iPhone 3G: Still not available in Pakistan
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Posted by on October 19th, 2008
After almost 4 months of the official release of iPhone 3G by Apple, there are no signs of it making it’s way, officially, or via Bhatinda to Pakistan.
The official iPhone website cites or makes no claim as such about their plan to release the product in Pakistan. However, rumor has it, that the iPhone might be available in Pakistani markets in a few weeks time.
WorldCall EVDO: A Wireless Game Changer?
Posted by on October 19th, 2008
Worldcall has recently started a new Wireless, internet anywhere, service for users that are always on the go. The Worldcall EVDO service supplies the subscriber with a USB device for Rs. 4500 initially, and then they charge slightly more than what you would pay for a wired connection.
Will this new entrant in Pakistan’s worsening economic situation make a difference? It might, or it might not. The much celebrated WiMax has still to find people to help it to deliver it’s good to people who are still in need of high speed wireless internet connections - making it an easier job of Worldcall to find some elbow room. But Worldcall is not run locally, and the foreign investor with Worldcall, OmanTel, might cut their losses and run.
WCG Pakistan 2008: Winners and Demos
Posted by on October 15th, 2008
Clans and gamers that have won the WCG Pakistan 2008 qualifiers are as follows:
CS 1.6 Winners: -i- [Incredibles] (Karachi) Runnerups: 5Fraggers (Karachi) WARCRAFT 3 TFT: DOTA Winners: Titans (Karachi) Runnerups: TR (Islamabad) WARCRAFT 3 TFT Winners: Bilal Rasheed (Islamabad) FIFA 2008 Winner: Syed Waleed Nazar (Karachi) Runnerups: Fahad Khan (Karachi) Call of Duty 4 (COD4) Winner: Metal (Islamabad) Runnerups: Under World (Rawalpindi) Command and Conquer 3 Winner: Salahuddin Ahmed (Karachi)
This list was complied with the help of the organizers of the event.
Neomatrix Gaming Cafe hosted the national finals and they have posted an entire gallery of photos from the event. They also uploaded the Counter Strike demos and WarCraft 3 replays from the matches played in the tournament.
The cafe administration paid a special tribute to the volunteering referees and organizers.
Stud Wins World Cyber Games War 3 Spot!
Posted by on October 12th, 2008
I report this with great honour that one of our closest friends, and a contributor of news to the gamerpk blog, Bilal Rasheed aka Stud, has won the single slot for the normal 1 vs 1 WarCraft 3 from Pakistan last week.
In a personal chat with Stud he mentioned he was “really happy and excited to represent Pakistan.” He appreciated how Wateen Telecom has been promoting gaming in Pakistan on it’s own and also admired Rafey Majeed aka TheGame as his toughest opponent in the tournament.
Stud with his check!
It comes as no surprise to many of us, his friends, that he has managed to win this spot with his unrelenting hard work, practice hours, and adoption of professional gaming techniques. His regular practice with some of the best players around the world added to his knowledge about the weakness of his race and play style.
Stud also faced TinY in his ascension to the winner’s spot. Rafey Majeed who plays as an Orc in WC3 has represented Pakistan in the same tournament and in Electronic Sports World Cup before. TinY who plays as Humans has also managed to qualify for international tournaments before.
We are proud to mention that Rafey is a writer with us and Stud is a regular contributor to our blog.
WCG Pakistan finally announced!
Posted by on September 29th, 2008
While the national qualifiers for World Cyber Games 2008 have already been completed in most countries over the world, they just started here in Pakistan. After much confusion over the past few weeks regarding this year’s WCG, Wateen Telecom finally announced last week that it will be organising the qualifiers in Pakistan. Winners will get a chance to represent Pakistan at the WCG grand finals to be held in Cologne, Germany later this year.
Regional qualifiers were conducted at certain gaming cafes in 8 cities over the last week. The six titles that the organisers included are:
- Counter-Strike 1.6
- Warcraft III
- Command & Conquer 3
- FIFA ‘08
- Dota (Pakistan only)
- CoD 4 (Pakistan only)
According to Wateen the national finals will be held in Lahore on the 6-7th of October, where the winners of the regional qualifiers will compete against each other.
More information regarding dates and venues can be found at games.wateen.com/wcg. If you want to find out more about the WCG grand final itself, visit www.worldcybergames.com.
This year’s edition of WCG Pakistan has received heavy criticism because it was poorly publicised and is being held way too late. Other than that, the dates for the national final in Lahore were recently changed and the venue still hasn’t been decided! These are things that should be taken care of before the event is announced so that participants can plan ahead. Some people are even speculating that the winners might not be able to attend the grand final because there won’t be enough time for visas to be issued. For now we can just hope that everything goes as planned and not too many gamers are disappointed.
Startupmeme and all the latest in the Startup and Technology market
Posted by on August 23rd, 2008
First a side note. I have decided to cover a few of new websites that are coming up on the Pakistani blogging and content scene. And the first one is StartupMeme.
Startupmeme has recently been started by a few entrepreneurs from Karachi and it features all the latest information about the internet, technology and the startup world. The weblog has writers that able to attract readers with their simple language and latest news.
In it’s few months after starting up, Startupmeme has gathered a lot of recognition from the blogging world outside of Pakistan. Like I said, their posts are not only latest, but they generate interest and have really good content in them. In a conversation with the co-founder I learned that they plan to expand their scope in the near future and expand it into other domains also. Not only as a weblog, but as an entire information portal. Currently they focus on upcoming technologies and companies that will make a difference in the market. They already boast a readership of 50K plus on Feedburner, and 5K plus on TwitterFeed!
It’s your one stop hop to all the latest startup information from inside and outside of Pakistan!
Telenor Djuice Sponsoring ESWC Pakistan
Posted by on May 29th, 2008
Time to gear up for another mega gaming event taking on Pakistan. Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) has finally made a come back in Pakistan after a their main sponsors changed this year. This year I am glad to announce it’s Djuice who are behind the National Qualifiers in Pakistan. The two games that Pakistan is playing in are Defence of the Ancients (DotA) and Counter Strike 1.6 (CS 1.6).
The qualification round will be held country wide from May 26th to June 10th. The national finals will be in Expo Center Karachi from June 13th to June 14th. And the Grand Final will be in San Jose (Silicon Valley), California from August 25th to August 27th.
- Preliminaries at participating Gaming Arenas : May 26- June 10th
- Participating cities Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Pindi,Faislabad, Hyderabad, Quetta
- Karachi Offline Pre-liminaries: June 6- June 8 (EXPO CENTER, Karachi)
- National Finals: June 13- 14th
- Grand Finale at California, USA
Registration opens on May 25th for all locations. Registration Fee Rs 1000 per team (Rs 200 per player).
Each registrant will get a djuice SIM or credit of Rs. 140 on their already existing djuice SIMS.For Registration, Rules and Regulations and participating gaming arenas go to Wired Up site.
To be able to participate it is mandatory to have a Djuice connection.
Teams from all over the world participate in this grand event, and the prize is more than prestigious. With a hefty purse for the winning teams, ESWC gives a lot of the winners the bragging rights about winning on the top level. ESWC has other categories that players compete in like WarCraft 3 1v1, FIFA 2008 etc. Click the image at the top left to gain more on where and how to register for the preliminaries!
Wi-Tribe in Pakistan [Rumor]
Posted by on May 14th, 2008
We come to know through another blog from Pakistan that the much promised WiMAX technology for the companies owned by the Orsacom group in Pakistan is here. It goes by the name Wi-Tribe and currently operates in Jordan. They are planning to run their their WiMAX services through LINKdotNET. If that happens, they will be Wateen WiMAX’s only competition in the country and might spur both of them in a heated competition.
From Wi-Tribe’s website I learn that they are deep into providing WiMAX and also into providing Wi-Fi hot spots all over Jordan.
[via Pro-Pakistan]
Wateen’s strategy? Others doing any better?
Posted by on May 3rd, 2008
So just when you thought they were good at marketing they signed film star Reema as their ‘brand ambassador‘. Nothing wrong in it, just that they are focusing on the wrong end of business, in my humble opinion. [Via Buzzwines]
A client of their’s made a long, yet slightly comic, post about her ordeal in getting her Wateen.
One of our esteem commentators, Usman Khawaja, has written about his headaches in subscribing to LINKdotNET’s 1Mbps connection Sialkot. He was formerly a Dancom Online’s DSL subscriber who is facing repeated disconnection problems.
WTF has happened to all of them all? Let’s hope super film star Reema can change all this.
WiMax causes Australian CEO to WhineMax!
Posted by on March 24th, 2008
I won’t be surprised to find out that wireless technologies haven’t really got ‘there’ when it comes to the ultimate experience. Sure there are one that are working quite fine for a lot of people, but most of them are not working fine for the rest.
Such was the case with Buzz Broadband in Australia, who had to close down their shop (business) because of extremely poor performance within the distant proximity of the base stations. Engadget has it that the CEO claimed “it failed miserably,” and that there were quality and latency issues within 400m for home users. Service was non-existent for user beyond a 2 Km radius. The CEO presented a whole talk (visit Slashdot) on the failings of the technology at a conference in Bangkok.
Pakistan however is still to learn about the fate of the WiMax rollouts by various companies and many other that promise to do so. Understandably the first stone’s throw is always hard, but that is when we shall know whether this technology is worth it’s salt or not. Till then, I am still a skeptic. Wires for the win!
