After conducting free workshops on Mobile App and Game Development, Mobilink Jazba has launched a Mobile Game-Development competition to offer a platform for students and app developers to test their skills at creating gaming software for mobile platforms.

Mobilink Jazba’s mobile game development contest has been designed to evaluate the concept, technique and creative acumen of participants, whilst at the same time providing a new avenue for local mobile technology developers to develop content for mobile users.

Jazba said it will accept games only, so no apps please! You can submit any genre of game but please ensure that it has not been published on any app store or website prior to the final date of submission. Also, piracy is bad, so avoid it! And the competition is only open to students and independent developers.

Winners of the competition will get cash rewards up to Rs. 500,000, as well as other valuable prizes such as handsets and internship opportunities within Mobilink. That’s better than other similar competitions in the town. Check below list of prizes for the winners:

Prizes

• Winner: PKR 500,000
• 1st Runner up: PKR 300,000
• 2nd Runner up: PKR 100,000
• 3rd and 4th Runner up: HTC Explorer handsets
• 10 participants: Free GPRS up to 6 months or 1 GB consumption (whichever is lower)
• Internships

Benefits

• Jazba shall publish the game on Jazz Bananas, with developers earning revenue for each download
• Jazz Bananas is an app store accessible to Pakistan’s largest cellular base, with over 34 million customers

Eligibility

• Only games can be selected as entries (please, no apps!)
• Any genre of game will be accepted
• Only games that have not been published on any app store or website prior to final date of submission will be considered for evaluation
• Copied or pirated game entries will be considered void
• This competition is for students and independent game developers only. Professional software development organizations will not be considered eligible to participate
• Submissions by teams will be acceptable, but should include names of all members in the game credits. However, prizes will be received by the individual in whose name the entry has been submitted
• Only the games developed in the following mobile OS will be accepted:
• Symbian
• Java
• BlackBerry
• Android

Deadline:

• July 31st, 2012

How to Participate:

For further details and to submit your games click here.

Alcatel-Lucent’s research arm Bell Labs has announced that Smart-RF research project undertaken by a consortium of companies has developed the technical foundation for a new reconfigurable RF transmitter compliant of supporting mobile standards within a single radio frequency band. A programmable radio module will enable network operators to deploy their base stations. This is an advantage when they roll out mobile standards, such as future generations of LTE mobile broadband technology, or accommodating new spectrum allocations. This will provide a service for mobile operators as they evolve their networks. This project is part of a continuum of research being conducted by Bell Labs into future architectures for mobile networks, including the lightRadio portfolio of products.

Annual global internet traffic will reach 1.3 trillion GB in 2016, according to the latest forecast from Cisco. Monthly traffic will increase nearly four-fold from 2011, to an estimated 110 exabytes in 2016, while hourly traffic is expected to reach 150 petabytes by the same date.

The increase in IP traffic is driven by the growing number of connected devices. Cisco expects that by 2016, there will be nearly 18.9 billion networked devices ― equal to almost 2.5 connections per person ― compared with 10.3 billion in 2011. There will also be more people accessing the internet (3.4 billion in 2016), faster bandwidth (average 34Mbps vs 9Mbps in 2011) and more people watching online video (traffic of 1.2 million video minutes per second in 2016).

Cisco also expects that by 2016, over half of the world’s internet traffic will come from Wi-Fi connections. These will increasingly be over mobile devices and TVs, as the percentage of consumer internet traffic coming from PCs is expected to drop to 81 percent in 2016, from 94 percent last year. Global mobile internet traffic is forecast to grow ten-fold from 2011 to 2016, to 10.8 exabytes per month, or 130 exabytes annually.

Cisco also included subscriber forecasts for the first time in its networking report. Residential internet users are expected to grow from 1.7 billion in 2011 to 2.3 billion in 2016, and VoIP will be the fastest-growing residential internet service, going from 560 million users in 2011 to an estimated 928 million in 2016.

In the mobile market, consumer subscribers are forecast to reach 4.5 billion in 2016, versus 3.7 billion last year, and mobile video will be the fastest-growing service, going from 271 million to 1.6 billion users over the forecast period. SMS will still be the most-used service, rising from 74 percent of consumer mobile users in 2011 to 90 percent by 2016.

Among business internet users, Cisco expects desktop videoconferencing to be the fastest-growing IP service, rising from 36.4 million users in 2011 to 218.9 million in 2016. Location-based services will be the fastest-growing business mobile service, going from 27 million users in 2011 to an estimated 158 million in 2016.

The Cisco forecast is based in part on actual traffic data provided voluntarily by global service providers and consumers and is also available on a regional and country level.

Source

Online shopping is all the rage these days and TCS has decided to give it a go by launching TCS Connect, to take your online shopping experience to next level.

TCS Connect is an online shopping portal that has a wide variety of products with different payment options and delivery all over Pakistan.

TCS has been a trusted name in logistics and supply chain industry of Pakistan for well over two decades and this is a clever move on their part since quite a few people are still hesitant about buying expensive stuff online (yes I’m talking about our parent’s generation).

TCS Connect will sure help the hesitance go away from those minds that were earlier reluctant to buy goods from online stores. Their country wide delivery network will flare up the ease by simplifying the online shopping process and experience.

Talking about the layout and design of the website, it is functional and easy on the eyes. The shop offers an extensive catalogue for the buyer with categories including mobiles, lifestyle and books with other categories to be populated soon.

Of course with a new launch you need some incentive for the potential buyer to choose you instead of the competition and TCS does that by offering deals on selected products that include a redeem on next purchase, free insurance for a selected period, a percentage value of product cash back and free delivery all over Pakistan.

TCS claims that the products on sale are authentic and come from official suppliers and manufacturers themselves. In this scenario, prices below the market level aren’t really possible since all TCS is doing is validating the identity of the official vendors.

TCS Connect provides extensive payment options with credit card payment, cash collection at banks, Netbanking and EasyPaisa/Omni being available. You don’t have to be online to buy anything as well. You can get information about offline orders from the Call Center or any TCS Express Center.

Currently TCS Connect only ships within Pakistan but orders can be placed from anywhere in the world. Orders can be tracked online so you can know exactly when you’ll get the product instead of vague estimates.

All in all it’s a good venture by TCS though they are a little bit late to the party since many shops have already built up solid reputation and are trusted by consumers. However I do not think it is a project doomed to the waste bin simply because of the brand recognition TCS has.

I don’t see it challenging other online shops for market share but it definitely has potential to grow and it wouldn’t be surprising to see it evolve into more of a gift shop backed by authentic products and on time delivery in future even if its performance as a pure e-marketplace isn’t stellar.

Just to conclude here, we know from people close to TCS that they are working on payment processing gateway as well. This is in addition to mobile banking solution that TCS is working on. Hence payments through their own branchless banking will be an option too, just in few months.

Here are the links to TCS Connect:

http://www.tcsconnect.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TCSconnect
https://www.twitter.com/#!/tcs_connect/

Source