Apple Launches iPhone 4S [Specifications + Price]: ProPakistani

Apple Launches iPhone 4S [Specifications + Price]
Broadband in AJK and GB: Capped, Pricey and Unavailable
Pakistani Teachers Win at Education Forum in Jordan
HTC Android Phones Pose Serious Security Threats

Apple Launches iPhone 4S [Specifications + Price]

Posted: 04 Oct 2011 02:14 PM PDT

After long drawn speculation about which iPhone model would be unveiled, Apple has launched the iPhone 4S at the "Lets talk iPhone" event today.

No mention of the redesigned iPhone 5, by the way. Design wise, the iPhone 4S looks just like the iPhone 4, but hardware wise it's all new.

Here's a quick rundown of the features it's boasting:

Overview:

Apple is calling iPhone 4s as world phone. It supports both GSM and CDMA network and comes in both black and white color with same prices. As mentioned above, Apple didn’t redesign iPhone this time – iPhone 4S looks exactly like iPhone 4 – however, there are plenty of upgrades in terms of hardware (and software obviously).

Processor:

It'll run on a scaled down version of the dual core A5 chip (which is the same as the one on the iPad). The graphics are supposed to be seven times better than the iPhone 4 and CPU performance will be double that of its predecessor.

Enhanced Camera:

The camera also gets an improvement. The 8MP unit in the iPhone 4S will have a "five element lens" which will be capable of a resolution of 3264×2448. Photo capture and the rear light will also be faster and brighter respectively.

The phone will be capable of shooting 1080p and feature real time video image stabilization as well, which is a feature new for smartphones. There's another feature called the Hybrid IR filter, but what everything basically means is that the camera on the iPhone 4S will be a lot better than anything on the previous models.

Battery and Antenna:

Battery timings of the phone, Apple claims, will be up to 8 hours of 3G talk times, 14 hours of 2G talk time, 6 hours of 3G browsing, and 9 hours of Wi-Fi browsing. It seems that Apple took a note from the antenna fiasco with the iPhone 4; the iPhone 4S will feature dual antennas. It will switch between the two to provide the best performance for call quality and download speed.

Siri

One of the features that I'm sure will be talked about a lot is Siri, the intelligent assistant. The idea is that you can ask your phone any question and it will answer it. Questions could be like what the weather is, or you could ask it to read a text message or you could ask it to set an alarm for a specific time. It can even search Wikipedia and Wolfram-Alpha to look for answers to your questions.

Initially it will support English, French and German. But the service is being launched in beta so more services and support will be added later.

Other Features include:

When iPhone 4S is launching?

The launch of the iPhone 4S will be paired with the release of the updated iOS 5 on 12 October. It will include a host of improvements like new notification updates system, wireless updates and twitter integration among others.

Price:

The iPhone 4S will be available in the usual 16GB and 32 GB models as well as a 64 GB model, which is new for Apple.

Prices will be 199$, 299$, and 399$ for the 16, 32 and 64 GB models respectively. The phone will launch on October 14^th, with pre-orders starting a week early.

iPhone 4S Prices in Pakistan:

iPhone 4S won't be available in Pakistan till November 2011, we have confirmed with online retailors. They say price would be around 60,000-65,000; but they haven't made their minds so far.

Retailors say getting unlocked iPhone, particularly in bulk, won't be easy compared to earlier iPhone releases. However, they are working their best to make iPhone 4S available in Pakistan. When? it's still a question for many.

Here are complete specifications for iPhone 4S:

Network:

World phone
UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz);
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz)³
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only)
Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology

Location:

Retina display
3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
960×640-pixel resolution at 326 ppi
800:1 contrast ratio (typical)
500 cd/m2 max brightness (typical)
Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating on front and back
Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously

Camera Photos and Video:

8-megapixel camera
Autofocus
Tap to focus
Face detection in still images
LED flash
Video recording, HD (1080p) up to 30 frames per second with audio
Video stabilisation
Front camera with VGA-quality photos and video at up to 30 frames per second
Photo and video geotagging

Power and Battery:

Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery
Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter
Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G, up to 14 hours on 2G (GSM)
Standby time: Up to 200 hours
Internet use: Up to 6 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi
Video playback: Up to 10 hours
Audio playback: Up to 40 hours

Broadband in AJK and GB: Capped, Pricey and Unavailable

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 10:36 PM PDT

Read this post in Urdu

Broadband Internet has been growing rapidly in Pakistan, in fact Pakistan has secured top rank in recent years for demoing highest growth rate in the world. Picture seems fairly elegant – and everything seems to be perfectly placed.

However, when we talk about Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the Gilgit-Baltistan, the situation altogether different and not pretty at all.

There's only one army administered telecom operator named "Special Communication Organization" or SCO operating in the region. It enjoys monopoly there and hence chances of betterment are near to nil.

Broadband Internet is not unlimited, it's very costly (Rs. 4,500 for 2 MB package) and worse: you don't know if you will even get the broadband connection or not, because it may take months to get the line installed.

For instance, when we called Gilgit's main exchange to know the situation – the operator said that exchange is running on full capacity, and there's no way but to wait for a month or so to get a broadband connection. Situation is almost the same in all cities of AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Having said this, it should be noted here that broadband coverage in the state is very limited. Not every city or town is given this limited luxury of broadband and hence there's no option but to avail internet through dial-up only. Yes, that old dial-up technology which takes ages to open an email.

So more or less, it appears that AJK isn't part of Pakistan and all the telecom luxuries that are offered in other cities of Pakistan aren't destined for AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.

I understand that PTA, ISPs, people and Government of Pakistan are already familiar with this unfairness and monopoly of only one internet service provider of Azad Kashmir. However, there's no one to take necessary measures to make sure that this basic need of today's era is made available to the people of AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.

I know of complaints forwarded to PTA and the government of Pakistan – but they all are awaiting responses.

To give you an idea, here are broadband rates (where available) for AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan:

Domestic:

S/No	Name	Speed	Traffic	Price/Month
1	Standard	1 Mbps	4 GB	Rs. 999
2	Professional	2 Mbps	8 GB	Rs. 1199
3	Unlimited	256 Kbps	Unlimited	Rs. 1350
4		512 Kbps	Unlimited	Rs. 1800
5		1 Mbps	Unlimited	Rs. 2700
6		2 Mbps	Unlimited	Rs. 4500

Corporate:

S/No	Name	Speed	Traffic	Price/Month
1	Corp-1	1 Mbps	8 GB	Rs. 2400
2	Corp-2	2 Mbps	16 GB	Rs. 4500

Postpaid:

S/No	Name	Speed	Traffic	Price/Month
1	DSL Post Paid	2 Mbps	-	Rs. 10 per 10 MB

Pakistani Teachers Win at Education Forum in Jordan

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 10:13 PM PDT

Two Pakistani teachers, out of 200 educational professionals from over 25 regional countries, have won the regional competition at Microsoft's "Middle East & Africa Regional Innovative Education Forum" held recently in Aqaba, Jordan.

Microsoft Innovative education forum focuses on implementing innovative approaches that will ultimately improve the learning outcome of education systems across the globe.

Teachers are initially selected from different countries based on their innovations in teachings to compete in regional events. Upon winning regional competition, these teachers then qualify for global competition.

At Middle East & Africa Regional Innovative Education Forum teachers competed to receive one of twelve innovative teaching awards in four key categories at regional level. The winning group representing Pakistan consisted of Tahmeena Raees, Huma Islam and Kiran Imran from Roots School System.

Earlier in August, Pakistan announced the results for the country-level competition from which the winners participated in the regional level round for Middle East and Africa.

Talking about this event Kamal Ahmed, Country General Manager, Microsoft said, "Microsoft strives to create educational experiences that remove boundaries and bring students, teachers, educational policy makers and employers closer. I congratulate the winners from Pakistan. They have proved that technology is an important enabler in education and have supported students to gain the necessary skills to thrive in the 21st century."

Delighted with this achievement Tehmeena Raees said, "We need to think out of the box to cater to the requirements of Information Technology and education in Pakistan. I am sure all the successful projects will go a long way in helping students take advantage of information and communication technology for the benefit of society. Microsoft has done an amazing job by providing us this platform."

In addition event included workshops and an exhibition of all the participating schools and educator's projects. A number of different awards for outstanding projects in various categories were also rewarded to the participants by an international jury of education experts. The winners of this round are selected to attend the Partners in Learning Global Forum that will be held in Washington DC on 07^th November 2011 – 10^th November, 2011.

As part of the Innovative Education Forum (IEF), Microsoft holds two competitions every year: Innovative Schools Program and Innovative Teachers Forum. Local offices of Microsoft all over the world organize such forums in their respective countries and then the winners compete at regional level.

The winners from regional level then go to participate in World Wide Innovative Education Forum where winning teachers from regional forums and innovative schools selected from all over the world show case their projects. The projects are then assessed on the basis of teacher-student engagement, innovation and contents and three top projects for each of these categories are declared.

HTC Android Phones Pose Serious Security Threats

Posted: 03 Oct 2011 09:38 PM PDT

Read this post in Urdu

First thing first, it's not because of Android, rather this whole mess is due to HTC, which thought of logging various information, such as email addresses, SMS data, location, phone numbers, system logs and more on smartphones.

In it's latest devices, such as EVO 3D, EVO 4G, Sensation and Thunderbolt, HTC is criticized for logging plentiful of user data – which is now exposed with any application that has network access.

A team at AndroidPolice has discovered that updates for latest HTC phones can collect and store data, which is good in way, but extremely dangerous as anyone can write an application to access the data.

In short, any data in your phone can be made available to potential exploiters who can use it their way. Another tragedy is that there's no way of recognizing such applications which can exploit your personal data.

For instance, a innocent looking game that apparently accesses internet to post your top scores can be accessing your private data and posting it back to the exploiter.

How to Avoid:

To get rid of this vulnerability you must root your device, in order to remove Htcloggers (you can find it at /system/app/HtcLoggers.apk).

Stay safe and don’t download suspicious apps. Of course, even quality-looking apps can silently capture and send off this data, but the chance of that is lower.

For further reading