Telenor Gets Majority Stakes in VimpelCom, Drops Arbitration Claims

Telenor Group, in a latest development, has bought 234,000,000 VimpelCom preferred shares from Weather Investments for US$374,400,000, to increase its voting rights at VimpelCom from 25.01 percent to 36.36 percent and to become majority stake holder in VimpelCom, said a statement issued by the Telenor Group.
Just to recall, Mr. Naguib Sawiris and his family last year bought 29.63 percent stakes in VimpelCom through Weather Investments in exchange of Orascom Telecom.
Weather’s shares in VimpelCom, after this transaction, will come down to 18.28 percent.
In connection with this new buyout of shares, Telenor has withdrawn all its claims against Altimo Holdings & Investments Ltd., Altimo Cooperatief U.A. and VimpelCom in the pending arbitration proceeding, and will work to expand the VimpelCom Board to eleven members.
Check below the previous and present voting rights of various groups in VimpelCom:

It merits mentioning here that Mobilink is currently fully managed by VimpelCom, which is now majorly owned by Telenor Group, also the parent group of Telenor Pakistan, creating a potential situation for conflict of interest in Pakistan and Bangladeshi markets.
To put in simpler words, 5 out of 11 directors at VimpelCom board (who directly manages Mobilink) come from Telenor International, a group that also controls Telenor Pakistan.
This translates into a proposition according to which Mobilink and Telenor Pakistan will be owned by same group (Telenor International) at a parent group level.
The outcome can potentially form a cartel in Pakistan which may not be favorable for competitors such as Ufone, Warid Telecom and CMPak.
Though Competition commission of Pakistan had approved the deal, but this new transaction may arise new situation for the industry, especially when 3G auction is round the corner.
In a related news, Telenor wants to drop its Indian joint-venture partner Unitech after the Supreme Court revoked their mobile licences in the country and is seeking a new local partner. Telenor said it would seek indemnity and compensation from Unitech.
And Unitech has replied by threatening counter legal action.

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Pakistan signs pact with Google to promote tourist sites

Under the agreement, Google Inc will promote historical and tourist sites on the internet, particularly Google Maps, to promote worldwide awareness about Punjab Province's heritage.

Pakistani authorities and Google have signed an agreement to use Google Maps to promote historical and tourist sites across the country's most populous province of Punjab. The Punjab provincial government and Google Inc yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in  information technology at the Arfa Karim Software Technology Park in Lahore.
Under the agreement, Google Inc will promote historical and tourist sites on the internet, particularly Google Maps, to promote worldwide awareness about Punjab's heritage.
Punjab Tourism Department Secretary Allah Bakhsh Malik and Google Asia's William Fitzgerald signed the MoU as per a PTI report.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said access to the historical and tourist sites of Punjab through Google would promote awareness about modern and ancient Lahore and the province's historical and cultural heritage.
The Punjab government is implementing a programme on information technology and measures are being taken for the speedy computerisation of land records, he said.
Sharif urged Google Inc to extend assistance for this project.
"There are a number of projects of the Punjab government about which Google Inc can provide information to the people of the world," he said.
Fitzgerald said interaction between the Punjab government and Google Inc in information technology was a good beginning.

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PTCL raises DSL usage cap before extra fee is charged

Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) last week began charging its DSL broadband users PKR 5,000 extra if they cross the 300 GB download limit in a given month, Pro Pakistani reported. Previously, it charged customers PKR 1,000 for overshooting 50 GB per month. PTCL said it is notifying its customers by callin g and e-mailing them. The extra charge and the 300 GB cap apply to the 1 Mbps, 2 Mbps, 4 Mbps, 6 Mbps and 8 Mbps DSL services. The 10 Mbps, 20 Mbps and 50 Mbps services will not incur this extra charge.

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What's behind Nokia's ClearBlack display technology?

Nokia's ClearBlack Display technology has been announced in September 2010, and Nokia is using it in several phones (including the Lumia 900, Lumia 800 and older Symbian models such as the X7 and E7). We know that it includes polarizing filters to block incoming light. Today however Nokia finally revealed how it actually works:

A CBD filter includes both a linear polariser and retardation layers between the surface of your phone and the display. When light hits your screen, this is what happens:

1. It hits the linear polariser, this vertically polarises the light. (Polarising means – roughly – aligning the wave vibration in a particular direction).
2. Then it hits the circular polariser retardation layer. This converts the light again, making it right-circularly polarised.
3. Then it hits the screen and bounces off it, switching the rotation of the light to leftist.
4. It goes back through the retardation layer. When this happens, the light becomes horizontally polarised.
5. Finally, it hits the linear polariser, since the light is horizontally polarised at this point it can be blocked entirely by this optical solution.

So why doesn't the light from your phone’s display get blocked? Because it only goes through the second half of this journey so the light is unpolarised when it hits the final filter and goes through. In the photo below, we can see a normal C6-01 phone with a CBD display (on the left) and the same phone without the CBD layer (on the right):

Samsung also have a technology that reduces reflections - Super AMOLED displays which uses an on-cell touch layer. Apparently a Super-AMOLED and a CBD on AMOLED behave pretty much the same under direct sunlight.
source: Nokia's blog

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Australian farmer revolutionizes water-turbine technology

The Sundermann turbine "T3" prototype was tested in Hervey Bay, Queensland.

MELBOURNE — Fred Sundermann, an Australian farmer with a long history in design and innovations, has developed a bi-directionally low-head water turbine designed to maximize operational efficiency in slow water flows.

Turbines have been around for more than a century, but Sundermann Water Power (SWP) Limited (the business backing the technology) claims that the Sundermann Turbine (S-Turbine) is the most efficient in harnessing the power of water.

“The problem today is that all existing lo-tech turbine systems throughout the world are inefficient as such whereby the water that hits the blade flows either passes through or around the blade, thus making them inefficient,” SWP Chairman Mr Ed Gibson said in a video interview.

As detailed on the SWP website, the key to the turbine technology is in its gearbox and blade systems:

The turbine has a unique design in that its efficiency is achieved by the tilting of the power blades during the rotating cycle. The blades rotate half a revolution for each full rotation of the central shaft. This configuration allows each blade to contribute a unidirectional force to the central shaft, for virtually the entire rotational cycle. In this way they can efficiently utilize the kinetic energy of the moving water. The central shaft works the generator via a gearbox to produce emission free renewable energy. Electrical power is generated at a voltage of 690V.

The idea for a micro-hydro turbine system was first conceived by Mr Sundermann 10 years ago in Heyfield, Victoria. Later in 2006, he developed the first working prototype out of bike chains and although the turbine could only produced 1 KW of power, it proved that his design worked (see this video for a quick demo of the turbine in action).

The latest S-Turbine prototype, the T3, measuring 2.44 m high, 2.2 m long and 2 m wide, is made out of iron, recycled plastic and 2pac, a water resistant paint. SWP is currently investigating stainless steel options for future prototypes.

Last year, SWP tested the T3 in Hervey Bay, Queensland, to confirm that it was a fully functional turbine, with no inhibitors to the free rotation of the blades and gears while in operation.

The test was considered a success by the SWP, based on the proven operational functioning of the turbine, and it reaching, at times optimum performance for the fitted generators and consistently 70% of the generators maximum output.

The turbine was able to power three standard hot water system heater (elements) at a rate considered equal to that achievable with mains power in a typical household. It generated up to 6 KW of power with the ability to increase exponentially.

SWP has indicated that “The Sundermann Turbine is suitable for installations where water flow is either: in a single direction, such as rivers or ocean currents, or in tidal areas where the water flow reverses direction approximately every six hours.”

Running 24-hours a day, each turbine delivers up to 100 KW of power and multiple turbines can be combined to form a larger working unit, or ‘bank’ delivering up to 1 MW per bank.

“Scale them up to any size, if we have a big river, we can have them built into a weir shape; if there are big tidal differences, you can build them big. The blades are just doors virtually –- depending on the water floor,” Mr Sundermann said.

But there are some limitations to the turbine technology, namely its reliance on water flow and stable surfaces. “The water has to be 5 km of water speed, and the limitations are that we can’t put it in rivers with soft banks, it needs to have a solid base,” Mr Sundermann explained.

SWP indicated that the turbine is ideal for places with high rainfall such as Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile New Guinea and places in South-East Asia.

Portable and cost-effective, the water turbine is a particularly viable energy alternative for remote and isolated communities where infrastructure is not well developed.

“They are a plug-in power as they are dropped into a river stream and immediately start generating power that is free and renewable energy, and it lowers the use of diesel fuels, so we think we have fantastic potential for global application for that,” SWP Director Mr Leigh Benett said in an ABC Rural Report.

The SWP organization is currently going through the process of a Commercialization Australia grant and have reached stage two. Further testing of the turbine will ensure its reliability.

“We have proved it works, but we have to have it tested long term, so we know the bearings are OK and everything is right,” Mr Sundermann said. “We have to walk before we run, and we have to perfect the little ones before we get the big ones going,” Mr Sundermann said.

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Little genius Star Arfa Karim , daughter of Pakistan

Born in Faisalabad, Pakistan, the little Arfa Karim was only 5 when she first came across these strange white “boxes” in her school which later she knew were computers. “When you push a button, something magically appears on the box” said Arfa.
After she persuaded her father to buy her one, Amjad Karim –who serves with a U.N. peace making force in Africa, began to notice his young daughter’s extraordinary “technical” talent, that’s when he convinced APTECH –an advanced computer institute near their home- to enroll her as a student for she was still too young to apply.
In 2005, the people at the institute amazed with her unique aptitude, informed her father that Arfa might actually be in a position to seek Microsoft certification; and after only four months of hard work and dedicated study –over summer- the little girl genius passed the exam for developing Windows applications! A process that would’ve normally taken a year to accomplish.
Being the youngest person to ever obtain this certification –Arfa was certified at only 9 years of age- she got the chance to fly to the USA and meet Mr. Gates himself.
Arfa took the Microsoft people there by surprise with her wit, intelligence, and even audacity.
During her one-on-one with Bill Gates, she talked about lots of things, asked him many questions, such as why there weren’t much women working at the company, she thought the number of male and female employees should be equaled , she also asked him why they wouldn’t hire someone her age. She also made no secret she was surprised with the dress code there as she thought they’d all be in suits, and dropped the bare truth that meeting Gates fallen only second to Disneyland on her list of the things she wanted to see in America.
Following that encounter, Arfa was regarded as a celebrity in Pakistan and was held as an icon and a role model! Pakistanis celebrated her everywhere, and took pride of her.
Arfa expressed her dream of going to Harvard University or MIT to complete her studies in order to become a developer or a satellite engineer.
Unfortunately, the little genius won’t be able to fulfill her dream, for Arfa Karim, Pakistan’s pride, died at the tender age of 16 after an epileptic seizure that left her in a coma back in December, and eventually led to a cardiac arrest in early January that sent her soul to heavens.
Arfa karim may be gone, but never forgotten. May god rest her soul!

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Mauhib Iqbal a 13 year old Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) from Pakistan

Mauhib Iqbal of Pakistan is a 13-year-old child, an O-Level Student at Beacon House School at Karachi, has achieved MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) from Microsoft in .Net Framework 4.0 (computer programming) with 98.4%. He is also awarded with the title of “Charter Member” by Microsoft Corporation.

 

 Mauhib is the youngest child achieving this certificate and award from Microsoft on .Net 4 technology. He is currently teaching at Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology on week-ends for the students of programing. He has been awarded with a gold medal for this achievement by his school. He also attended Open Door Event of Microsoft and Visual Studio Loadfest event at Microsoft Innovation Center. He is expert in designing websites and web applications, and also expert in developing Windows Form Applications.

 

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