WTH: Official Website of MoIT is Promoting a Car Buy/Sell Portal: ProPakistani

WTH: Official Website of MoIT is Promoting a Car Buy/Sell Portal
Zong Kicks off United Football Tournament
Zong Announces Daily Unlimited Mobile Internet
Samsung Galaxy S III Revealed

WTH: Official Website of MoIT is Promoting a Car Buy/Sell Portal

Posted: 04 May 2012 08:47 AM PDT

It is indeed an unfortunate moment to report that official website of federal ministry of information technology and telecom is promoting a commercial website that is primarily a buy/sell portal for used and new cars, in addition to education that they offer for car drivers.

MoITT wasn't contended to favor this website with a banner or link, instead MoITT website dedicated a whole separate webpage to promote this car buy/sell portal i.e. car4u.com.pk, Even worse – yes keep reading – they have uploaded the company profile (a PDF File) to MoITT servers (the WTH moment of the year).

Have a look at MoIT website yourself:

We tried our best to get to someone at car4u.com.pk to know about the company or their services and reason for their publicity on a state website, but we were unable to grab any contact number. They haven't mentioned any phone number on contact us page too.

Concerned officials of MoITT refrained from commenting on it.

However, whois record at PKNIC revealed that Mr. Sakib Berjees Tahir is the COO of car4u.com.pk. Following is the screenshot:

Further social engineering revealed that Sakib Berjees (Tahir) is son of Ch. Muhammad Berjees Tahir, a national assembly member from PML(N), who has been the Chairman for Standing Committee on Information and Technology.

Furthermore a news appearing on The News revealed that Mian Shahbaz Sharif recently inaugurated car4u.com.pk in a ceremony at Arfa Software Technology Park in Lahore. Mr. Umar Saif was also present at the event and so was Mr. Sakib Berjess Tahir.

I am not debating on why these high level politicians and rich elite of the country are helping each other, which is very much fine with me – they can do whatever they want to – but advertising a commercial company on a government website? Are they out of their minds or what?

Just to mention, Pakistan is trying to sell 3G licenses for which they are targeting international vendors. And it is very likely that they will visit MoIT website to better know Pakistan's IT and telecom market. But what impression those foreign companies will get after seeing such a advertisement on MoIT's website?

On a related note car4u.com.pk is copying/stealing content from PakWheels.com – a famous vehicle buy/sell portal in Pakistan.

PakWheels.com told me that they are depressed to know that Shahbaz Sharif and MoIT is encouraging a website which is illegally violating copyrights by lifting content from other websites. It said that they are considering legal action against car4.com.pk.

Update:

It maybe recalled that content management and development of all government websites is managed by Electronic Government Directorate which works under Federal Secretary. Also to mention here that all government websites are hosted with NTC, with redundant servers located in USA.

Zong Kicks off United Football Tournament

Posted: 04 May 2012 06:37 AM PDT

'ZONG United Kickoff' Football Tournament 2012 was launched on Friday, May 4 to great public excitement, simultaneously in five cities of Pakistan.

The tournament is for the selection of 32 young boys who will get trained in Manchester United Soccer School, Abu Dhabi. The CCO of ZONG Mr. Sajid Mahmood kicked-off the ball in Pakistan Sports Complex to begin the tournament.

A total of 128 ZONG registered teams of young boys within the age bracket of 13-17 years of age are participating in this knock-out tournament. Football matches will be held among all these teams and the winning team comprising 16 players will be sent to Manchester United Soccer School. In addition, 16 outstanding players during the matches will also be going to the school.

Commenting at the occasion ZONG's Chief Commercial Officer, Sajid Mahmood said "This is the biggest activity supporting football in the history of Pakistan. ZONG recognizes that football is possibly the fastest growing team game in the country today in terms of popularity, and is proud to be the pioneer supporter of talent in Pakistan. For us this is much more than just sponsoring a sporting activity. It is about courage, determination, the desire to compete and excel and above all to prove to the world that Pakistan does not lack in talent in any way."

Previously, ZONG has approached schools to identify schools teams and set-up trial camps to form teams with maximum number of 16 players per team. The teams registered from schools and through trials have now been given the chance to prove their mettle by competing against each other.

These trials were conducted in major cities of Pakistan which includes Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad/ Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad. A team of professional coaches conducted these skill-based trials and selected the best players to form 64 teams, consisting of 16 players in each team.

Previously it was planned to select only 8 teams through trials and 120 teams from schools, but after overwhelming response from individuals, ZONG's management decided to increase the number of teams selected through trials and make the number of teams even in both categories.

Manchester United Soccer Schools (MUSS) offer coaching courses for footballers of all ages, backgrounds and abilities, from six year olds through to adults. ZONG have teamed up with MUSS to offer 32 lucky winners the chance to participate in a 5 day program at their state of the art facility in Abu Dhabi, which will include a series of fun and challenging coaching sessions focusing on a variety of different technical areas such as dribbling, short passing, turning and finishing. The program will also look to develop the young players in other fields, such as tactical understanding, and mental, physical and social growth.

Zong Announces Daily Unlimited Mobile Internet

Posted: 04 May 2012 04:15 AM PDT

Zong Internet Zong Announces Daily Unlimited Mobile Internet Zong, arguably the king of mobile internet packages, has announced this new offer that will allow its customers to use unlimited mobile internet based on daily rentals.

It maybe recalled that Zong is already offering various mobile internet packages with different kind of contracts.

However, this new package by Zong will allow its customers to use 50 MB of download/upload per day at a fixed daily cost of Rs. 10 per day.

Tariff and Details:

Activation Charges: Rs. 10
Daily Charges: Rs 10
Daily Limit: 50 MB

How to avail:

Just dial *909# from your ZONG connection and get connected!
You can active through SMS also by sending "sub<space>dailyunlimited to 906

Note

This package is available to all Prepaid Zong customers on all commercial packages.
Fair usage policy of 50 MB limit per day applies.
After the consumption of 50MB the subscriber would be charged as per the default package.
To unsubscribe SMS "unsub<space>unlimited" to 909 (un-subscription charges are Rs. 5).

Samsung Galaxy S III Revealed

Posted: 03 May 2012 10:06 PM PDT

Samsung has finally revealed its flagship android device for the year, the Samsung Galaxy S III – billed as official smartphone for Olympics 2012 – a sequel of Galaxy line of smartphones.

First thing you will notice about Samsung Galaxy S III is its gigantic 4.8 inch Super AMOLED HD screen (1280 x 720) on a minimal design – which by the way isn't liked by many due to its huge size and Samsung’s conventional plastic pack.

On hardware front, Galaxy S III comes with 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos 4 Quad processor, which is said to offer twice the processing capability of the older Exynos 4 Dual used in previous Galaxy phones, while it consumes 20% lesser power.

Samsung said that it has optimized the power usage for processor by enabling each core to use exactly the amount of power it requires for processing.

Yes, Galaxy S3 will run on Android 4.0.4 or Ice Cream Sandwich.

Then there comes a 8-megapixel rear-facing and 1.9 megapixel forward-facing camera. Camera has zero shutter lag so you can capture photos instantly. The camera is also capable of taking 20 photos at once in burst mode, and a feature called "Best Photo" will pick the best shot out of a group of eight.

"With the GALAXY S III, Samsung has maximized the consumer benefits by integrating superior hardware with enhanced smartphone usability," said JK Shin, President and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung.

Specifications:

Here is a run down of complete specifications for Galaxy S3:

Network:
- 2.5G (GSM/ GPRS/ EDGE): 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
- 3G (HSPA＋ 21Mbps): 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz
- 4G (Dependent on market)
Display: 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED (1280×720) display
OS: Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Camera
- Main(Rear): 8 Mega pixel Auto Focus camera with Flash & Zero Shutter Lag
- Sub (Front): 1.9 Mega pixel camera, HD recording @30fps with Zero Shutter Lag
- Recording & Playback: Full HD (1080p)
Connectivity:
- WiFi a/b/g/n, WiFi HT40
- GPS/GLONASS
- NFC
- Bluetooth® 4.0(LE)
Sensor: Accelerometer, RGB light, Digital compass, Proximity, Gyro, Barometer
Memory: 16/ 32GB User memory (64GB available soon) ＋ microSD slot (up to 64GB)
Dimension: 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm, 133g
Battery: 2,100 mAh

Software:

Samsung has introduced a plethora of software enhancements for Samsung Galaxy S3, including a Siri challenger: S Voice.

Here are few of features Samsung Galaxy S3 will offer:

Smart Stay: Samsung Galaxy S3 will dim its brightness when you're asleep. So long as you are awake and will look at the phone, it will maintain a bright display.
Direct Call: Samsung claims that Galaxy S3 knows when you want to talk. If you're messaging and want to call instead, simply lift your phone to your ear and it will dial your friend automatically.
Smart Alert: It knows when you've been away from your phone – vibrating nudge lets you know missed calls or messages.
Social Tag: It keeps track of your loved ones: a glance at your friends' photos will show you their current SNS status.
S Voice: Samsung Galaxy S3 responds to your words: you can tell it to wake up, answer, even take a photo.
S Beam: Place two GALAXY S IIIs back-to-back and you can transfer pictures, music, videos, and more.
All Share Cast: Stream your photos, videos – even the game you're playing – onto big screen, with your phone doubling as a controller.
Buddy Photo Share: It shares with everyone instantly: as the phone recognizes your friends faces, it can share photos with them instantly.
All Share Play: Galaxy S3 lets you share with everyone: access to documents and
multimedia files when you work somewhere else.

In addition Samsung Galaxy S3 will allow you to watch HD videos while you text, or while you are writing a long email. A distraction some may call it – fun for others.

Samsung also partnered with Dropbox to offer 50GB of cloud space for Samsung Galaxy S3 owners.

Samsung said that one should expect world over launch of Samsung Galaxy S3 in June this year. That's the time when we are likely to see this smartphone surfacing in Pakistan too. No words on pricing yet, but it is anticipated it would land around Rs. 55,000 to Rs. 60,000.

If you still not convinced, see below the comparison of Galaxy S3 with rival flagship devices.