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Google’s product search features have been optimized for use on Android handsets and now Google has just revealed how Android might just be the killer phone operating system. Websites, like Google Product Search, can offer ‘intents’ that allow for interaction between websites and mobile applications.

If you go to Google Product Search on an Android phone you can click ‘Scan Barcode’ and the browser will call Android asking for ‘barcode’ intents like Barcode Scanner and ShopSavvy. Just click on the one you prefer and presto you have launched a barcode reader. Barcode Scanner sends you to the Google Product Search page.

The PTA, after a series of negotiations, has finally issued the minutes of the meeting held between the ISPAK (Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan) and the PTCL on 5th May 2009 in which it was decided that the ISPs will be free to buy Internet bandwidth from third party operators and would be allowed to link their optical fibre cable to one PTCL exchange per city. The PTA has also decided that the PTCL will not increase charges of its leased circuits used by the DSL operators for inter-exchange bandwidth only for the next year.

The PTA has reserved a judgment on settling the DSL wholesale and retail prices of the PTCL and committed to resolve this long outstanding issue within a month. Pakistan has come a long way from the early days of Internet in 1990s with only one submarine cable connecting the country with rest of the world. The country today has three submarine cables linking Karachi with Southeast Asia, Europe and North America named as SWM3, SMW4 and TWA, first two with the PTCL and the third with a private operator. The total Internet bandwidth to the country stands at around 18 gigabytes, growing at around 45% every year for the last three years.

Perhaps part of this can be explained by this post about Pakistan’s economy.

Omantel and Qtel also made some impact, though its not likely to be as large.

The technology leaders and decision makers of telecom industry attended the event. The Chief Technical Officer of Huawei Technologies Mr Li Ke was the guest of honor. In addition Ch. Irfan (CTO Warid), Dr. Tanveer (CTO Zong) and Mr. Mian Zulqarnain Amir, Secretary Information Technology joined the event. Minister of Education, Mian Mujtuba Shuja-ur-Rahman was Chief Guest.

The Vice-Chancellor, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore said that UET has been playing its major role in the academia and industry of Pakistan. To step up its contribution towards the telecom industry, UET joined hands with Huawei technologies, China. As a result, Huwaei UET Joint telecom IT Centre was established in the university premises. In 2003, Huawei provided UET its latest GSM equipment that was worth 3million USD. And now in 2008, Huawei has provided the latest high-tech GSM/GPRS equipment that makes the centre worth 8.3 million USD in full amount. He also said that Huawei Center is providing a platform to Engineers for their trainings and practice on the equipment which they cannot perform in the field. The centre also strengthens the industry-academia relation by offering different training courses to the students of engineering universities all over Pakistan. This way HUTIC proves to be a great learning opportunity for the students as well as professionals at a national level. It is a symbol of Pak-China friendship.

Mr. Ikram ullah Qureshi, Telecom Businessman congratulated the efforts of UET, Lahore and Huawei Technology China in setting up this joint venture. He said that the Huawei-UET joint Center is a win-win strategy for Huawei and UET, Lahore as it provides access to latest technology to students of UET and other universities and a world class facility for Huawei engineers and customers.
The Chief Technical Officers of main Telecom Industries of Pakistan also highlighted the importance of technology in education sector and academia-industry collaboration. They emphasized the need of greater research opportunities for the bright engineering students of Pakistan and that the Huawei-UET joint center is an important step towards achieving this objective.

CEO of Universal Service Fund, Parvez Iftikhar informed that two new projects of Universal Service Fund are being awarded. One is to provide optic Fiber connectivity to 5 un-served Tehsils of Balochistan (Dasht, Noshki, Dalbandin, Mashkhel and Taftan, touching also the cities of Dringar, Ahmadwal, Nokundi and Chaghi). He added that a subsidy Rs. 374 Million is being provided to Wateen Telecom for laying 900 kilometers of Optic Fiber Cable to these Tehsils which have a population of around 335,000. Second project, he further informed, is to provide basic telephony and data services in unserved areas of Larkana and Shikarpur districts. 72 muzas with a population of 165,000 will benefit. Subsidy of Rs. 228 Million is being provided to PTCL for this project.

Google has been working with books for a while. I like the trend of bringing books to the mobiles. Right now the collection is very small but I think it has immense potential for learning and spreading knowledge in a scalable way. There are already some people in Pakistan who are working on cool Urdu applications – may be they can adapt the new trends and combine them with their research?

Google launched mobile versions of more than 1.5 million public-domain books, available on iPhones and Android phones. Google Book Search already supports a huge library of scanned books, which can be searched and read online if they’re in the public domain, or previewed if they’re still subject to copyright. But the company says that the existing versions of these books (images of scanned pages) didn’t work well on mobile devices.

The (new) technology allows Google to automatically understand the structure of the book–headers, paragraphs, and in-line illustrations–so that it can be reformatted for mobile devices.

But what particularly sets the system apart is its scale. The mobile versions of these books are full of small, clever touches. For example, the system loads up the next few pages of a book in advance, reducing lag time when the user turns the page.

This video shows the transformation from the silver screen to the FOURTH SCREEN as he says is all about the paradigm shift. Soon cell phones will no longer be ‘cell phones’. Personal computing is transforming to mobile computing which will make your internet personal.

The device from Nokia that does it all -the N97- will launch in Pakistan next month. Stay tuned to get its sneak peak before its actual launch.