Lahore (NUT-Desk)

Alter, a Lahore and London-based startup, auctioned Pakistan’s first NFT meme ‘Friendship ended with Mudasir’ from Gujranwala for 20 Ether or $53,171 on Sunday.

“It is a life-changing moment for the creators,” Alter’s Co-founder Zain Naqvi said.

“Friendship ended with Mudasir: Now Salman is my best friend” is a famous Pakistani meme, probably the first one that went viral on the internet in 2015.

The meme was posted by Muhammad Asif Ali Rana. He posted a photo with his friend on his Facebook account. Both of them were shaking hands. The image had bold and colourful text that read,

The original post, which showed Mudasir’s crossed images at the bottom, received 10,000 shares. The meme “Friendship Ended with Mudasir” spun various iterations, from showcasing the internal conflicts of characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars to the battle for YouTube dominance between Indian Media Giant T-series and Youtuber PewDiePew, to American politics showcasing the transfer of power between the Democrats and the Republicans. The simple meme from the lads from Gujranwala has global admiration and resonance.

The meme was auctioned on Foundation, the world’s largest platform for NFT listings, Zain Naqvi, Alter’s Co-founder told SAMAA Digital. The minimum bid price was 1 Ethereum token or $2320 (at 2:44 pst on July 29). It sold for 20 Ether. Ether is trading around $2562 at 9am on Aug 2.

NFTs are digital codes linked to blockchain technology. It is stored on a decentralised public ledger that certifies any digital file to be unique. They are digital identifiers that can’t be copied.

Think of an NFT as fingerprints that are unique. They have become increasingly popular tool because of their use cases. For example, they have created an entirely new digital art industry worth more than $1b by solving the biggest problem artists faced: copying.

In March, artist Mike Winkelmann, who goes by Beeple, sold the world’s first virtual NFT artwork for $69m at Christie’s, a famous auction. Earlier this week, Polish influencer Marta Rentel sold her emotions through NFT (a digital token) for $250,000.

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir)

realme, the world’s fastest-growing smartphone brand, will introduce Android’s first magnetic wireless charging MagDart ​​on realme Magnetic Innovation Event on Tuesday, August 03 at 12:00 PM UTC (05:00 PM Pakistan Standard Time).

MagDart will be the world’s fastest magnetic wireless charging, bringing magnet wireless charging to a fast charging era. The first Android magnetic wireless charging smartphone, realme Flash, will be unveiled at the event. Besides, a series of MagDart accessories will together build a promising magnetic ecosystem together with the realme Flash and the MagDart chargers.

The launch event will be held online on realme official social media platforms like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook also.

realme has always been bringing leap-forward technology to global young users. In July 2020, realme introduced the world’s leading 125W SuperDart Charge. MagDart will bring magnetic wireless charging to a new speed era. Stay tuned!

Lahore (Nut-Desk)

Google is biggest platform for searching every kind of quires and information around the globe. In fact if somebody says, we are living in Google Era, It will be perfect and for assistance of its users, google always starts new features. Another such feature will enable the users about reasons behind the search results and now people googling queries will now be able to click into details such as how their result matched certain search terms.

Alphabet’s Google will now show its search engine users more information about why it found the results they are shown, the company announced recently. It said people googling queries will now be able to click into details such as how their result matched certain search terms, in order to better decide if the information is relevant.

Google has been making changes to give users more context about the results its search engine provides. Earlier this year it introduced panels to tell users about the sources of the information they are seeing. It has also started warning users when a topic is rapidly evolving and search results might not be reliable.

Lahore (Nut-Desk)

A proposal to revise the criteria for release of additional spectrum to telecom companies has been turned down by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet. The ECC has decided to auction the additional spectrum in line with the past practice and complete the auction by the end of September 2021.

It observed that recommendations of the committee, headed by the adviser to prime minister on institutional reforms and austerity, did not cover exchange risk and payment in installments by the operators. The economic decision-making committee had considered recommendations of the committee for “Release of NGMS (Next Generation Mobile Services) Spectrum in Pakistan for Improvement of Mobile Broadband Services amid Covid-19”.

The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication informed the economic decision-making body that another committee on payment terms for spectrum price/licence fee in Pakistan had also deliberated on the “Issues of Cellular Mobile Industry for Digital Enablement”.

The IT ministry requested the ECC to approve the policy directive for the auction of NGMS spectrum in Pakistan. The ECC was also requested to deliberate and decide on the recommendations given by the committee on the issues facing the telecom sector for digital enablement.

During the ensuing discussion, the IT & Telecom Division informed the economic decision-making body that recommendations of the committee, headed by the adviser to prime minister on institutional reforms and austerity, were different from the policy directive for the auction of NGMS spectrum whereas the policy directive was in line with the past practice.

The ECC considered the summary, submitted by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, and decided that the ministry should ensure completion of the auction process by the end of September 2021 in line with the past practice.

 

Lahore (NUT-Desk)

Pak cabinet approved new spectrum policy for auction of additional mobile networks (spectrum) across the country including Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir so that the people of these areas could also have better mobile phone and internet facilities.The decision was taken at a meeting of the federal cabinet presided by Prime Minister Imran Khan.

After attending the meeting , IT Minister Aminul Haq briefed that the cabinet had approved the auction of additional spectrum across the country for 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz frequencies. He said the base price for 1800 MHz frequency was set at $31 million per MHz while the price of 2100 MHz frequency will be $29m per MHz.

The report highlighted that increased access to spectrum would result in enhancing the outreach of telecom services, hence, greater tax receipts for the government, which could offset the perceived loss in government receipts due to rationalization of spectrum prices.

GSMA’s 2020 report on Pakistan pointed out that the country had assigned significantly less spectrum to the operators compared with many developed Asian markets and several neighboring countries.

In the region, only Nepal has assigned lesser spectrum to mobile services and Pakistan’s mobile industry is one of the most spectrum-deprived in the world due to higher pricing if compared with the return on investment on the resource.

Mr Aminul Haq said following the cabinet decision his ministry would issue policy directions after which the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) would hold auction of the new spectrum in 35 to 45 days. He said the PTA would ensure transparency and fair play in the auctions.

Lahore (NUT-DESK)

National Information Technology Board have developed official messaging app for Govt. employees entitled “ Beep Pakistan” in an effort to switch the internal communication from the Whatsapp or other such applications.

 It aims to escape for sharing and leakage of official information so that official conversation may not cause of cyber attack due to leakage of official information.

The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has made it mandatory for the government officials to use indigenous messaging application, Beep, once it is launche

In a series of tweets, Minister for IT& Telecom Syed Aminul Haque said thah the application has been developed and it will be launched after it completes its test run.

It has been divided into 2 phases, inthe 1st phase up to 20 thousands Govt officials would be responsible for making the decision about it.

In the 2nd phase, Beep Pakistan app will be accessible to the remianing officers of Govt. Employees.

Initially, the app will only offer chatting and voice calling features, and with the passage of time video call feature will also be available for official communication. Minster added.

Lahore (NUT-DESK)

Social Media platform Twitter reported higher revenue growth than Wall Street had expected, as the social media platform rolled out ad targeting improvements to help brands reach potential customers. Shares of Twitter rose 5% to $73 in trading after the bell.

Since the start of the year, Twitter has raced to introduce products in new areas like audio-only chat rooms and newsletter publishing in an effort to turn around years of business stagnation and reach its goal of doubling annual revenue by 2023.

Advertising revenue totaled $1.05 billion, up 87% from the year-ago quarter, and beat Wall Street estimates of $909.9 million.

Twitter has worked to improve the effectiveness of its ads, introducing 2,500 new topic categories during the quarter to help users find content they’re interested in, all of which provides more ad targeting data back to Twitter, the company said on a conference call with analysts.

“We get great signal about what people are most interested in, where they are or the places they care about,” said Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal during the call.

Those improvements, along with higher demand from advertisers seeking to reach consumers as countries reopen from pandemic restrictions, helped propel ad revenue, Twitter said.

The strong results from both Twitter and its tech peer Snap Inc (SNAP.N), which reported quarterly revenue growth of 116% on Thursday, shows “that the overall digital ad market is on fire right now, with the reopening further strengthening advertisers’ budgets,” said Ygal Arounian, a research analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Twitter reported 206 million monetizable daily active users (mDAU), its term for users who are served advertising, for the second quarter ended June 30, matching analyst targets of 205.9 million users, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Its U.S. user base declined by 1 million over three months from the previous quarter due to a lighter news cycle in the United States, Twitter said, with total users worldwide in line with Wall Street targets.

Total revenue, which also includes revenue the company earns from data licensing, rose 74% year-over-year to $1.19 billion, beating analyst estimates of $1.07 billion.

FUTURE INVESTMENTS

The San Francisco-based company now expects headcount and total costs and expenses to grow at least 30% for the full year, up from its previous guidance of 25%, as it invests in its engineering and product teams.

Chief Executive Jack Dorsey, a longtime proponent of bitcoin, said during the earnings call the digital currency “is a big part” of Twitter’s future and could be used for ecommerce transactions on the platform or to tip popular content creators.

Twitter added that new privacy controls that Apple Inc implemented in April, which are designed to limit digital advertisers from tracking iPhone users without their consent, had a lower-than-expected impact on revenue in the second quarter.The full impact of Apple’s changes have yet to be seen, and some concerns still linger, Arounian said.

Twitter forecast third quarter total revenue to be between $1.22 billion to $1.3 billion, roughly in line with or slightly ahead of consensus analyst estimates of $1.17 billion.On an adjusted basis, Twitter earned 20 cents per share during the second quarter, well above the estimate of 7 cents.