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The move is to help improve delivery service of online shipped goods in China
By Michael Kan
IDG News Service (Beijing Bureau)

BEIJING (01/19/2011) â€" Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is investing US$1.5 billion in building warehouses with the aim of reducing the time it takes for people to receive items bought online.

Alibaba has grown to become the e-commerce leader in China, with it’s Taobao.com business the country’s largest online retailer. This month Taobao reported it has 370 million registered users, more than double what it had in 2009.

But the explosive growth threatens to strain the shipping and logistics business in China. “E-commerce in China is growing too fast, and exceeds the physical capacity of logistic companies in China,” Alibaba Chief Strategy Officer Zeng Ming said at a press conference Wednesday.

Facing this bottleneck, Alibaba is looking ahead and wants to grow the logistics industry. The company and its financing partners will commit between $3.01 billion to $4.52 billion in the next three to five years in logistics development. Alibaba hopes this first stage of funding will then lead its other partners in e-commerce to invest, bringing the total amount to $15.05 billion.

“Ten years from now, we hope that anywhere in China if you buy online, the longest you will have to wait is eight hours for your goods,” said Alibaba CEO Jack Ma at an event detailing the company’s strategy.

On the information technology side, Alibaba aims to improve the quality of delivery service with an online supply-chain management platform. Merchants that use Taobao can better streamline the way their products arrive to consumers via the site.

While Taobao has 370 million registered users, the company still has room to grow. Official figures released on Wednesday report that China now has 457 million Internet users, adding 73 million new users during 2010. The figure is expected to grow as more rural residents get access to the Internet.

Alibaba stressed that the investment in the warehouses does not mean that the company will start directly managing shipping, or begin delivering goods. “We never said we are a dot-com company. From day one, we always said we are a service company,” Zeng said. “We are only leveraging Internet technology to help SMEs and entrepreneurs in China to grow. We will do whatever is necessary to make the e-commerce in China move forward.”

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PTCL EVO Wins Best Consumer Choice Award

By Mehwish Khan · Thursday, Jan 20, 2011 0 Comments

Pakistan Telecommunication Company LTD (PTCL) has won Best Consumer Choice Award 2010 for its product “EVO”, claims a statement issued by the company today.

statement says that Pakistani consumers have chosen EVO as a recipient of, Consumers Choice Award in the category of Best Wireless Broadband.

Federal Minister Makhdoom Amin Faheem presented the shield to SEVP South Abdullah Youseff in Karachi.

The Consumers Choice Award is celebrating its 6th successful year in the country.

PTCL President and CEO â€" Walid Irshaid, while acknowledging this achievement, stated:

PTCL understands the changing dynamics of the telecommunication sector and is working towards foreseeing our customer’s needs and fulfilling them.

The selection of EVO in the category of Best Wireless Broadband in Consumer Choice Award for ‘2010’ is an acknowledgement of that.

EVO 3G Wireless Broadband is Pakistan’s fastest on the double wireless internet offering its customers superior, venerable, advanced and a cutting edge 3G internet experience with its unprecedented speed.

It has revolutionized the three simple steps just plug in-click-connect of wireless connectivity for our valued customers. Pakistan is the first country in the world of telecommunication to commercially launch EVO 3G Nitro, the fastest wireless broadband with seamless roaming having speed up to 9.3mbps.

This award is a testament to our team’s focus and determined efforts to better understand the needs of the ever evolving customer and connecting with them.

We are continuously striving to make a positive impact on the lives of our customers, and PTCL team is constantly designing, developing and introducing services and products that offer an improved and enhanced customer experience, PTCL President and CEO â€" Walid Irshaid

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Tags: Award, broadband, consumer, EVO, Government, Pakistan, PTCL, wireless

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The following detailed step by step guide will help you jailbreak iOS 4.3 Beta on iPhone 4, iPad and iPod touch 4G using PwnageTool bundles.

Here’s what you will need:

• PwnageTool 4.1.2
• Access to iOS 4.3 Beta firmware
• iTunes 10.1.1
• Mac OS X
• PwnageTool bundle for iPhone 4, iPad or iPod touch 4G

Note:

• Cydia is fully working on iOS 4.3 Beta.
• It is a semi-tethered jailbreak.
• Your baseband will not be upgraded during restore process.

WARNING: The jailbreaking procedure is complex, and hence is meant for advanced users only. It will require you to make your own ramdisk because the latest official version of PwnageTool makes a broken one for iOS 4.3. Proceed at your own risk only. We are not to be held responsible if you end up bricking your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Modifying PwnageTool

Step 1: Download PwnageTool bundle for your version of iOS device. Extract the .zip folder, in there you will find two files: CydiaInstaller.bundle and a .bundle file, for this guide, we are using iPhone 4 bundle iPhone3, 1_4.3_8F5148b.bundle. Move all these files to your desktop.

Step 2: Download PwnageTool 4.1.2 and copy it to your desktop. Right click, and then click on “Show Package Contents” as shown in the screenshot below.

Step 3: Navigate to Contents/Resources/FirmwareBundles/ and paste iPhone3, 1_4.3_8F5148b.bundle file in this location.

Step 4: Now navigate to Contents/Resources/CustomPackages and here replace the CydiaInstaller.bundle file with the version that you downloaded in Step 1, and then simply close this folder.

Building a Custom Firmware

Step 5: Download iOS 4.3 Beta. Move this file to your desktop.

Step 6: Start PwnageTool in “Expert mode” and select your device:

Step 7: Browse for iOS 4.3 beta firmware for your device as shown in the screenshot below:

Step 8: Now select “Build” to start creating custom 4.3 firmware file:

Step 9: PwnageTool will now create the custom .ipsw file for your iPhone which will be jailbroken.

Step 10: Once you have created the custom firmware, quit PwnageTool. Don’t restore to this firmware yet.

Creating Custom Ramdisk for iOS 4.3 Custom Firmware

Step 11: Download Ramdisk_Maker.zip by DjayB6, extract the file, and move the folder to your desktop.

Step 12: Now open ramdisk_maker.sh file, and edit the paths required in a program like TextEdit, as shown highlighted in the screenshot below.

Step 13: Now start Terminal and run the following commands:

cd desktop

cd ramdisk_maker

./ramdisk_maker.sh

Now from here on, this automated script in Terminal will guide you on what to do next as shown highlighted in the screenshot below.

Step 14: First, create a folder on desktop named My_Ramdisk. Then change the extension of the original iOS 4.3 Beta file from .ipsw to .zip, and then extract this .zip file.

Step 15: Here you will see a file named 038-0408-002.dmg. This is the file we need. Copy this file to My_Ramdisk folder that you created on desktop.

Step 16: Once you have done that, you will notice that Terminal screen will automatically move to the next step as shown in the screenshot below.

Step 17: Now go to ramdisk_maker folder that you saved earlier on desktop, here open the file Options.plist in a program like TextWrangler (available for free on the Mac App Store). Here change the <integer></integer> value under SystemPartitionSize <key></key> to 1116, as also shown highlighted in the screenshot below.

Step 18: Now save this Options.plist file and move it to My_Ramdisk folder. At this point, you will once again notice that Terminal will automatically move to complete the process.

Step 19: Once done, you will now notice a new file named final_ramdisk.dmg in My_Ramdisk folder. Rename this file as 038-0408-002.dmg

Step 20: Now change the extension of the custom iOS 4.3 Beta firmware file that you created earlier from .ipsw to .zip, and then extract this .zip file.

Step 21: Here, replace 038-0408-002.dmg file with the one you created in Step 19 above.

Step 22: Now select all files, and click on “Compress 9 Items” so that it is converts back into .zip file. Now change the extension of this .zip file to .ipsw and you are done making the custom firmware, with fixed ramdisk.

Restore iOS 4.3 Custom Firmware Using iTunes

Step 23: Start iTunes, click on your iOS device icon from the sidebar in iTunes. Now press and hold left “alt” (option) button on Mac, or Left “Shift” button if you are on Windows on the keyboard and then click on “Restore” (Not “Update” or “Check for Update”) button in the iTunes and then release this button.

This will make iTunes prompt you to select the location for your custom firmware 4.3 file. Select the required custom .ipsw file that you created in Step 22 above, and click on “Open”.

Step 24: Now sit back and enjoy as iTunes does the rest for you. This will involve a series of automated steps. Be patient at this stage and don’t do anything silly. Just wait while iTunes installs the new firmware 4.3 on your iOS device. Your iOS device screen at this point will be showing a progress bar indicating installation progress. After the installation is done, your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch will be jailbroken on iOS 4.3.

Booting in Tethered Mode

Last but not the least, since there is no untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.3 yet, we will have to boot it into a tethered jailbroken state. To do this, we will make use of a utility named “tetheredboot” as shown in the steps below.

Step 25: Download tetheredboot.zip utility for Mac OS X and extract the .zip file.

Step 26: First, we will need three files from the original iOS 4.3 Beta firmware namely: kernelcache.release.n90, iBEC.n90ap.RELEASE.dfu, and iBSS.n90ap.RELEASE.dfu.

Change the extension of the original iOS 4.3 Beta file from .ipsw to .zip, like you did in Step 14 above, and then extract this .zip file.

Now copy kernelcache.release.n90 file, and then copy iBEC.n90ap.RELEASE.dfu, and iBSS.n90ap.RELEASE.dfu files which are found under /Firmware/dfu/.

Move all these three files, and tetheredboot utility to a new folder named “tetheredboot” on the desktop as shown in the screenshot below.

Step 27: Now to boot your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into tethered mode, connect it with your computer and start it in Recovery Mode by holding Home and Power buttons until the connect to iTunes screen appears on your device.

Step 28: Start Terminal and run the following commands:

sudo sh

enter your administrator password, then:

cd desktop/tetheredboot

./tetheredboot iBSS kernel

You should now see some code running in the Terminal windows, at some point, it will ask you to enter DFU mode. Now follow the following steps to enter DFU mode:

• Hold Power and Home buttons for 10 seconds
• Now release the Power button but continue holding the Home button for 10 more seconds
• You device should now be in DFU mode

Now wait for your device to boot, Terminal at this point will be showing “Exiting libpois0n” message. After a short while, your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch will be booted in a jailbroken tethered mode !

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By breaking into the phone’s radio firmware, hackers can take control of the iPhone or Android devices

By Robert McMillan
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
SAN FRANCISCO (01/17/2011) â€" More than three years after the iPhone was first hacked, computer security experts think they’ve found a whole new way to break into mobile phones â€" one that could become a big headache for Apple, or for smartphone makers using Google’s Android software.

In a presentation set for next week’s Black Hat conference in Washington D.C., University of Luxembourg research associate Ralf-Philipp Weinmann says he plans to demonstrate his new technique on an iPhone and an Android device, showing how they could be converted into clandestine spying systems. “I will demo how to use the auto-answer feature present in most phones to turn the telephone into a remote listening device,” he said in an e-mail interview.

Weinmann says he can do this by breaking the phone’s “baseband” processor, used to send and receive radio signals as the device communicates on its cellular network. He has found bugs in the way the firmware used in chips sold by Qualcomm and Infineon Technologies processes radio signals on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks used by the majority of the world’s wireless carriers.

This is a new area of research. Until recently, mobile phone attacks had focused on another part of the phone: the programs and operating systems that runs on the device’s CPU. By tricking someone into visiting a malicious Web site, for example, hackers could take advantage of a Web browser bug on the phone and start messing around with the computer’s memory.

With baseband hacking, security researchers are looking at a brand new way to get into this memory.

“[It's] like tipping over a rock that no one ever thought would be tipped over,” said the Grugq â€" a pseudonymous, but well-respected, wireless phone hacker, and one of a handful of people who have done research in this area. “There are a lot of bugs hidden there,” he said, “It is just a matter of actively looking for them.”

But hacking a smartphone with a baseband attack is very tricky, to say the least. The mobile phone’s radio communicates with a cell phone tower. So in Weinmann’s attack, he has to first set up a fake cell phone tower and then convince his target phone to connect to it. Only then can he deliver his malicious code. And even then, the malicious code he writes must run on the firmware that’s used by obscure radio processors â€" something that most hackers know nothing about.

“This is an extremely technical attack,” said Don Bailey, a security consultant with Isec Partners. He says that while the work on baseband hacking is very exciting â€" and ultimately a big deal for the mobile phone industry â€" he doesn’t expect any attacks that target the general public to emerge anytime soon.

But the research into this area is just starting to take off, fuelled by new open-source software called OpenBTS that allows virtually anyone to set up their own cellular network radio tower with about US$2,000 worth of computer hardware.

Five years ago device makers didn’t have to worry about this type of hacking, because it used to cost tens of thousands of dollars to set up a cellular tower. But OpenBTS has changed all that. “Now it’s a completely different game,” Bailey said.

It’s a risky game too. In the U.S., federal wiretapping laws make it illegal to intercept phone calls over the licensed frequencies used by mobile phones. In August, it took intense last-minute negotiations between lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission before security researcher Chris Paget could demonstrate a very simple tower spoofing technique at the Defcon hacking conference in Las Vegas.

Two months from now another hacker conference, Vancouver’s CanSecWest, will invite hackers to break into mobile phones using a low power transmitter. If their baseband attacks work, they can win cash prices. Conference organizer Dragos Ruiu said that Canada’s broadcast laws are “more lenient’ for researchers who want to set up low-power towers for research purposes.

Still, it remains a touchy subject. “Last year we were worried about falling afoul of regulations,” he said.”Now we’ve figured out a nice safe way to do that so that we don’t mess up anybody else’s cell phones at the conference.”

Ruiu expects some interesting results from the contest, called Pwn2Own. “It sounds like the radio parts of the phones are very shaky indeed and pretty vulnerable,” he said.

Robert McMillan covers computer security and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Robert on Twitter at @bobmcmillan. Robert’s e-mail address is robert_mcmillan@idg.com

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A2rt developers have launched a unique app for iOS which lets you look up millions of facts and figures from around the globe updated in real-time. Its called Hyper Facts and is now available for download on the App Store. The app comes as a universal binary meaning it has been designed for iPhone / iPod touch as well as the iPad. They call it the “walking encyclopedia” and we totally agree with it. We received a complimentary copy of Hyper Facts recently and would like to share our thoughts with you in the following review.

Simply put, Hyper Facts brings the most up-to-date sources of information available around the internet into a single iPhone / iPad app. It lets you search over 9 million unique facts within the app and links them to multiple articles on Wikipedia to bring you the most comprehensive and updated search results available. You can look up just about anything from famous people to nearby places and landmarks or even look up a historic event. The app incorporates a simple UI with options to look up a person, location, event, work or all these at once. The app utilizes GPS capabilities of your iPhone / iPad to look up nearby events and famous landmarks and neatly marks them on an interactive Google map.

Whats unique about Hyper Facts is that all the articles are interlinked with multiple encyclopedias. This means that you can lookup pretty much any topic and get the best possible information about it which has been gathered from all the major encyclopedias, all this while you’re on the go. I personally had no issues with any of my local as well as global queries for various landmarks, events and famous people. Best of all, while you search for a specific topic, it further links your results to related content which builds even more interest in your research. And if you like some topic or article, simply add it to your in-app favorites for direct access later!

In short, the app is definitely worth $0.99 and since its a universal binary, it looks perfect on both smaller and larger screens of iPhone and the iPad.

Download Hyper Facts For iPhone / iPad and iPad [Direct Link]

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Telenor Pakistan Undergo Major Managerial Reshuffle

By Aamir Attaa · Tuesday, Jan 18, 2011 1 Comment

Telenor Pakistan has reshuffled number of top level management positions, told us close-to-company and official sources separately.

As per sources, Aamir Ibrahim has become CMO, Aamer Izhar the Head of Corporate Affairs, Ahmad Jawad will server as Director Procurement.

Earlier today Telenor Pakistan had announced the departure of its CEO, Jon Eddy Abdullah, who is going to join DTAC as CEO, group’s telecom arm in Thailand.

Lars Christian, the CMO/VP at Telenor Pakistan is flying back to Norway, after serving for three years in Pakistan. Lars was responsible for Sales, Marketing, product development & product management, Customer care, segments & pricing at Telenor Pakistan.

Aamir Ibrahim will be replacing Lars as new CMO. Aamir had been heading Strategy and Corporate Affairs at Telenor.

Corporate Affairs will now be headed by Aamer Izhar-ul-Haq. He was earlier leading procurement department.

Ahmad Jawad will be replacing Aamer Izhar to head procurement department as Director. He was earlier heading the legal department.

Sources suggest that legal department is yet to be assigned to anyone.

During this managerial reshuffle, we have heard, company may undergo some structural changes as well. For example, corporate communication or PR will come under CEO’s office.

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Rumors regarding the specifications of the Apple iPad 2 are mounting each day, and the latest iPad 2 cases to appear online reportedly show cutouts for two new ports, reports AppleInsider and M.I.C Gadget.

M.I.C Gadget says:

We got a look on the new iPad 2 case, and surprisingly, it features two new holes, one in the upper left (when viewed from the front) and the another in the upper-middle

AppleInsider says:

A Chinese accessory supplier is floating a new “iPad 2nd generation” case differing from previous designs shown at CES, with port openings that appear to be designed to accommodate a new SD Card slot and a new port consistent with the size of a mini DisplayPort jack.

The Apple iPad 2, which is rumored to launch on either the first or second Saturday of April, has also been said to sport a Dual Core SGX543 Graphics Chip along with a High Resolution Display at 2048×1536, meaning that the next iteration to Apple’s signature tablet will hopefully be just as advanced on the inside as the rumors claim it is going to be design and shape wise.

These latest cases do give some insight on what might possibly prove to be the iPad 2, however it should be kept in mind that all of this has still not be confirmed as yet by Apple, so we’ll have to wait until the company ultimately launches the device to see for ourselves whether or not these cases live up to their claims.

We will be sure to report once any new updates regarding the Apple iPad 2 come in.

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