Samsung Pakistan: This is How a Poor Facebook Admin can Embarrass Your Brand: ProPakistanis

We have seen blunders happening on official Facebook pages of multinational brands before (so often for Pakistani brands), when relatively inadequate Facebook page admins post updates/pictures without researching, or let me say by heavily relying on Google.

History repeated itself yesterday, when Samsung Pakistan uploaded an image on its official Facebook page with caption: “Picture perfect view made even more perfect with Samsung Galaxy S3”

Check below the screenshot:

Soon after the upload, comments started to come-in, with shouts that its not Galaxy S3, rather it appears more like a cousin of Galaxy Note. Complying with the commentators (apparently without researching), the page admin edited the caption and changed Title to “Galaxy Note”.

This was when someone tipped to Engadget that Samsung Pakistan has mistakenly uploaded the image of upcoming Galaxy Note 2.

Following is what Engadget wrote:

There’s one big reason to be skeptical, which is that this exact same pic already did the rounds as a potential GS III image before that flagship was launched. The only difference here is that it’s on an official outlet, which implies the jpeg in question could be sitting on a member of staff’s hard drive.

Story was naturally picked by the whole internet. The Verge was, however, able to settled the confusion by identifying that this was a concept design for Samsung Galaxy S3 posted on a Russian website.

Even worse, Samsung Pakistan updated following status, revealing that the mistake was on part of poor Googling – yes official page of Samsung Pakistan uses the mighty Google for its images. Check below yourself:

Acer Reveals the Touchscreen Windows 8 Ultrabook, the Aspire S7: ProPakistanis

It seems that companies are becoming more and more active in rolling out their Windows 8 products in the past couple of months and Acer is one of them.

They announced their Acer Aspire S7 ultrabook a month ago but its only now that they have unveiled the specs of this thing.

To start of, this ultrabook has an (optional) touchscreen, comes in 11.6 and 13.3 inch versions and runs on Windows 7 which will be upgraded to Windows 8. Since it will launch in the second half of September, Acer won’t be able to put Windows 8 in this ultrabook.

Here are the specs:

• 11.6 or 13.3 inch versions with full HD displays
• Thickness: 12.5 mm
• Aluminium unibody (with a glass lid on the outside of the 13 inch flavor)
• Screen moveable by 180 degrees
• Backlit keyboard and a trackpad with no physical buttons
• Windows 7 running but might be upgraded by Acer themselves
• Intel Core (Ivy Bridge) i5 processors(you can have core i7 for some more money)
• 4 Gb RAM coupled with 128GB of SSD storage
• micro HDMI port/ Thunderbolt port/ headphone jack
• 2 USB 3.0 ports and a full size SD card slot
• Acer’s new Twin Air cooling system for keeping the ultrabook cool
• 9 & 12 hrs battery life for the 11 & 13 inch models respectively
• Option for more RAM, SSD storage and touchscreen

Other than having a touchscreen (which is very rare for an ultrabook), Acer Aspire S7 has an exceptional design which puts it in the same class as the Macbooks from Apple (design-wise). The ultrabook will retail for $1465 or around Rs. 160,000 or more when it launch in September.

Ufone Exhorts Regaining National Glory: ProPakistanis

How good were those days when August 14th celebrations, with spirit for decorating our homes and streets and more, were easily the best in the year.

How splendor the feelings were then and so was the festivity throughout August.

August 14th meant high raising flags, green and white dresses, playing national songs (in high-volume), visiting monuments and places of national significance, meeting relatives, exchanging gifts, visiting recreational spots and what not. In-availability of public transport and traffic jams used to be other highlights of Independence day.

Not that it is all lost now, but those who have remained kids during 80’s, 90’s or before can count the difference in looks of the August celebrations.

This is exactly what is highlighted by Ufone in its recent TVC, specifically attributed for August 14th celebrations. Ufone has tried to link the spirits we had then for our national celebrations with current times and how this lack of enthusiasm during August has impacted our national performance. Ufone has ignited the right channel to put many hearts back on track.

Ufone has rightly pinched the need for Going Green, the need for keeping our flags strong and high for a badly needed comeback. Indeed this is the time when we need to recollect ourselves – to get our focus back to prosperity, triumph and to raise national integrity. Like Wasim Akram said in the ad:

Aaj Agar hum jhanda lehrana shuru karein gain to Shayyad hum dobarra gaarna bhi shuru kar dain gain.

Your Phone Camera has Probably Got More Pixels than NASA’s Curiosity Rover: ProPakistanis

If your phone has got a camera of more than 2 megapixels, then your phone camera is better than the cameras of the $2.5 billion Curiosity rover of NASA which recently landed on planet Mars days ago. Why? During a recent interview, the camera project manager of Curiosity, Mike Ravine said:

“These designs were proposed in 2004, and you don’t get to propose one specification and then go off and develop something else. 2MP with 8GB of flash [memory] didn’t sound too bad in 2004. But it doesn’t compare well to what you get in an iPhone today.”

And Mike is right. Cameras in phones weren’t very good then and took blurry images so a 2mp camera with 8Gb flash memory would’ve sounded great then. Furthermore, it was kept 2 megapixel (and not more) to make efficient use of bandwidth required to transmit images. Budget also played its role for the NASA to keep this camera at 2 MP.

Just in case if you are wondering, Curiosity Rover uses UHF transmitter for sending data to two spacecraft orbiting Mars, which relay the data back to earth at not more than 10 MB per hour. Understandably, this 10 MB per hour data is shared by various instruments including the 2 MP camera.

Compare that to today and even dumb-phones come with at least 3 megapixel cameras.

Smartphones with 8 megapixel cameras are considered flagships and anything less than 5 megapixels is unacceptable. We’ve even got a 41 megapixel smartphone, the 808 Pureview from Nokia. But really, those were the days.

Ufone to Give Away Free Minutes to Entire Customer Base on August 14th: ProPakistanis

ProPakistanis has reliably learned that Ufone has plans to gift its customers on August 14th this year, by crediting free minutes to its entire base of customers of over 24 million Ufone users.

Free giveaway of minutes to all its customers is also evident from below screen taken from Ufone’s Independence Day TVC.

We aren’t cent percent sure yet, but it is likely that Ufone will give away 14 free minutes to all of its customers – across the board – who will have to consume these free minutes the same day, i.e. August 14th. More, exact and official details are yet to come.

The extraordinary Independence day gift coupled with thought provoking TVC demonstrates Ufone’s commitment to the people of Pakistan and the fact that issue of governance do not reflect the innate talent of Pakistanis.

Ufone, this way, will give away some 336 million free minutes on its network, a hefty and daring gift that anyone could give away on Pakistan’s independence day. This is probably the only instance in the history of country that a telecom operator is giving away free credit to all its customer base.

We will recommend Ufone customers to avail these free minutes for wishing Independence Day to your friends and family and make this August memorable. How wonderful an experience and tradition it can evolve into. Ufone has germinated an idea, lets explore it further.