Islam & Pakistan! Technology & Me!
Technology
Report: Energize Pakistan
43 years ago
The Energy Crisis in Pakistan is serious. A competition was organized at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute in which our team presented this report that I am sharing with my readers here.
Abstract
Pakistan today faces a severe energy crisis with a shortfall that varies from 2000 to 5000 megawatts. Developing countries and emerging powers plan well in advance to not only ensure sufficient energy for the present but also for their future needs.
While alternative energy or ‘greener’ solutions are the talk of the hour – we in Pakistan need to understand the potential of utilizing our natural resources like coal and water for increased power generation apart from exploiting other sources like nuclear and tidal energy.
We, in this report, have tried to suggest a viable solution for today and plan for tomorrow to come out of the energy crisis at hand using all available resources.
Introduction
Pakistan’s power generation has been marred by complex socio-political and economic issues over the past several years. We are a naturally blessed country, with immense potential if we choose to utilize water for power generation. We are already late. It is now time to move forward and explore other area’s through which this crisis may be overcome.
In this report, we propose a comprehensive strategy discussing the use of the following power generation methods for Pakistan:
a) Hydroelectric power
b) Nuclear power
c) Power generation based on Coal
d) Green solutions for Pakistan (including solar, wind and tidal energy)
Nokia 5800 touchscreen
43 years ago
Nokia rattled the market with the launch of its first proper touchscreen phone, the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music. The phone was first shown in the Hollywood blockbuster, “The Dark Knight”. Available in shades of Blue, Black and Red; the phone truly is lovely aesthetically.
I admit I have only seen it with a friend as yet, but I have gone through detailed reviews of the phone (pictorials, video’s and written reviews) and spoken to my friend about his experience with it.
One of the best features of this phone is Nokia’s experiment with SIM loading. Nope. It’s not under the battery anymore. You can conveniently load the SIM in a tab on the side, just like memory cards are loaded.
The phone has a big 3.2 inch screen with a 360 x 640 pixel resolution. So if you’re fingers are big (or small), Nokia has taken care of it. You can be sure you won’t run into trouble with using the touchscreen interface. The icons are bigger, better.
The Music features have been enhanced, you can slide the phone a notch upwards for the music controls, which makes the phone look even prettier. It has a new and improved Media player and it seems as if Nokia has not given up on its plans to dominate the music/media player market.
The phone is perfectly 3G compatible. Yes, we’re still waiting for these services in Pakistan but anyway. It’s a good plus if you’re a frequent traveller abroad. The Nokia 5800 Xpress music supports 3.6Mbps HSDPA (my final year project is on the deployment of HSDPA in Pakistan) with obvious GPRS and EDGE support for backward compatibility and for the fact that countries like Pakistan are still dependent on GPRS/EDGE. Bundled with Bluetooth and WLAN (Wi-Fi) services, the phone is a gem for data usage.
With the Nokia 5800 Xpress music, Nokia has also improvised its camera interface. You hit a button and you’re ready to play ith the view finder. A 3.2 mega pixel camera supported by a Carl Zeiss lense, I could’nt ask for more.
The phone is priced at around USD 600 and is not officially marketed and sold in Pakistan. It is available through what are known as ‘Grey Channels’ at varying prices from Rs. 36,000 to Rs. 41,000 without proper warranty support.
Hope to see it soon in Pakistan. If you are a user of the phone or have seen/used it or have read about is pro’s and cons. Do share.
Mobile Money Order, Mobilink and Pakistan Post
133 years ago
Mobile-Commerce is still in its experimental stage in Pakistan. There are hardly a few services to be named in this domain. Mobilink, an ORASCOM Telecom company based in Pakistan, has teamed up with Pakistan Post to launch Pakistan’s first Mobile Money Order service.
Using the service, Mobilink subscribers can send and receive amounts of upto Rs. 10,000/- across the entire country via SMS. But it is not as easy at it seems. You still have to go to authorized Pakistan Post Office branches and fill out a form after which, within 24 hours, this transaction may take place between two Mobilink subscribers.
Nevertheless, I believe such initiatives should be appreciated and encouraged to enhance Mobile commerce in Pakistan. I would also suggest that this service be extended to all other Mobile operators in Pakistan.
Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammad Yaseen, also appreciated Mobilink’s innovative initiative at the inauguration of Mobilink’s new call center.
Energy Crisis and Pakistan
223 years ago
I found this amazing article, written sometime back in 2006, at the CSSForum and thought of sharing it here. It discusses Pakistan’s energy problems in detail. The article did not mention a specific author, however, it was posted by ‘humayun – the king’. So here it is:
Energy Crisis and Pakistan
An energy crisis is any great shortfall (or price rise) in the supply of energy resources to an economy. It usually refers to the shortage of oil and additionally to electricity or other natural resources.
The crisis often has effects on the rest of the economy, with many recessions being caused by an energy crisis in some form. In particular, the production costs of electricity rise, which raises manufacturing costs.
For the consumer, the price of gasoline (petrol) and diesel for cars and other vehicles rises, leading to reduced consumer confidence and spending, higher transportation costs and general price rising.
Future and alternative sources of energy
Some experts argue that the world is heading towards a global energy crisis due to a decline in the availability of cheap oil and recommend a decreasing dependency on fossil fuel. This has led to increasing interest in alternate power/fuel research such as fuel cell technology, hydrogen fuel, biomethanol, biodiesel, Karrick process, solar energy, tidal energy and wind energy. To date, only hydroelectricity and nuclear power have been significant alternatives to fossil fuel (see Future energy development), with big ecological problems (residues and water spending). Hydrogen gas is currently produced at a net energy loss from natural gas, which is also experiencing declining production in North America and elsewhere. When not produced from natural gas, hydrogen still needs another source of energy to create it, also at a loss during the process. This has led to hydrogen being regarded as a ‘carrier’ of energy rather than a ‘source’.
Phase 1 Complete: Evolution of 2.5G RAN towards HSDPA
33 years ago
We have been studying and planning the path towards deploying HSDPA, a UMTS/W-CDMA extension, in Pakistan. For those of you who are not aware of my Final Year Project, please Read this post first.
The first phase of our Final year Project ( for a Bachelor’s degree in Telecom Engineerng ) is complete, Alhamdulillah. Let me share the presentation with this post.
Click Here to Download the Presentation
More of this later… =)
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