Thursday, February 28, 2008

Sindhi SMS & Multilingual Online Dictionary unveiled

Cross-posting from Tech Lahore

The University of Sindh at Hyderabad recently unveiled a number of interesting projects developed by its faculty and students. The projects were showcased at an exhibition inaugurated by Dr. Rabia Sheikh, the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University. Three of our favourites were:

1) A multilingual software dictionary that includes English, Urdu and Sindhi translations; this is a good addition to online tools that are relevant for millions of Pakistanis. We need more of them. We talked about street maps in a recent post, well, we need them all. Multilingual email, better Pakistan-centric VoIP services, multilingual dictionaries… bring ‘em on!!

2) Sindhi language SMS applications for mobile phones; this one is particularly important now that the mobile phone penetration has reached over 55 million users in Pakistan. Local language support will greatly enhance the usability and usefulness of technology.

3) Digital display boards with embedded GSM/GPRS control modules; this again shows how inexpensive technology can be used to solve what were previously pretty substantial problems. You can plop one of these billboards anywhere in the city and remotely manage the content it displays… without laying any physical wires or bothering to connect the system up to a copper phone line. [More...]


ScitechWire is an online S&T publication put out by the Pakistan Science and Engineering Foundation, also referred as PakSEF that is a non-profit 501(c)(3) California based organization -- http://paksef.org


Friday, February 22, 2008

Pakistan Blocks/Bans YouTube!

There's an old (from our youth :p) Bollywood song that goes "Main ro'oon ya hansoon; karoon mai kyaa karoon?!" or "Should I cry or laugh; To do, what do I do?"

Users subscribing to the Internet though the PTCL (Pakistan Telecom Corporation Limited, the semi- or formerly-government-owned corporation), in particular, have been getting the following message today if they tried to access YouTube:


--------------
Dear Internet Users

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (www.pta.gov.pk)has directed all ISPs of the country to block access
to www.youtube.com web site for containing blasphemous web content/movies.

The site would remain blocked till further orders from PTA. Meanwhile, Internet users can write to
youtube.com to remove the objectionable web content/movies because this removal would enable
the authorities to order un-blocking of this web site.

Best Regards

Manager
Technical Assistance Center
Micronet Broadband Pvt. Ltd.
Islamabad
-------------


For background, see:
http://wadiwallah.com/blog/
http://siliconstani.blogspot.com
http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2008/02/22/youtube-blocked-in-pakistan/
http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2008/02/22/vote-rigging-videos-in-karachi-could-this-be-why-youtube-is-blocked/
http://www.kidvai.com/windmills/2008/02/last-laugh.html

Copyright C. PakSEF and iFaqeer 2002 - 2008

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Member of the Month: Nasa Scientists from Pakistan

By M. Khalid Rahman, DAWN Staff Reporter

IT is not every day that you come across a Pakistani scientist who has worked for the United States space agency Nasa. A noted physicist who has taught and trained thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians, Dr Bashir A. Syed was here in Pakistan recently.

Now in his late sixties, he is as alert and active as he was in his younger years. He travels the world over to give lectures and make presentations on harnessing renewable energy resources and designing solar, wind and water energy projects.

Bashir Syed is vice-president, R&D, EnerTech Enterprises based in Houston, USA. He is a well-known physicist who has worked for Nasa and other research organizations for decades.

An alumnus of the DJ Sindh Government Science College, he taught there when Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was a student.

In the United States he attended some of the most prestigious universities. He has been a Fulbright scholar, and a Nasa scholar. His first job was with the Rockwell International Science Centre where he worked on Support US-EPA Contract for Air Pollution Monitoring through Remote Sites.

He also worked for Control Data Corporation where he trained engineers in mainframes/miniframes and digital computer design. Then he joined General Electric where he was involved in microelectronics (design and fabrication of CMOS-SOS ICs, Ga-As monololithic), microwave ICs (MMICs), EW systems, phased array antenna design, optronics, and formulation of a military standard (MIL-Perf-38535) for procurement of ICs, SPICE Commitee and NSRE Commitee.

Bashir Syed has also worked for Nasa support corporations such as Ford Aerospace, Loral Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Science Applications International Corporation. All of them support International Space Station, the space shuttle, manned space programme for Mars, Deep Space Probes, etc.

During his stay in Karachi, Dawn Sci-tech World talked to him. When asked how he got involved in the Nasa work, Mr Syed said that “in 1989 General Electric where I worked decided that they no longer wanted to be in military business, and laid off scientist and technicians engaged in that field. One day, I received a call from a Nasa contractor and was offered a job. It was to support the building of International Space Station.”

Mr Syed played a major role in the project from the design phase till the construction phase. He also participated in the Space Shuttle Modification Programme “since the shuttle had developed some faults and the system had become very old.”

An interesting project Mr Syed worked on was development of the space probes. Since he is a specialist on cosmic radiation, he was in charge of space radiation effects on the space ship and its components.

“As you can understand, the equipment sent out in the space is badly damaged because of the radiatin to which it is exposed. Thsi readiation comes from the sun as well as cosmic rays. My job was to teach the negineers how to mitigate these effects so that this problem does not occur and if it does, how to rectify it.”

Mr Syed was also a member of the radiation safety committe which not only took care of the instruments and gadgets exposed to radiation but also effects of radiation on engineers and technicians who handled them.

He got retired in September 2002 but before his retirement did some research in recently emerging microtechnology, especially the carbon nanotubes.

“The carbon nanotubes are much stronger than Kapton, the material used in bulletproof vests.

Equipped with the knowledge that he gained from his job with the space programmes, he launched a business with three colleagues. His company provides ways to harness solar and wind energies. It is engaged in designing solar energy panels and working on projects related to solar heating as well as cooling systems.

“Right now we are involved in two major projects: one is on a small island off the coast of Tanzania where there is no electricity. They have asked us to prepare feasibility study that would eventually help in setting up a wind farmin order to provide electricity to a stadium.

“We are also working on another island in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Croatia. Over there too we have been asked to set up a wind farm.”

He believes that wind farms and solar energy are the right solutions to meet the power needs in Pakistan.

“There are two reasons for that. One is that by relying on fossil fuels we are increasing atmospheric pollution globally. As a result, earth warming is taking place. This is no fiction any more but a reality. In order to minimize that effect Pakistan has been given at least 20 million dollars from the United Nations Environmental Fund under the Kyoto Protocol.

“In addition, the Asian Development Bank has given funds to Pakistan to interdict renewable energy technologies. Moreover, fossil fuels are depleting and becoming more and more expensive.

“On the other hand, we have natural energy sources that are recyclable all the year round. For instance, the sun is always there five to eight hours a day. Of course at some places the sun is more suitable while at others the wind is the right choice.

“We are preparing feasibility studies in coastal areas such as Karachi and Gwadar where there is a lot of wind. At these places, big windmills can be set up successfully. At others, where the wind velocity is low, small wind mills should be set up to meet specific needs. A big windmill can generate three to four megawatts of energy.”

Can you estimate how big a windfarm would be needed to meet the power needs of a city the size of Karachi?

“Karachi’s electric supply cannot be entirely met with wind energy. The city already has fossil fuel power plants as well a nuclear power plant. The Alternate Energy Board in Islamabad has estimated that almost ten per cent of Karachi’s electrical energy needs can be met with renewable energy sources.”

Is it viable to use wave energy or geothermal energy for electric power supply?

“The wind energy and geothermal energy can be harnessed with very advanced technologies which are available only in developed countries.

“As for solar energy, it would be astounding to know that the Earth receives as much energy from the sun in one day which would suffice the needs for all the inhabitants of the planet for seven days.

“Solar cell technology is changing so rapidly that silicon solar cells which are most expensive to produce are being replaced by copper cells whose technology is being developed in France. Although the solar cells produced from copper only have a ten-year life, the difference in cost is considerable.’

About the ongoing debate on whether Pakistan needs big or small dams, Mr Syed said: “You don’t have to build huge dams and can rely on small dams wherever there are waterfalls. The technology is called micro-hydroelectric technology. This type of dams have been built successfully in China.”


Reprinted from http://DAWN.com.
All rights owned by DAWN Group of Newspapers.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Pakistani S&T Expats on VoA

Recently the Voice of America broadcasted, in Urdu a round table session with select Pakistani Science and Technology expat professionals, and students in the United States.

On the show, five personalities were portrayed, all of whom provided anecdotes about studying and working in the United States. While at the same time offering valuable advice to prospective foreign students aspiring to pursue higher-studies.

Dr. Deen Aslam (Professor, Michigan State University, EE Dept)
Syed Raghib Hussain (co-founder/VP, Cavium Networks)
Owais Mughal (Editor, Pakistaniat.com)
Saad Kaisar (PhD Canditate, Michigan State University)
Sabahat Ashraf (Sr. Technical Writer, Cavium Networks, also blogs at http://ifaqeer.com)

Click to listen to the VoA Program

Copyright C. PakSEF 2002 - 2008

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Effects of Fibre Outage through Mediterranean

A recent study at Stanford was conducting regarding the recent Internet outage in much of the Middle East, and India.

Interestingly, Pakistan to the most part wasn’t affected as much as other countries in the region. This is also mentioned in study as a tribute to Pakistan , quoted below.

It is interesting that some countries such as Pakistan were mainly unaffected, despite the impact on neighboring countries such as India . This contrasts dramatically to the situation Picture (Device Independent Bitmap)in June - July 2005, when due to a fibre cut of SEAMEWE3 off Karachi , Pakistan lost all terrestrial Internet connectivity which resulted, in many cases, in a complete 12 day outage of services. This is a tribute to the increased redundancy of international fibre connectivity installed for Pakistan in the last few years. [More...]

Click for Stanford Study


Copyright C. PakSEF 2002 - 2007