These days a term “New Media” is used almost everywhere. But only a few people actually know its meaning. “New Media” means to encompass the emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies in the later part of the 20th century. Most technologies described as “new media” are digital, often having characteristics of being manipulatable, networkable, dense, compressible, and impartial.

People around the world are taking advantage of new media. It is the most effective, fastest and easiest way to communicate with other people around the world. Social networking sites like Facebook, video streaming sites like Youtube and blogs all fall into the horizon of new media.

The traditional media have been covering and reporting about the events occurring in Indian administered Kashmir for years now. But for last two years, the people have started reporting events on their own, utilizing the new media. Young men using camera mobile phones are recording events all around Kashmir and sharing captured videos and pictures on sites like Youtube.

According to these men, by doing this they are gathering evidences against the Indian Army about their inhumane treatment with the innocent people. And so far they are quite successful. One of the most famous videos shared was shot by Adnan, a 15 years old boy in which aftermath events are shown of the killing of a mobile phone salesman Tanveer by a bullet in year 2008. The video was viewed more than 50,000 times in just a few day after its upload.

By the way, this type of reporting is termed as Citizen Journalism. People of Kashmir are communicating their messages with the rest of the world utilizing digital publishing. A group of youngsters which is highly involved in these reporting term it as ‘Cyber Protest’.

Shazia Yusaf, a student of media and communication in the University of Kashmir says: “Last year curfew was imposed in the city and the Indian media restrained from reporting the ongoing events. At that time these youngsters recorded all the events and shared the videos with the rest of the world by uploading them on Youtube.”

The youngsters involved in ‘Cyber Protests’ say that they are trying to archive the present world on Youtube so that they can show it to their upcoming generations. We can only wish and pray for these youngsters who are fighting for the freedom of Kashmir.

A student recording a public protest on his mobile phone.

Mother of Shaheed Tanveer holding his portrait.

Via BBC Urdu

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Indian Home Ministry is apparently set ready to give security clearance to Telenor Group for hiking its stakes in Unitech Wireless up to 74 percent, but that comes with a condition that none of the staff who have worked in Telenor Pakistan will be employed in India.

Read complete story from The Economic Times

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Mobinil, Telecom Egypt and Vodafone Egypt have submitted their respective bids to acquire Link Egypt, Broadband unit of Orascom Telecom. According to OT’ CEO, Khaled Bichara, two other unnamed firms have submitted bids before the deadline, which may include Etisalat, as perceived by analysts.

Orascom had announced in February 2009 to sell out 100 percent stakes of Link Egypt, in order to focus on primary Telecom business.

Earlier reports had clued that Link Dot Net Pakistan will be part of this sale out; however, strategic merger of Link Dot Net and Infinity contradicted the phenomenon.

Bichara said five firms had already completed due diligence on Link Egypt, and that OT and consultant EFG-Hermes would begin examining the bids.

Via Wireless Federation

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Millward Brown, a subsidiary of the WPP, has come out with its annual list and report, BrandZ, that ranks the most valuable brands in the world.

China Mobile, Chinese Telecom Giant, that has its existence in Pakistan through CMPak (Zong), is rated as world’s 7th most valuable brand with total value of US 61.2 billion dollars.

Here’s the top 25 list and a screenshot of the top 100 below:

1. Google ($100 B)
2. Microsoft ($76.2 B)
3. Coca-Cola ($67.6 B)
4. IBM ($66.6 B)
5. McDonalds ($66.5 B)
6. Apple ($66.1 B)
7. China Mobile ($61.2 B)
8. GE ($59.7 B)
9. Vodafone ($53.7 B)
10. Marlboro ($49.4 B)
11. Walmart ($41 B)
12. ICBC ($35 B)
13. Nokia ($35.1 B)
14. Toyota ($29.9 B)
15. UPS ($27.8 B)
16. Blackberry ($27.4 B)
17. HP ($26.7 B)
18. BMW ($23.9 B)
19. SAP ($23.6 B)
20. Disney ($23.1 B)
21. Tesco ($22.9 B)
22. Gillete ($22.9 B)
23. Intel ($22.8 B)
24. China Construction Bank ($22.8 B)
25. Oracle ($21.4 B)

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The Egyptian operator Orascom Telecom deeming the deal of selling the part of shares in MobiNil to France Telecom as null and void after the French incumbent failed to meet the deadline.

France Telecom has been unable to complete the transfer of funds on time, making the court’s ruling null and void, which had ordered Orascom to transfer its stake in French telco.

Orascom said there are no talks under way with France Telecom to conclude the deal.

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Computer engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are bringing the minimalist approach to medical care and computing by coupling USB-based ultrasound probe technology with a smartphone, enabling a compact, mobile computational platform and a medical imaging device that fits in the palm of a hand.

William D. Richard, Ph.D., Washington University Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and David Zar, Washington University Research Associate in Computer Science and Engineering, have made commercial USB ultrasound probes compatible with Microsoft Windows Mobile-based smartphones, thanks to a $100,000 grant Microsoft awarded the two in 2008. In order to make commercial USB ultrasound probes work with smartphones, the researchers had to optimize every aspect of probe design and operation, from power consumption and data transfer rate to image formation algorithms. As a result, it is now possible to build smartphone-compatible USB ultrasound probes for imaging the kidney, liver, bladder, and eyes, endocavity probes for prostate and uterine screenings and biopsies, and vascular probes for imaging veins and arteries for starting IVs and central lines.

Both medicine and global computer use will never be the same.

“You can carry around a probe and cell phone and image on the fly now,” said Richard. “Imagine having these smartphones in ambulances and emergency rooms.” “On a larger scale, this kind of cell phone is a complete computer that runs Windows. It could become the essential computer of the Developing World, where trained medical personnel are scarce, but most of the population, as much as 90 percent, have access to a cell phone tower.” “Twenty-first century medicine is defined by medical imaging,” said Zar. “Yet 70 percent of the world’s population has no access to medical imaging. It’s hard to take an MRI or CT scanner to a rural community without power.”

Shrinking the electronics over 25 years

Zar said the vision of the new system is to train people in remote areas of the developing world on the basics of gathering data with the phones and sending it to a centralized unit many miles, or half a world, away where specialists can analyze the image and make a diagnosis. Zar wrote the phone software and firmware for the probes; Richard came up with the low-power probe electronics design. He began working on ultrasound system designs 25 years ago, and in that span he has shrunk the electronics from cabinet-sized to a tiny circuit board one inch by three inches. A typical, portable ultrasound device may cost as much as $30,000. Some of these USB-based probes sell for less than $2,000 with the goal of a price tag as low as $500.

Another promising application is for caregivers of patients with Duchene’s Muscular Dystrophy. A degenerative disease that often strikes young boys and robs them of their lives by their late 20s, DMD is a degenerative disease for which there is no cure. The leading treatment to slow its progression is a daily dose of steroids. Patients often experience some side effects to steroids, which are dose related. These side effects include behavioral problems and weight gain. Researchers now know that physical changes in muscle tissue can indicate the efficacy of the steroids. Measuring these changes in muscle can be accomplished with ultrasound and may allow researchers to optimize steroid dosing to maximize efficacy while minimizing side effects. “The idea is that caregivers, who otherwise have to transport a young person often wheelchair bound to a hospital or clinic on a regular basis for examination, can be trained to do ultrasound to track muscle condition,” Zar said. “This could lower the dosage to the least effective amount to further increase quality of life of the patient and the caregiver and hopefully extend life. We’re really excited about this application. The caregiver would only have to do a one-minute scan, transfer the data captured to the clinic, and the results would come back to the caregiver. A group at the Washington University Medical School studying Duchene’s Muscular Dystrophy is very interested in our devices and hope they can incorporate them into their research plans.”

Field trials in the Third World

Richard and Zar have discussed a potential collaboration with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about integrating their probe-smartphone concept into a suite of field trials for medical applications in developing countries. “We’re at the point of wanting to leverage what we’ve done with this technology and find as many applications as possible,’ Richard said.

One such application could find its way to the military. Medics could quickly diagnose wounded soldiers with the small, portable probe and phone to detect quickly the site of shrapnel wounds in order to make the decision of transporting the soldier or treating him elsewhere on the field.

Richard and Zar demonstrated a fully functional smartphone-compatible USB ultrasound probe at Microsoft Research Techfest 2009 in February, and Zar presented the technology at the 2009 World Health Care Congress held in Washington, D.C., from April 14-16.

Originally Posted on Cellular News

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Asia-Pacific mobile subscriber growth dropped down by 21 percent in the fourth quarter 2008, with Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines hit particularly hard, reports Business Week, citing a report prepared by Informa Telecoms and Media, a research firm.

Research report suggests that this was lowest growth rate in seven quarters, and the trend has been witnessed throughout the region with somewhat similar manner.

The region’s operators added just 68.7 million new subscribers, the researchers said. Some of the fastest-growing mobile markets – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines – were hit particularly hard.

Moreover, globally, subscriptions fell 15% to 162 million in Q4, and growth also slowed markedly in Europe, North America and Latin America, Informa said. The quarter is usually the strongest in the year because of the Christmas holiday.

The global recession is the main factor in the slowdown, but market saturation also contributed. By the end of 2008, there were just under 4 billion active mobile subscriptions globally – a 58% penetration rate, Informa said. EMEA, where the penetration rate is 38%, proved relatively resilient.

[Via Business Week]

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As we are praising our free incoming and free messages, others are busy in innovation and service quality. Recently Telecom Asia Awards  2009 were conducted and Pakistan was not there in single category. We have to show our strength in Asian region and then beyond.

Normally, we compare different services in terms of money or number of subscribers and not in terms of quality. We have seen telecom operators bringing something new in our market but these services are already there abroad. We haven’t seen our local telcos bringing new product & service to this industry but rather adopting them from abroad. This trend is also seen in terms of Price plans as well.

Here is the list of the winners of this auspicious ceremony..

• Telecom CEO of the Year: Terry Clontz, StarHub (Singapore)
• Best Asian Telecom Carrier: Orange Business Services (France)
• Best Broadband Carrier: StarHub (Singapore)
• Best Carrier India: Bharti Airtel (India)
• Best Emerging Market Carrier: Excelcomindo – XL (Indonesia)
• Best Managed Services Provider: Orange Business Services (France)
• Best Mobile Carrier: Excelcomindo – XL (Indonesia)
• Best New Technology: Apple Corp. for Apple Store (USA)
• Best Satellite Carrier: Asia Satellite (Hong Kong)
• Best Wholesale Carrier: Pacnet (Hong Kong)
• Ovum Telecom Innovation of the Year: Vodafone Australia for Vodafone Business One
• Ovum Best Telco Transformation: Bharti Airtel (India)

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Police in Brazil have intercepted two homing pigeons which had been trained to carry parts of mobile phones to prison cells, where the handsets were later assembled by the prisoners. The trick of training pigeons to carry contraband into prisons is not a new idea in Brazil and has been used several times in the past few years.

In the last case, the pigeons were found near the prison with cloth sacks tied to their backs containing the electronics components, as shown by police representatives to Globo television after they were caught outside Danilo Pinheiro prison.

[Via Cellular News]

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Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH) has reported a 76 drop in full-year net profit to US$431 million, after one-off gains a year ago were stripped out. Excluding the one-offs, which had included the sale of its operations in Indonesia and Iraq, the firm posted a 7 percent rise in its full-year results.

Full-year revenues rose by 13% to US$5.33 billion while net debt stood at US$5.1 billion at the end of the year.

Naguib Sawiris, Chairman and CEO of OTH, commented on the results: “2008 demonstrated the strong resilience of our business in increasingly volatile and challenging global economic conditions. Most of our businesses, with the exception of Pakistan, have achieved their target in terms of growth and profitability. In Pakistan the difficult political, economical and financial conditions combined with the dramatic devaluation of the Pakistani Rupee have negatively impacted the strong performance of the rest of the group.”

Looking ahead, he added: “2009 is a challenging year with economic growth slowing further across the globe. The markets in which OTH operates will suffer from the economic downturn but probably less so than the more mature and developed economies as a result of lower penetration levels and limited fixed-line coverage which will ensure the mobile remains the key communication means for large portions of the population.”

“In 2009, we believe that all our markets, except Pakistan, will continue to show robust performance.”

The total subscribers reached the 78 million mark, up 11% over 2007, driven by strong growth in Egypt, with five million net additions in the year exceeding the 20 million subscriber mark, and Bangladesh, which added over three million customers to reach 10.3 million subscribers.

Pakistan subscriber growth was negative as a result of the combined effect of the adoption of the new 90 day validity regime and stringent registration policies that forced all operators to disconnect those customers that did not register their personal details within the set deadline. The introduction of a service tax on mobile services in Pakistan further reduced market uptake thereby reducing the number of gross additions. Subscriber growth in Algeria in Q4 08 was also negatively impacted by the mandatory disconnection of unidentified customers

Capital expenditures in 2008 were in line with the previous year. In Bangladesh we have continued to invest extensively in the roll-out of the network, while capex in Pakistan was mainly related to capacity and coverage. In Egypt a significant portion of investment was dedicated to the roll-out of the 3G network, which was launched in September. Capex in Algeria in 2008 was lower than the previous year mainly as a result of the time lag between the purchase order cycle and the accounting recognition of the capex.

The firm didn’t reveal any details of the subscriber base in its new North Korean network, save to note that they expect the business to become EBITDA positive in the first year of operation thereby significantly reducing the need to inject equity going forward.

Complete Annual Report can be downloaded from here (Right Click and Select Save Target As – 360 KB PDF File)

Via [Cellular News]

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