PAKISTAN NEWS:
KP govt to build a digital complex in Peshawar:
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Information Technology Board and PCSIR Labs have inked an agreement to set up a digital complex in Peshawar. According to reports, the digital complex will feature an IT park, innovation park, incubation and co-working facilities, data center, business process outsourcing ready facilities, display centers, auditorium, and other IT facilities.Peshawar Digital Complex is in line with the KP’s digital policy as it not only would create employment opportunities, but it will also help the economy to flourish.
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Google, Facebook and other tech giants threaten to abandon Pakistan:
With the passage of Citizens Protection Rules (Against Online Harm), Pakistan’s government envisaged exercising significant influence on tech giants like Facebook, Google, Twitter and others.However, the joint response from Asian Internet Coalition (AIC) might have rattled the Pakistani government as they have threatened to abandon their services in Pakistan, sending 70 million internet users into digital darkness.
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Digital Pakistan make better innovators, entrepreneurs and startups:
The vision of a Digital Pakistan is to put the country on the map as far as technology and innovation are concerned. With a country that has a total population of 220 million, 65% of which is under 25 years of age, Digital Pakistan will aim to create an environment where entrepreneurship and innovation takes place.To support young startups, various steps have been taken to provide an enabling environment to develop their talents for a better future. Setting up National Incubation Centers across Pakistan in collaboration with companies like PTCL, LMKT, Ignite, etc., has not only given confidence to young people to present their ideas but also created job opportunities.
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Huawei Y7p now available for pre-order in Pakistan:
The latest addition to Huawei Y Series, Huawei Y7p, is an affordable mid-ranger with a focus on photography and performance. The device is packed with a 48MP AI triple-camera, a 6.39-inch Punch-hole FullView Display, flagship design, Kirin 710F Octa-core processor, and many more features. The Huawei Y7P will be available for pre-orders on the 6th of March. The phone comes with a rear AI triple-camera, which consists of a 48MP main camera with an f/1.8 aperture lens that makes capturing wider shots in HiRes possible. An 8MP Super Wide Angle camera for landscape shots and wide-angle video recording, plus a 2MP depth-sensing camera for simulating realistic depth-of-field effects for portraits.
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EPay Punjab collects Rs. 1 billion revenue in five months:
Within the first five months, EPay Punjab has collected over Rs. 1 billion revenue from multiple levies in the province. EPay Punjab is the first-ever government payment aggregator for citizen facilitation and ease of business.This was disclosed in a progress review meeting of Punjab Information Technology Board presided by Chairman PITB Azfar Manzoor. Director-General IT Operations Faisal Yousaf and other senior officials participated in the meeting.
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This what Huawei P40 will look like:
Huawei’s P40 series of flagship Smartphones is not expected to arrive until March 26, however, weeks ahead of its launch, folks over at Digital Trends have managed to get hands-on with the device. The reason why it says “Polarie” and “Blink” at the back instead of “Huawei” and “Leica” is that the device is a prototype. It has a triple camera setup in a vertical layout and there appears to be a periscope lens at the bottom. The LED flash and the ToF sensor are placed separately next to the main camera module.
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Samsung reveals new power efficient OLED display that emits less blue light:
Samsung is currently the global leader when it comes to the electronic display market and they’re planning to keep it that way by bringing constant improvements to their technologies. They have unveiled a new OLED display that claims to reduce harmful blue light emissions and power consumption as well. Smartphones and other electronic devices emit blue light from their displays that not only tends to disrupt sleeping patterns but can also damage retinal cells with prolonged exposure. This is because blue light penetrates all the way to the retina and an excess amount can potentially damage light-sensitive cells and prevent the production of melatonin, a hormone that helps control sleep patterns.
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Vivo unveils Apex 2020 concept phone with 120 degree curved display & no ports:
The Apex 2020 concept from Vivo has been teased long enough by the company and it has finally been revealed on the company website. It brings along lots of futuristic ideas and improvements to the table and may set some trends.The Apex is mostly made out of glass and there are no ports anywhere on the phone. The front of the phone has a 6.45-inch AMOLED screen which Vivo calls the “FullView” display. As seen from the renders, the screen completely wraps around the sides of the phone much like the curved screens on Samsung’s phones, but on steroids.
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HTC’s Wildfire series to make a comeback this year:
The original Wildfire series from HTC targeted the mid-range market and was hugely popular, especially the Wildfire S. Unfortunately, that was the end of the Wildfire series, as it was for HTC in the coming years.Trying to remain relevant among better options from competitors, HTC launched the Wildfire X last year in August. Now it looks like the series is here to stay, at least for now, as HTC has launched the Wildfire R70.
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Samsung launches the Galaxy Ion Notebook:
Samsung just held a launch event in China where they launched their Galaxy S20 series along with the new Galaxy Z flip. Both products have already been launched globally but what was not announced globally was the Galaxy Ion Notebook that Samsung kept under wraps until their event in China.The new notebook is built to be very thin, easily portable and lightweight. The Ion features a very premium metal build while still keeping the weight and portability in mind. The new color and finish are dubbed the Moonlight Silver finish and Samsung says that the hinge design has been inspired by classic bookbinding, which makes the whole opening and closing of the screen an “elegant experience”. The notebook weighs only 970 grams and has maximum thickness of 12.9mm.
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Vivo Z6 is official: quad camera, 5000mAh battery & more:
The Vivo Z6 has been heavily leaked already and Vivo itself was posting teasers on Weibo just before the much anticipated launch. Therefore, the design was pretty much known including some important specifications. Only the nitty-gritty details were left over until the launch. Today, however, Vivo has made the Z6 official in China and it comes packing impressive hardware for the mid-range market.The Z6 has a 6.57-inch panel with 1080 x 2400 resolution which barely breaks the 400 PPI mark. The Full HD+ display offers a 90.75% screen-to-body ratio (according to Vivo). On the top right corner of the display, there is a relatively small punch-hole camera.
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MediaTek announces its best mid-range processor yet:
MediaTek, without any pomp and show, just announced a new addition to its Helio family, Helio P95 processor, the successor to the MediaTekHelio P90. The chipset is not a drastic upgrade over its processor since it employs the same CPU architecture. However, it does come with improvements across GPU, camera, connectivity, and AI.The chipset is a single cluster octa-core SoC featuring 2x Cortex-A75 performance cores clocked at 2.2GHz, and 6x Cortex-A55 clocked at 2.0GHz. As far as the GPU is concerned, it comes with the PowerVR GM 9446 GPU, unchanged from the last generation. However, MediaTek claims that it now offers 10% better performance.
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Huawei P40 Lite arrives with an iPhone-like design:
Huawei has released the first member of is P-series dubbed the Huawei P30 in Europe. The smartphone is basically a rebranded Huawei Nova 6 SE that was launched as Huawei Nova 7i in Malaysia recently. The smartphone was originally launched as a part of the Huawei Nova 6 series in December 2019.The Huawei P40 comes with iPhone 11-like design elements. At the back, it has a similar squircle camera bump with a quadruple sensor camera. The fingerprint sensor is mounted on the side.
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
Amazon removes overpriced goods and fake cures:
Amazon has banned more than one million products which claim to protect against the coronavirus – or even cure it. The online retailer told Reuters it had also removed “tens of thousands” of overpriced health products from unscrupulous sellers. The World Health Organisation (WHO) expressed concern about some misleading Amazon listings earlier this month, including fake treatments.The virus, which causes Covid-19, has killed about 2,800 people worldwide.
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Plague Inc game banned in China:
A game which challenges players to spread a deadly virus around the world has been banned in China, its makers have said.Plague Inc. has been pulled from the Chinese app store for including “illegal content”, British-based developer Ndemic Creations said. It added that it is working “very hard” to find a way to reverse the ban.The bans comes as China continues to battle the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. In a statement, Ndemic Creations said: “We have some very sad news to share with our China-based players. We’ve just been informed that Plague Inc. ‘includes content that is illegal in China as determined by the Cyberspace Administration of China’ and has been removed from the China App Store. This situation is completely out of our control.
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How Pope Francis could shape the future of robotics:
It might not be the first place you imagine when you think about robots. But in the Renaissance splendour of the Vatican, thousands of miles from Silicon Valley, scientists, ethicists and theologians gather to discuss the future of robotics.The ideas go to the heart of what it means to be human and could define future generations on the planet.
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Tech Tent — does fake news about the coronavirus matter?
It has been this week’s biggest news story around the world and fears about the spread of the coronavirus have sent stock markets plunging. But rumours and misinformation about the disease have spread rapidly on social media – and on Tech Tent we ask whether this matters. As I found when I delved into various Facebook groups and scoured YouTube videos, people who believe in one conspiracy theory are often prone to finding others credible. So in groups set up by campaigners who believe vaccines or the new 5G mobile phone networks are a conspiracy against the public, you can now find posts accusing governments of engineering Covid-19 in a laboratory or that 5G has weakened people’s immune systems making them vulnerable to the virus.
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Google asked to justify Toronto ‘digital-city’ plan:
The “appropriateness” of Google’s sister company’s plan for a “digital city” in Toronto has been questioned. A panel set up to scrutinise Sidewalk Labs’s plan has asked it to explain what the benefits would be for citizens in collecting large amounts of data. The company wants to build a sensor-laden, eco-friendly neighbourhood with all the latest technology innovations.But it has faced opposition locally. A final decision on whether it can proceed is due next month.
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Clearview AI: Face-collecting company database hacked:
Clearview AI, a start-up with a database of more than three billion photographs from Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, has been hacked. The attack allowed hackers to gain access to its client list but it said its servers had not been breached.Most of its clients are US law enforcement agencies who use its facial-recognition software to identify suspects. Its use of images scraped from the internet has raised privacy concerns.
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Tim Cook says Apple’s first Indian store to open 2021:
Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook said the company would open its first physical stores in India in 2021 and a online outlet later this year.Apple had to seek special approval from the Indian government to open a store without a local partner. The announcement was made at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting.Investors at the meeting also voted on a proposal that the firm should alter how it responds when governments ask it to remove apps from its marketplace. Though the measure wasn’t approved, it failed by a slimmer margin then similar proposals in the past.Apple’s move into India, the second largest smartphone market in the world, has been expected for some time, but the announcement of a date was new.
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YouTube ‘not a public forum’ with guaranteed free speech:
YouTube is not a “public forum” that must guarantee users’ rights to free speech, a US court has ruled.The case involved right-wing channel PragerU, which argued YouTube was infringing its rights by “censoring” its conservative views.But judges decided that the US constitution’s First Amendment did not apply to YouTube, a private company. The landmark ruling by US judges could affect future cases involving freedom of speech online. The decision, by San Francisco’s Ninth Circuit appeals court, rejected the conservative news outlet’s claims that YouTube had breached the First Amendment by censoring its content.
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Etika mural becomes Pokemon Go spot in tribute to YouTuber:
Desmond ‘Etika’ Amofah was known for his love of Nintendo games.When the YouTuber died last year, aged 29, it sent shockwaves through the gaming community, with the term ‘Joyconboyz’ trending worldwide. The phrase, coined by Etika in reference to the Nintendo Switch controllers known as Joy-Cons, trended again on Tuesday, but this time for a different reason. The Nintendo fan had become part of a Nintendo game – Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go is a popular mobile game where people catch virtual Pokemon by walking around in real life.Now players in New York City will be encouraged to visit the Etika mural in Brooklyn which has become a ‘Pokestop’ – an in-game location which can be visited to receive bonus items.
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Protecting whales from the noise people make in the ocean:
There is a rising din in the oceans – and whales are having to struggle to compete with it.” They’re spending more time or energy trying to communicate… by essentially screaming at each other – what we would have to do at a nightclub,” explains says Mark Jessopp at University College Cork. Dr Jessopp was recently involved in a research project to study the effects of marine seismic surveys on animals such as whales and dolphins. He and his colleagues found a “huge decrease” in sightings of such species when the work was going on, even when accounting for other factors such as weather.