Category: Technology

Lahore ( NUT- Desk)

South Korean technology giant Samsung is expected to unveil two new foldable smartphones and a new smartwatch on August 11 (Wednesday). This will be the its second big product launch of the year.

Samsung, which was first to introduce foldable technologies in smartphones in 2019, will launch two new devices in the category – Galaxy Z Fold3 and Galaxy Z Flip3, according to industry insiders.

The company is also expected to introduce the S Pen stylus, the signature feature of the premium Note series phones, to the new foldable devices to attract more niche professional users. Samsung, which holds nearly 75 per cent of the foldable smartphone industry, currently offers three foldable models.

The IT and mobile communications arm at Samsung reported a 22.4 per cent quarterly decline in sales in the April-June period to 22.7 trillion Korean won ($20 billion), influenced by a “component supply shortage” in the industry as well as “production disruptions in its Vietnam factory”.

The company said it plans to achieve “solid revenue and profit by boosting the competitiveness of the product line-up with the launch of new foldable models and the expansion of mass market 5G phones”.

 

Samsung is unlikely to release its Galaxy Note series smartphones at the upcoming event to reduce production pressure on the company. Samsung usually issues its Note series, one of its best-selling models known for its stylus S Pen, in August every year.

The company is expected to launch its new smartwatch Galaxy Watch 4 that will come with a combined operating system from Google and Samsung. To challenge the dominance of Apple Watch, which has been the best-selling smartwatch for many years, Samsung has merged its Tizen OS with Wear OS.

Samsung will launch new Galaxy Buds 2 to compete with the likes of Apple’s AirPods and AirPods Pro. Being developed under the codename ‘berry’, the new buds will be able to connect to multiple devices at the same time, according to a report by TechRadar. They will be priced about $175, according to MySmartPrice.

New products will help the company to diversify its current portfolio and attract more customers while strengthening its premium line-up of electronic devices.

The IPO will be the largest since Interloop Ltd. raised about Rs5 billion in 2019.

Lahore (Nut-Desk)

Air Link Communication Ltd. plans to raise at least Rs5.85 billion ($36 million) through an initial public offering this month, which would be the largest from a non-state firm in Pakistan.

The Lahore-based company plans to sell new and existing shares at a price between 65-91 rupees each, Chief Executive Officer Muzzaffar Hayat Piracha said in a reply to queries. It will take investor orders on August 30 and 31 and then price the offering.

Pakistan has seen a record streak of IPOs this year. Air Link, which started operations about a decade ago and has since become one of the largest distributors of phones in the country, saw sales rise 50 percent to 3.6 million units in the year ended June.

The company plans to issue 60 million new shares and Piracha will sell 30 million from his holdings, said Kamran Nasir, CEO at JS Global Capital Ltd., consultant and bookrunner to the transaction.

Air Link, which has also recently expanded into mobile assembling, plans to use the funds to expand its distribution network. It aims to have 150 outlets by 2026 from 14 currently, which will boost margins together with the assembly business, said Nasir.

The company expects its revenue to triple to Rs129 billion rupees and net income surging 500 percent to 9.2 billion rupees by fiscal 2025 from 2020, according to Nasir.

Air Link has been in the distribution business for a decade working with top smartphone brands like Samsung, iPhone, Huawei, Xiaomi, Alcatel, TCL, Tecno & iTel. The production plant has the capacity to produce 6 million units per year.

It must be mentioned that the company has recently expanded into the mobile manufacturing facility in March.

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With smartphone companies consistently bringing new devices, brands are always striving to engage their young audience in their campaign strategies. Among these is TECNO that took the lead with the launch of the Camon 17 series in June. Equipped with remarkable features, the series includes Camon 17 and Camon 17 Pro. The brand brought an outstanding “Born to Stand Out” campaign with the launch to encourage youth to share their stories.

This #BornToStandOut campaign featured the emerging talents of Pakistan specializing in different areas. Through this, TECNO aimed to provide a platform for these young voices to reach the masses and become an inspiration for everyone. The brand engaged Mehak Gul, the youngest girl to hold the “World Women Candidate Master” title in chess. Pakistan’s youngest female footballer, entitled to be the best player in the Women’s Football Championship 2018, Rameen Fareed, was also included in this campaign.

Moreover, the #BornToStandOut campaign engaged two strong women Marina Syed, the first female stunt biker, and Anita Karim Pakistan’s First Female MMA Fighter, breaking gender stereotypes. Among these laudable women in the campaign, the rising athlete Ahmed ‘Wolverine’ Mujtaba was also involved. Mujtaba is one of the best martial arts athletes in Pakistan promising a bright future.

The most interesting part of the campaign was that TECNO encouraged its fans to share their inspiring stories. Being motivated by these courageous people, the young generation shared their talents and inspirational stories with TECNO. They showed the diverse talent of Pakistan and shared their struggles as well. Among these people was Farzana Rehna, whose story inspired many resulting in her winning the amazing Camon 17.

The Camon 17 and Camon 17 Pro had a lot of hype surrounding their release as the phones came with excellent hardware and software features at an affordable price. The Camon 17 Pro is equipped with a 48MP Clearest Selfie camera supporting a 64MP rear Quad camera paired with MediaTek Helio G95 processor, 5000mAh battery, and a massive 8+128GB storage. Whereas, the Camon 17 comes with a 16MP Selfie and 48MP triple camera with MediaTek Helio G85 processor, 5000mAh battery, 90Hz refresh rate, and 6+128GB big storage.

The Camon 17 is available in both online and offline markets. So, go get your new device to enjoy this exceptional experience. 

 

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) More great videos are uploaded to YouTube today than ever before. New formats are being created and new stars and artists are being born every moment. With more than 1,000 creators crossing the 1,000 subscriber threshold every single day worldwide, new talent is constantly emerging.

We want to celebrate these up-and-coming creators and help them build a bigger audience. Starting today, we’ll highlight creators who are “On The Rise” in a new section of our Trending Tab in Pakistan. Each week, a different creator will be highlighted and featured for a full day on Trending with the following badge: Creator on the Rise.  Any creator with over 1,000 subscribers is eligible to be featured.

“On The Rise” creators will be highlighted based on a bunch of factors including but not limited to view count, watchtime, and subscriber growth and will roll out to more languages in future. Our team is also involved in the process to help select which eligible creators will be featured. One creator will be highlighted each week; we’ll let them know when they are featured so they can share the moment with their fans, old and new! We hope this will help the world discover inspirational new creators.

PUBG MOBILE ANNOUNCES 6 MILLION PRIZE POOL FOR PUBG MOBILE GLOBAL CHAMPIONSHIP 2021 AFTER THE LAUNCH OF PUBG MOBILE WORLD INVITATIONAL

● The PMWI 2021 played host to four days of high intensity competition with Valdus Esports and Alpha 7 Esports taking down the best teams from their respective division to emerge victorious.

● The PUBG MOBILE Global Championship 2021 (PMGC) has also been announced to start in November with a $6 million prize pool, the biggest in battle royale mobile esports and one of the biggest in gaming history. Watch the full announcement here.

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) PUBG MOBILE and Gamers without Borders are pleased to share that Valdus Esports and Alpha 7 Esports have been crowned winners of PUBG MOBILE World Invitational 2021 (PMWI). After four days of exhilarating matches which saw the best teams from across the globe go head-to-head for a $3M USD charity pool, Alpha 7 Esports and Valdus Esports were crowned PMWI West and PMWI East champions respectively. On the last day of PMWI 2021, PUBG MOBILE also announced details for PUBG MOBILE Global Championship 2021 which will kick off in November with a total prize pool of $6M USD.

Lahore (NUT-Desk)

WhatsApp recently added a new feature that makes it easier for users to join group calls even after it’s started, solving a major problem for them.

Previously, if you drop off a group call someone has to add you back and it’s the same case with missing group calls in the messaging app owned by Facebook.

Now you won’t have to go through all that because the new WhatsApp feature lets you jump back into a call whenever, as long as the call is still active. The messaging app has also added a new calling UI which also improves the experience.

The new missed group call feature is available to all users on Android and iOS.

How to join WhatsApp missed group calls:

Open WhatsApp, and tap on the ‘Calls’ tab.

Here, you will find your WhatsApp call history.

If there’s an ongoing group call you will see the call highlighted.

Just tap on the call to join back.

You can do this if you’ve missed the group call or if you’ve dropped off a call.

Joining a group call on WhatsApp is also slightly different now. When you receive an incoming group call you can choose to ‘ignore’ or ‘open’ the group call.

If you tap on open the call screen will expand showing the list of participants and whether they have joined or not. You can also view the call participant list during the call.

Lahore (NUT-Desk- PR)

Google on Monday unveiled a new flagship Pixel smartphone powered by its first mobile chip to put artificial intelligence in people’s hands.  Pixel 6 models set for release later this year, with superfast 5G wireles capability, will debut Google’s own Tensor chip crafted along the lines of processors it made for data centers to enable computers to think more like people do.

“It’s basically a mobile system on a chip designed around artificial intelligence,” Google devices senior vice president Rick Osterloh said during a briefing at the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley.

“We’re really excited about it. We’re setting the stage to really grow the business.”

Google’s Pixel line has captured scant share in a global smartphone market dominated by Samsung, Apple and Chinese manufacturers. Pixel phones have been seen as a way for Google to showcase the capabilities of its free Android mobile operating system, setting a standard for other smartphone makers.

“We’ve always thought about our hardware products in the context of driving computing forward,” said Google chief executive Sundar Pichai.

“Our custom Google Tensor chip, which has been four years in the making and builds off of two decades of Google’s computing experience, does exactly that.”

The Pixel 6 hardware and software mix ramps up the smartphone’s ability to understand what people say in another step toward a future of “ambient computing,” according to Osterloh. The phrase refers to being able to access the internet or computing power conversationally at any time as portrayed in the 2013 science fiction romance film “Her.”

“It’s basically this notion that you should be able to naturally interact with computers all around you,” Osterloh said. “We see the mobile phone being the center of that for the foreseeable future.”

The smarter chip was also put to work improving photo and video capabilities in a nod to hot trends in sharing images and short-form snippets online, a demonstration showed. An array of sensors for photography are in a band on the back of the smartphone, with the Pixel 6 having a 6.4 inch, edge-to-edge screen and the Pro model being slightly larger.

The Pixel 6 release date and pricing were not disclosed.

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!