We covered it earlier when Facebook hit 57 languages and within a month, Facebook has grown to 64 languages now. This is all done with the help of the community based translation mechanism used by languages application.
Note, the new languages include فارسی (Farsi), that is the most common language in Iran.
Following is the new list of languages being supported:
MCB Mobile Banking and Payments – Review
MCB has recently launched their mobile banking and payment solution. It is an Internet based service that runs on your mobile phone’s browser. You can link your MCB account with your phone number and that’s all you need to use the service. The basic set of services provided by the solution are:
How to Sign-Up
If you are an existing MCB account holder, you can simply go to MCB ATM machine and insert your card as usual. You’ll see an option to link your mobile with your account in the menu now. Opt for that, give your mobile number and that’s it. MCB representative will get back to you with the confirmation and will provide you with the Mobile PIN. Mobile PIN is used to log-in to the mobile banking site while ATM pin is also required to make the transactions.
If you are not an existing MCB account holder, you have to grab one account. My recommendation, just go get one, its worth it!
Note: You cannot use this services if you are an MCB credit card holder.
First Login
You can simply go to http://www.mcbmobile.com from your mobile phone and can login by giving your cell-phone number and mobile PIN. The login is straight forward and works on SSL to keep the data you are sending encrypted on the way.
Basic Banking on Mobile
The service allows you to perform your basic banking transactions (except cash transactions obviously). You can check your account balance and view mini-statement. Funds transfer option allows you to transfer funds to any other MCB Mobile user by giving his mobile number (registered with the service) or you can simply transfer funds to any MCB account by giving the full account number. For every financial transaction you will have to enter your ATM PIN.
Payments
You can make a number of possible payments using this service. You can purchase mobile top-ups and can send them directly to the phone. You can pay post-paid mobile phone bills. These payments can be made to all mobile networks. You can also pay utility bill payments to a number of electric companies and to nationwide gas and telephone connections.
In addition to mobile and utility payments you can pay your credit card bills and can also donate funds to the Prime Minister’s special relief fund.
Security
Overall mobile site is working over SSL and is as secure as any other Internet transaction. Moreover, it is more secure than paying straight via credit card, as in most transactions we are not using a credit-card or account number.
I have a reason to believe that the service is based on a solution by Fundamo.
Note the word Fundamo in the title!A walk-through video
For a detailed walk-through, watch the video below. I’ve made a mobile top-up, mobile bill payment, fund-transfer and balance enquiry etc in this walk-through for you.
Summary:
What you need to get the service:
The good
The bad
Conclusion
MCB Mobile is a winner by all means. You cannot call it a killer app as this stuff is not new in the market anymore but it reaches the top with the fact that its easy, convenient, ubiquitous, reliable and last but not least, very secure. Simply go to mcb.com.pk, search for your nearest branch, go get an account and sign up for the service. Happy mobile banking!
After a consistent pressure from European Union Microsoft has decided to ship Microsoft Windows 7 without its web-browser Internet Explorer 8. The browser-less Windows 7 is called “Windows 7 E”. This will be first version of Windows after Windows 3.11 for work-group to be shipped without Internet Explorer.
This decision has for sure been taken as a result of the anti-trust cases Microsoft has been facing from EU. Windows 7 is scheduled to be shipped later this year and its release candidate is already available for download. Windows 7 no doubt is way better than Windows Vista in my experience. You can download RC version of Windows 7 from Windows website. This version will work till March 1, 2010, so you have a lot of time to play around with the new Windows 7 and by then, launch of Chrome OS by google will be a few months away <<>>
We all have been used to this fact but have always been wondering as well, when will Gmail come out of beta?
Finally the day has come. Google announces that following services are no more in beta state:
Actually these services combine to comprise google apps.
A real Windows Killer is here!!
Google today announced its new operating system named Google Chrome OS. I’m sure they are putting some real effort in promoting Chrome brand and come up with some new software under the same flag soon. Google Chrome OS is an open source light-weight operating system targeted at Netbooks initially but nobody is stopping us from installing it on our desktops and laptops.
The OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM family of processors and is based no a Linux. The target of the OS is to stay lightweight, fast and easy and make lives of the computer users easier. Google announces that the OS will be available to public in second half of 2010 and we can all keep our fingers crossed
What does this mean?
I’ve been waiting for Google Voice to launch since Google acquired GrandCentral exactly two years ago. The service will allow you to redirect all your voice calls and text messages to one number. Depending on your preferences, you can then configure this number. Calls will land on your global Google Voice number and that can ring all your registered numbers like your office, home or cell number. See the features video below:
This is not it, the service is a bunch of amazing facilities that adds to the value of this service. For a list of detailed features, see this page.
Google says, the service should be open to public within a matter of weeks, but the site has been saying this for quite some time now. I hope this time comes soon. So if you are in US or you have a US number, simply go to this pre–signup page and Google will let you know as soon as the service is available.
I just stumbled upon this page on Google Beta labs that offers indic transliteration for several languages. The languages supported by this tool include Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.
All of us have grown up using Internet in only one language. Now is the time, things are changing and a bunch of language options are available not only in operating systems and software, but also on popular web systems. But it took a lot of time to reach this point and all of us (well most of us) have already learnt to type our own languages using English character set.
Now, Google’s not only providing translation solutions, but transliteration is also gaining popularity. I have tried the solution out on Urdu language and the results are absolutely amazing. Its not only converting most of the words correctly, its also capable of handling the mystery of using different versions of ( ح – ہ ) or being sure when to use ت and when to use ط . For example, it correctly transliterates “bht” to “بھت” and “tht” to “تحت” . It also adds letters that are usually silent when typing in English. For example “Talat” is correctly transliterated to “طلعت” converting T correctly to ط , not ت and introducing ع while it was not obvious in English character version.
Following are a few results that really amazed me:
Chhachhoondar >>> چھچھوندر
Pakistan ka matlab kya la ilaha illalla >>> پاکستان کا مطلب کیا لا الہٰ الاللہ
Ap sab is pabandi say mustansna hain >>> اپ سب اس پابندی سے مستثنیٰ ہیں
Mustansar Husain Tarar >>> مستنصر حسین تارڑ
Chacha nay chachi ko chandni chowk main chandi ki chamchi say chatni chataai >>> چچا نے کچی کو چاندنی چوک میں چاندی کی چمچی سے چٹنی چٹائی
(This one was more of a riddle, used as a tounge twister usually)
Well, its an automated system and there are still some issues. For example it could not transliterate my name, is’nt that pretty simple?. 🙂 Better luck next time Google!
All Facebook users who also carry a BlackBerry must rejoice and should try out version 1.6.0.17 that is out now and is available to download. Simply go to the existing Facebook application and select to upgrade. If you don’t have the app on your BlackBerry phone already, you can download it from here. I have been using the Facebook app on my BlackBerry for a while now but it always lacked many features and the wap site m.facebook.com was always better. I’ve also been trying some third party tools like shozu and snaptu for Facebook access but none of them have been as simple, comprehensive and convenient as the wap site. This time, the development team has done the job very well and has given a feature boost to the application and now I don’t use the wap site anymore.
The new features include:
Photo gallery — View Highlights
View Profile —– Upload and Tag Photos
All existing features including poke, message, write on wall, invite friends, tag and upload photos etc are also there and are complemented by the new features and they complement the new features too.
The app also allows you to sync your Facebook and Blackberry contacts. You can connect Facebook profiles with existin entries on your Blackberry contacts, you can request phone numbers of Facebook friends and you can also search for people in your Blakcberry contacts on Facebook and add them up.
Following wizard came up on my web-based Facebook when I logged in just after installing the new Facebook app on my Blackberry.
You can watch the usage video posted below to get an idea of the new feature’s working.
Summary
Overall, the application is a hit. I don’t find many drawbacks in the app.
The good:
The Bad
Microsoft.com is down fellows. I just realized, when I go to Microsoft.com, it takes me to a page showing “Page not available”. Result is the same for microsoft.com and www.microsoft.com. It eventually shows me the error and a following bing search searching for “en us default aspx”. Strange is’nt it? See the screenshot below.
The home page redirects to http://www.microsoft.com/library/errorpages/smarterror.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/en/us/default.aspx
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Updates: It was a temporary error and the site is up and running now!
Opera 10 with Face Gestures
You may have seen this already, but I come across it now. New Opera 10 has a “Face Gestures” feature that allows you to make face gestures at your PC to control common browser commands. You can go to “Home”, go next, back, speed dial and do other stuff with this feature. Obviously you need a PC with a built in camera or an external web-cam for this feature to work. Following is a subset of the supported face gestures.
You can start by viewing this demo video below and can download the browser from this link.