Dedicated cargo scanner machines have been installed at Torkham Border Terminals by the National Logistics Cell (NLC) to scan the import and export cargo vehicles between the crossing point of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
All vehicles of Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) will go through scanning. The practice of scanning is being carried out by the NLC round the clock to facilitate Customs in the timely clearance of import and export vehicles.
The scanning at Torkham has resulted in the seizure of foreign currency worth millions of rupees and a huge quantity of arms and ammunition, gold, narcotics, and smuggled electronic gadgets that were handed to the officials of concerned government departments at the spot.
To control the movement of contraband and illegal items, cargo scanning is considered as the most effective tool.
Government has given an approval to private companies for the provision of high-speed internet in the under-served areas of Balochistan and Sindh.
The Federal Secretary of Ministry of Information technology (MoIT), Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui chaired the 73rd board of directors meeting regarding Universal Service Fund earlier this week.
The board approved contracts to Jazz — Pakistan Mobile Communications Limited (PMCL), Zong — China Mobile Pakistan (CMPAK), and Ufone — Pakistan Telecom Mobile Limited (PTML), for the provision of next-generation internet.
Jazz Telecom has been awarded the contract of Ghotki, Zong is going to work in Jaffarabad, Sohbatpur, and Nasirabad district under the contract. In contrast, Ufone is being awarded the agreement of the Ziarat and Kalat region. The worth of this Sustainable Development Projects is Rs. 895 million in total.
According to MoIT, Jazz is going to provide high-speed internet to about 2 million citizens residing in Ghotki, Sukkur, and Khairpur district. The approximate area that is going to be covered is 23,252 square kilometres.
Similarly, under the contract, Zong is going to offer a high-speed broadband connection to 0.4 million people living in the Jaffarabad, Sohbatpur, and Nasirabad district. The approximate area covered via this contract is 3,431 square kilometres.
Ufone will serve a speedy Broadband connection to a population of 17,406 in the Ziarat and Kalat region of Baluchistan. According to the contract, the telecom company is going to cover approximately 64 square kilometres.
Other officials that attended the meeting are Maj Gen Amir Azeem Bajwa, the chairman of PTA, NITB CEO Shabahat Ali Shah, Telenor Pakistan CEO Irfan Wahab, PTCL CEO Rashid Khan and Consumer Association of Pakistan Chairperson Kaukab Iqbal.
Google is using its huge Android Operating System (OS) to create a worldwide earthquake alert system. This will create the world’s biggest earthquake detection network.
If you sign up for the new initiative, your Android phone will become a mini-seismometer using the built-in accelerometer, and the system will eventually warn people of earthquakes.
Google is working with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) to send alerts to Android users in California. This new earthquake detection system is based upon the existing alert system that uses signals from 700 different seismometers.
“The public infrastructure to detect and alert everyone about an earthquake is costly to build and deploy. We saw an opportunity to use Android to provide people with timely, helpful earthquake information when they search, as well as a few seconds warning to get themselves and their loved ones to safety.”
Marc Stogaitis, the Software Engineer at Android
Google will gradually roll out earthquake alerts to more states in the US and then to other countries around the world. Since every smartphone has an accelerometer, they can detect signals that can indicate an imminent earthquake.
Once a phone detects an earthquake, it will send location data to Google to point out where the earthquake took place. Google will then use data from numerous devices to determine the epicentre of the earthquake. Google hopes to make its earthquake data more accurate and will eventually release it for Google Search as well when people look up earthquakes.
The update for earthquake detection will be rolled out using Google Mobile Services (GMS), meaning that a full OS update will not be required. It also means that phones without GMS such as Huawei phones will not receive the feature.
PUBG is hosting an exclusive Independence Day event for Pakistani players as a token of appreciation for all the love and support shown by the local players.
To compete in the event, players will have to complete two matches in classic mode or kill 5 enemies in the arena.
As they score, they will be rewarded points and will go along a map lined up with several tourist spots in Pakistan such as Chitral National Park, Badshahi Mosque, Noor Mahal, Clock Tower, and many more.
There are special rewards for the exclusive event as well. There will be new royal passcards to collect exclusive outfits, parachutes, bag skins, and much more.
The exclusive Pakistani event is to celebrate the 74th Independence Day. The game was unbanned in the country recently.
PUBG got banned last month due to controversy regarding its addictive behaviour. When it was banned, Prime Minister Imran Khan started receiving endless tweets speaking against the ban. Soon after, the Islamabad High Court gave orders to unban the video game.
The Japanese giant Toshiba has sold its final shares of the company, which means that the firm is no longer connected with making PCs or laptops.
Sharp corporation bought 80% of Toshiba’s personal computing shares in 2018 for $36 million and has now bought the remaining shares, Toshiba said in a statement.
Toshiba made its first laptop, the T1100, which was launched in 1985. It weighed 4kg (8.8 lbs) and worked with 3.5 inches (8.8cm) floppy disks.
The laptop was launched only in Europe at first with an annual sales target of 10,000 units.
In 2011, Toshiba sold more than 17 million PCs but by 2017 this had fallen to 1.9m.
In 2016, it had ceased making consumer laptops for the European market and focused only on hardware production for businesses.
Recent years have been difficult for the company. In 2015, the firm posted a full-year loss of $318 million.
That same year its president and vice-president resigned after an independent panel found the company had overstated its profits for the previous six years.
In 2019, it wound up its nuclear business NuGen in the UK after failing to find a buyer for it.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, Toshiba was among the top PC manufacturers, but as more players crowded into the market and with fewer unique features to offer, Toshiba’s laptops faded in popularity.
By the time it sold its stake to Sharp, Toshiba’s share of the PC market had decreased from its 2011 peak of 17.7 million PCs sold to about 1.4 million in 2017, according to Reuters.
FAW Motors has just announced that they will introduce Bestune cars for the mid-tier socio-economic segment of Pakistan.
Bestune, as of right now, has 8 vehicles in its product lineup, 4 of which are sedans, and the remaining 4, are Crossover Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs).
Various reports suggest that Bestune shall be making an entrance by introducing the T77 Crossover SUV in the Pakistani Market.
The T77 is a compact crossover SUV that was launched in November of 2018 at the Guangzhou Auto Show. Since its launch, the car has only been sold in the Chinese market.
In terms of engine, the car is equipped with 1.2 litres turbocharged inline 4-cylinder petrol engine that makes 141 horsepower, 204-newton/meters of torque, with a 6-speed manual or a 7-speed automatic gearbox transmission.
In the latest version, the buyers can opt for a 1.5-litre Turbocharged-Gasoline Direct Injection (T-GDI) inline 4-cylinder petrol engine, that makes 166 horsepower and 258-newton meters of torque, with a 6-speed manual or a 7-speed automatic gearbox transmission.
On the inside you are greeted with a high-end interior, a modern Mercedes Benz like single-screen infotainment system and instrument cluster, intelligent connectivity technologies such as Bestune radio, AI music, smart entertainment, as well as intelligent control function.
Other Features
Among other features, the SUV comes with:
Autonomous parking
Driver and passenger seat airbags
Parking sensors
Lane departure warning
Lane keep assist
Collision warning
Blind-spot monitoring
Adaptive cruise control
Hill-start assist and descent control,
Traction control
ABS brakes with Electronic Brake-force Distribution (EBD) and Brake-Assist (BA) Technology
Reports of a much bigger and better T99 SUV to be launched in Pakistan are also floating but nothing has been confirmed yet.
The company is making cars that are affordable yet modern, comfortable, and reliable. Since then, the company has mainly been operating in the Chinese and Russian Markets, where they have earned a decent amount of popularity.
Amazon is forming a team to establish Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Pakistan to drive the adoption of cloud computing. Amazon has also registered a local office under the name Amazon Data Services Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd.
According to the Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) database, the Pakistan office is led by Paul Andrew Macpherson as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), while Shoaib Munir is a director.
A spokesperson from Amazon shared that the technology leaders are currently seeking a public policy specialist with a focus on driving AWS cloud computing solution adoption in Pakistan. The role focuses on removing regulatory and political blockers to cloud adoption.
Whenever big companies enter small markets, it is common practice for them to appoint an advisor on public policy. When Bytedance, the parent company of Tiktok entered Pakistan, they hired Hassan Arshad to work with Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on policy infrastructure.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) directed banks to utilise cloud computing technologyunder the condition that systems and service providers shall be located in Pakistan along with all physical servers and services.
Under this rule, AWS would need to set up its data center and cloud server in the country.
According to the e-commerce policy framework of Pakistan, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication is in the process of formulating Pakistan’s first cloud policy, while the Draft Data Protection Act is at an advanced stage of consultations.
AWS hopes to work with relevant government departments in Pakistan as they develop and revise policies related to the digital economy, including cloud-first policies, data protection regulations, outsourcing guidelines, cybersecurity policies, tax policy, and over the top regulations. They will also proactively build relationships with key policymakers, politicians, and influencers.
The finance wing of the Punjab Police has presented a comprehensivefinancial management software to stop corruption and embezzlement of funds in police accounts.
Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) helped in the development and installation of the software. This kind of software has not been deployed before in any state-run department in Pakistan.
The software will monitor the budget of Rs119 billion that is allocated to police annually. The initiative was taken keeping in view the previous mega scams of corruption in police accounts when the district accountants had withdrawn funds worth hundreds of millions of rupees and misused them for personal gains.
Recently, a similar scandal has embarrassed Punjab Police when an inquiry panel of senior police officers proposed disciplinary action against a senior officer following a mega scam of Rs340 million in the accounts of the traffic police department.
With this new software, the accounts will be made online, giving access to the Regional Police Officers (RPOs), District Police Officers (DPOs) and the Finance wing at the Central Police Office (CPO) to keep monitoring of the funds withdrawn by the accountants of the concerned districts.
Meanwhile, according to a police handout, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Punjab, Shoaib Dastgir said that police station is a basic unit in police department and officers should play a supervisory role for improving working and prestige of this basic unit so that problems of citizens may be resolved by the timely provision of justice.
After negotiations with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), TikTok has not only upgraded its ‘Community Guidelines’, but also released its Urdu language version for Pakistani users.
The platform is now localised and will work as per the local laws and norms. The new Community Guidelines provide general guidance about “what is and what is not allowed” on the platform to keep it a safe place for joy and creativity.
TikTok has taken measures to remove content that violates the Community Guidelines and suspends or banned accounts involved in severe or repeated violations. (this sentence needs a little more clarity)
TikTok has an in-app reporting feature for users to flag potentially inappropriate content or accounts to the management of the platform.
These measures demonstrate TikTok’s commitment to removing any potentially harmful or inappropriate content reported in Pakistan.
The content moderation is performed by deploying a combination of policies, technologies and moderation strategies to detect and review problematic content and accounts and implement appropriate penalties.
After receiving complaints that some of the so-called funny videos being uploaded at TikTok are immoral, obscene, vulgar, and even hurt sentiments of respectable citizens, PTA issued a warning to TikTok on July 20.
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has launched aninvestigation against the online platforms that were selling sacrificial animals this Eid.
Majority of complaints filed are about late delivery of meat, lesser meat quantity, and in some cases, the meat was not even delivered. There are also complains that the animal meat got stale to the point where it became un-edible.
A few weeks before Edi-Ul-Adha several meat brands, cattle farm owners, and regular businesses set up their website offering multiple services regarding the Eid.
Among them, the lowest-ranked online Eid services providers are Meat Master, ARY Sahulat Bazar, and Laal Meat. The online platforms offered the substandard facilities to the users and did not deliver what it promised the users.
The Deputy Director of Crime Cell Abdul Ghafoor said that after receiving hundreds of complaints, the unit finally decides to conduct a thorough investigation.
Iftikhar Shalwani, the Commissioner Karachi, has advised FIA to take stern action against such companies along with the others which will be deciphered fully after the investigation.
Earlier, the government has urged the citizens to avoid going to the cattle market and buy cattle online to curb the spread of COVID-19.
It was not the first time when online platform became an option for the selling and purchasing of the sacrificial animal it has been done for years.
