via EDGE/GPRS enabled handsets or via SMS:-

* System Restart
* Shutdown
* Hibernate
* Logoff
* Lock

SECURITY: All communication with the server is encrypted including the files that are backed up at remote servers.
Free Data Space: Each account will be allotted 512 MB of free data space.

Subscription & Charges:

Monthly Subscription: SMS ‘SUB’ to 292 – Rs. 25 + tax.

Additional Computer: SMS ‘SUB’ to 293 – Rs. 5 + Tax/month

Additional Memory: SMS ‘SUB’ to 291 – Rs. 5 + Tax/6 months

GPRS Charges – Standard Ufone EDGE/GPRS Charges or UrEDGE Data Package charges apply.
Commands for ease of use:

Unsubscribe UConnect: unsub uconnect
Unsubscribe Space: unsub space
Hibernate: hibernate machine name
Lock: lock machine name
Logoff: logoff machine name
Shut Down: shutdown machine name
Restart: restart machine name
Next Message: next message id
Send Email: send email address email message
Forward: forward email address email message
Reply: reply email message
Reply All: replyall email message
Delete Email: delete email id
Reset Password: resetpass

All these commands will be sent to 5748 at Rs. 2 + Tax/SMS

Terms and Conditions:

* Login format will be like 9233XXXXXXX.
* If you share more than 1 machine, you will have access to all the machines via 1 account.
* All charges will be deducted from the master account, i.e. MSISDN against which account was created.
* All change requests can only be made from the master account.
* SMS and WAP push will be sent to master account MSISDN.
* You can use Push Email services without downloading the application for personal email accounts.
* Email push supports all POP3 and IMAP based emails.
* SMS push will only show 160 characters of an email per SMS.
* There is no limit to the number of computers that can be registered on a single account.
* In sharing user will have to share folder not individual files.
* Application may not work if proxy or internet access is limited by firewall or other network security setting.
* Only MS outlook (2000, 2003 & 2007) is supported.
* User cannot view pictures within the email but can view pictures as attachment.

Ufone Umrah Offer
Ufone offers the lowest International Roaming rates to Saudi Arabia
Umrah is an overwhelming experience full of discoveries. Make the most of your Umrah while letting those at home know that you are well.

Ufone is proud to be the best network that keeps you connected with your loved ones during Umrah with the best International Roaming rates exclusively for Saudi Arabia, including:

-Pre-set messages for only Re. 1 to Pakistan by dialing *333#
-Free incoming SMS
-Lowest incoming call rates


Dial 333 to activate International Roaming on your Ufone today

Notes:
Pre-set messages can also be sent by dialing *333# or *999#
Lowest incoming call rates are only applicable while roaming on Mobily's network
Ufone GSM is a registered trademark brand name of Pak Telecom Mobile Limited
19.5% FED on usage and 10% withholding tax at recharge or bill applies.
Using SIMs without proper documentation is a crime-PTA
Terms and conditions apply

Dell's long rumoured smartphone is expected to be finally announced early this week. Unnamed sources have told the TechCrunch website that the handset would be announced within the next day or two.

There have previously been reports that Dell had already developed a smartphone, but been rebuffed by European and American operators who felt it was a bit clunky compared to other vendors. Chinese operators however were reported to be interested in the handsets.

A few months ago, the software firm, Bsquare accidentally let slip recently that it had developed a way to use Adobe Systems video software on "Dell netbooks running Google's Android platform." The company later withdrew the statement and said it had been issued in error. Dell refused to comment on the specifics of the statement, but did confirm that the company is constantly reviewing technology options.

Last July, Dell teamed up with China's Datang Mobile to develop a range of products based on the Chinese 3G standard, TD-SCDMA. The core aspect of the cooperation related to studying the compatibility of the Windows operating system with a 3G data card and Dell computers.

The smartphones are however understood to be based on OMS (Open Mobile System) - which is China Mobile's own in-house smartphone operating system - not on Windows Mobile.

One version of the smartphone is said to be a pure touchscreen model, whilst a second handset is reported to be a slider-style phone with a keypad and that slides from beneath the screen.

A report earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal said that Dell has had a group of engineers working on the phones for more than a year from an office in the Chicago area.

For More details Visit: http://www.mobilinkgsm.com/jazz/jazz_ghanta.php

President Asif Ali Zardari called for the setting up of a Telecom University, a telecom research and development center and a plant to manufacture and assemble mobile handsets in the country.

He said that the government will provide land for the Telecom Varsity in Haripur where the nucleus of telecom training facilities already existed and also offer facilities for establishing an R&D Center in Islamabad and the mobile handsets manufacturing plant.

Spokesperson to the President former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the call was made when a delegation of Chinese Telecom conglomerate ZTE called on the President in the Presidency.

He said that the President appreciated the ZTE’s role in the development of Pakistan’s Telecommunication sector and said that Chinese companies had made significant contributions to Pakistan’s economy through direct investment.

The President called upon ZTE to develop technical skills of the local labour force.

The five member delegation that called on the President was led by Luo Pingfan, Dy Chairman ZTE and also included Luo Zhaohui, Ambassador of China.

M. Salman Faruqi, Secretary General to the President, Kamal Majidullah, Special Assistant to PM on Water Resources, Khalil Ahmad, Ambassador at Large and senior official of the foreign office also attended the meeting.

The President said that Chinese investment and cooperation could help develop Pakistan as regional hub for manufacturing for which low cost labour force was available in Pakistan.

He also called upon the ZTE to develop a research and development center in telecommunication and a plant for manufacture of mobile handsets in Pakistan.

President Zardari said that he was keenly awaiting his visit to China later this month to further consolidate the relations between the two countries which he said was ‘an important factor for peace and stability in the region and the world’ .

The President underscored the importance of closer collaboration and coordination between Pakistan and China in view of complexities of regional and global situation.

He said that Pakistan would continue to support China on all issues of national importance to it.

The Chinese delegation thanked the President of Pakistan and the government for providing it necessary back up and support to carry out its investment plan in Pakistan. Source... (Press Releases)

This rumor of downsizing at Wateen was in market for several days, until it matured yesterday when company reportedly fired 550 employees in total from almost all departments.

It is anticipated that Wateen has plans to downsize its workforce further in next phase, with equal value. Earlier, Wateen fired at least 200 employees three months ago.

Am employee at Wateen, (requesting anonymity) told us that staff is under high pressure, with no job security at all. He also confirmed that Wateen re-tested its employees through multiple interviews – and those who couldn’t justify themselves were fired.

We couldn’t arrange official words on this downsizing.

“When it comes to taking the best digital photos, it’s the quality of the lens and the sensor that count, not just the quantity of pixels. The Nokia N86 8MP is the first mobile device with variable aperture, adding to the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens for excellent results. It has never been easier to capture special moments in such a great quality,” says Helmut Heier of Carl Zeiss.

Every detail of the metal-framed Nokia N86 8MP is thoughtfully designed with photography in mind, including 8 GB of internal memory for up to 4,000 images. Like any high-end digital camera, the memory can be increased with an exchangeable 16 GB microSD card. The device also offers a bright OLED screen with scratch resistant hardened glass, easy photo management, full sync capability with a PC and TV-out support for slide shows.

­Nokia says that it will release its first 3G phone based on China's homegrown TD-SCDMA format before the end of this year. The phone will be a Symbian based handset in the mid to high price range.

Colin Giles, Nokia's president for China, told the Reuters news agency in an interview that despite the sole operator using TD-SCDMA being China Mobile, it still makes sense to develop handsets for the 3G technology.

"If we want to be a player and we want to maintain our market share, then we will have to have products for all standards," Giles said.

That Nokia is developing a TD-SCDMA based handset is not unexpected. At last year's Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, Giles had confirmed that the company will develop handsets based on the Chinese 3G technology. As China Mobile has a market share of around 70%, supporting the TD-SCDMA format is essential for any handset vendor seeking to retain their market position.

"There's a clear trend of people using mobile phones for more and more things," said Giles, adding that this, together with an expected increase in rural penetration, would help to maintain Nokia's 40 percent market share in China.

Nokia is also a 49% holder in a Chinese joint venture, Potevio with China Putian to develop network infrastructure based on the 3G standard, so it has access to the necessary technical expertise. Potevio was set up in 2005 and has also been the major supplier of equipment to China Mobile's TD-SCDMA trial networks in Tianjin and Qinhuangdao.

China Mobile uses the Chinese developed 3G standard, TD-SCDMA, while China Telecom is based on CDMA2000 and China Unicom is rolling out a new WCDMA based network.

-Telenor Talkshawk proudly introduces: Talkshawk Late Night Offer
-Call becomes FREE after first 4 Minutes at Night (12am to 6am)
-The offer applies ONLY to Telenor FnF numbers. It does not apply to Offnet or International FnF numbers.
-This offer is available on Talkshawk 30 Sec, Talkshawk Har Minute & Talkshawk Har Second.



-No activation is required for this offer – it will apply to all existing as well as new Telenor FnF in subscribers’ list
-To add FnF numbers call 555 or write FnF and send SMS to 345
-This is a limited time offer

KARACHI (August 07 2009): Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is holding a telecom consumer forum on the theme 'together for consumer rights' at Karachi today (Friday). Chief Minister Sindh will be the chief guest on this occasion while chairman PTA will preside over the function.According to Chairman PTA, Dr Mohammed Yaseen, this forum would help bring positive developments in the telecom sector including promotion of larger consumer interests through safeguarding their rights.