Chowrangi

eRepublik is increasingly popular browser-based text-game among political enthusiasts. eRepublik tries to replicate real world’s social and political environment in a virtual world, referred as “eWorld.”

On registration every player picks a country of citizenship. Once they have selected the country they want to serve, they start as new born baby in the game. Object of every new born citizen is to find a job to work and train in the country’s military by going to Training Grounds every day.

I just don’t know why so many people wanted to play this game again and again. Perhaps some people call it childish game or a clone of Barn buddy but I must say it is infatuation. I have seen people of different age groups playing this game with the similar interest as a child could have.

Who would have guessed—in an age of quickly advancing technology—that one of the most admired online games would be about good old fashioned farming? May be Social gamers do have some sort of special connection to civilization’s roots.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has launched the largest data center in Pakistan, the first of which will be located in Karachi.

Daily Times, apparently publishing a press release, notes that this data center is engineered using the same rigid specifications, consistent with international standards and data center certification bodies and is enabled with technologies that proactively manages and enterprises mission-critical applications for predictable and continuous performance.

The PTCL Data Center is protected from intrusion and failure with multi-layered security, fail-safe redundancy, diversity measures, and rapid response recovery measures.

Google has announced its newest push into the social media incursion in the form of Google Buzz. It is a social networking tool which enables the Gmail users to share updates, photos, videos and more. It sounds like an imitation of the features of the most popular Social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

Gmail is the third most popular Web-based email in the world with 176.5 million users worldwide. Google has fallen behind Facebook, facing a tough competition after Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed.

Almost all the cellular companies in Pakistan are offering attractive late night call packages that are quite popular perhaps for the reason that they are easy on the pocket. One of the reasons of fame for such packages is that they help people in making nationwide calls and talk with relatives or friends for hours and hours easily. On the other hand cell phones nowadays have become fashion statement and symbol of independence for our youth that mobile phone helps them to develop their own language and social groups away from the snooping eyes of their parents. It is privacy and not mobility that matters.

Amid rampant grievances of consumers against telecommunication service providers, finally PTA has launched a new service which would enable a mobile users in Pakistan to know all SIM connections details issued against their names by just sending their CNIC number to 668 (The ID card number should be written without “-” and space). The sms will cost only Rs. 2.30.

This would help in detecting real identification of a SIM user. This new service is part of PTA efforts to block all illegal SIMs and clean the data of the mobile phone users.

Following is a response to a letter by Mr. Wahaj us Siraj, Convenor of Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (ISPAK), to Mrs. Nergis Sethi, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Dear Mr. Wahaj us Siraj,

You have written this letter to the Secretariat of The Prime Minister. For the record Prime Minister himself is responsible for:

The controversy of Dawood Public School has apparently ended, with school confiscating the objectionable content and a truce being called between parents and management. However, it seems that Google has not yet forgotten the days of commotion and uproar.

Under the dynamic leadership of its “CEO”, DPS has got a website (which was under construction since last few years). The management also got into a habit of updating the website regularly, a commendable act if used to propagate positive news.

On August 31, 2009, the website of Dawood Public School had an announcement,

A senior scientist and DRDO representative at Pokhran II has admitted for the first time that the May 1998 nuclear tests may not have been as successful as has been projected and also emphasized the need for India to conduct more tests to improve its nuclear weapon programme. The Indian security establishment on Thursday reacted with dismay to suggestions by top nuclear scientist K Santhanam.

India conducted five nuclear tests at the Pokhran test range. Three of them were conducted on May 11 and two on May 13, 1998. The team which conducted tests was headed by Rajagopala Chidambaram and the Device was developed at the Defence Research and Development Organization or DRDO’s Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory.

ITCN 2009, or 9th ITCN Asia Exhibition and Conferences, held at Karachi Expo Center during August 11-13. While this year’s event missed the fanfare and crowd of ITCN 2008 (last year), it had its share of one-timers testing out what could be termed as Pakistan’s version of GITEX.

I visited ITCN on the last day. Here are my observations:

• Due to lack of floor map/exhibitors’ directory either at venue or on ITCN Asia web site, it was difficult to navigate around the halls.
• Major sponsor of ITCN 2009 was Ras Al Khaimah Free Trade Zone (RAK FTZ) authority. As they were looking to attract more investors to recession-infested UAE and Ecommerce Gateway (organizers of ITCN) wanted a sponsorship, apparently it was a win-win deal for both.