As discussed in our earlier post about Facebook Translations, Facebook is using community/society effort to get the social network translated completely. Today Facebook announced with the following message that its available in 57 languages. This means that Facebook family has completely translated the site in 57 languages already.
Following is the list of supported languages:
Ufone has launched its Urdu SMS services and that’s what I call convenience with simplicity. We all keep sending messages in roman Urdu but keeping in mind that the mobile usage has gone way beyond the very basic literacy level, we need solutions that keep things in Urdu or even use picture illustrations for getting a message through. As far as I remember, Ufone is not the first one to launch such translation service, for example Mobilink is already running their SMS translation services.
How it works
For all your message recipients, who cannot understand English script, Ufone has come up with this very useful yet simple service. Simply send a message to 424 written in roman Urdu and you will receive a response translated in Urdu text. If you want to send the message to someone else, type [recipient number] [space] [message in roman] and the service will attempt its best to translate it word by word in Urdu script.
To give it a shot I sent a simple message from a Ufone number to a non-Ufone one and it was delivered within a few milliseconds. Here was a simple test run:
Source Message:
Received at destination as:
Most cell-phones out there in the market do not have Urdu-keypad and do not have Urdu typing support in their firmware/OS, but they have capacity to display Urdu messages. In these circumstances, the service can be a hit.
The only problem in this service is the use of roman combination and users’ habits. Ufone has a software at the back end that is translating these English character combinations to Urdu. In case it doesn’t find your desired combination, or you spell a certain word differently, the translation will not work perfectly. For example I’ve seen people using “Hay”, “He”, “Hey” and “Hy” for the same word “ہے” in Urdu. But once people start using it, they will learn the right syntax. I was expecting a detailed guideline or user-manual on Ufone’s website, that I couldn’t find.
Each message translated will cost Rs. 2+ Tax. Here are the details:
Within a few months, this blog has reached 100 posts. I thank all my readers for sticking to the blog and I promise I will keep posting interesting stuff in the future as well.
We all have been using search engines for more than a decade now. Google has always been trying to make life of its users easier. When searching on Internet, some items are easy to find while some details are not so easy, at least to find in the first search. You may have to go through several searches, dozens of windows opened and then you may find your required information. Usually, we are searching for things and their properties or related information.
Google Squared tries to find a new way of searching and then displaying related information. The search results are shown in a spread-sheet form where you can add, remove columns, search for more information, remove un-related results to get your final output.
Check out the video below and try out Google Squared itself.
Happy Squaring!
We covered closure of Yahoo Briefcase earlier on this blog. Well, that was not the last service to close down by Yahoo. Today I got an email to let me know that Yahoo 360 is closing down in favor of Yahoo Profiles. Following is the email:
If you have signed up for Windows 7 Beta, you must have seen this email, like so many other people out there. Do they need a proofreader for outgoing emails? 🙂
I was really excited to see U-Track maps‘ availability on Ufone‘s website. According to my earlier post, the usage charges are very high but I was still interested to check it out at least. As promised, here I come with a review of the solution.
Introduction
U-Track maps is an XHTML based mobile website. I was expecting it to be an installable application. Anyways, before I go in details of the application features, I must tell you that if you try using the solution, you will, almost instantly notice that its an integration with Naqsha.net. Well, Naqsha.net is one of the serious efforts done so far in navigation domain in Pakistan, but I must say, things are pretty pre-mature right now and Naqsha.net. Moreover, integrating with U-fone, they have tried to increaset there user base significantly, which is a good sign. On the other hand, they have not anticipated such big traffic loads, especially during the first few day’s free trial time and their site seems broken at several points (see below).
Solution Walk-through
As soon as I got a Ufone connection, I dived in and launched the device browser. The first link on ufone’s mobile site http://wap.ufone.com was U-track maps.
I opened it up, selected the city and the only thing I could do on the page was “Search”.
I typed a search string and and well, quite a long list of related items came up. I selected one of the item and I could see its location on somewhat nastily orange-themed rip-off from Google maps images. That’s it! You cant do much more than that.
The map that shows up, is well, kind of detailed but its in small size, its irritating orange and green colored, road and place names are hardly readable and until you know the city well you cant figure out much from this map. That really kills the need of navigation anyways. I could see three options under the map, 1) View Larger Image, 2) Make a route and 3) Search nearby, but all 3 of the links were broken (actually application crashed or something, was that because of the heavy traffic load?). See video for details.
Feature Feedback
Following is the feature list and comments for each feature:
Solution Type
Web-based mobile application/web-site. I expected it to be a GPS-enabled or at least location aware installable application.
Search Places
Search results are quite detailed ( the list is usually long) but they are irrelevant to your current location. In addition, only names of the search results are listed, no additional information like phone numbers, web links, email address, nothing! You can select a location and can view it on map.
View on Map
You can select one item from the search results and can view it on map. The site shows an image showing a street map with a marker showing the destination. If you select a road to be shown on map, it shows two markers named Start and End.
View larger map image
When viewing a map, you may want to see a detailed map. This feature is available but the link broken. (See video)
Make a route
This was the only exciting feature for me but unfortunately, this link was broken as well
(See video)
Search nearby
Link broken again (See video)
Review Summary
In short, the solution is a total-disappointment. Most of the features are not working, but even if all its features start working, it is no-where near its available competitions. I will soon write a post about its competitors.
The Good:
The Bad:
The Ugly
I will soon write a detailed post on U-track map’s available competitions. Stay tuned!
Ufone has jumped into the location based services with their navigation system named UTrack Maps. This is a welcome addition to the available location based services in the local market. This launch is pretty much in time because other mobile based navigation services, in which Google Maps is one of the popular ones, are still in their infancy and Ufone has a chance to take over the market. From its description, it looks like a wap-only solution, though I yet have to try out the system. If you get a chance to try it out, do give us your feedback.
The main features of the service as described by the service web-site are:
Please note, that routing and distance services (point 3 above) is not part of the Google-Maps-Mobile’s local offerings as yet which can be Ufone’s unique selling point here. On the other hand, the use of this service will be very heavy on the user’s pocket. As opposed to Google-Maps-Mobile’s free search and location information, Ufone will charge you Re. 1 to view a location on map, Rs. 2 to view a route, Rs. 1 for searching for a location nearby and if you want to view a large image that will again charge you Re. 1. Standard GPRS charges will also apply in addition to all above. This is really expensive, is’nt it?
The details of the package are available on Ufone website. You can simply start off by visiting http://wap.ufone.com from your mobile phone (obviously using ufone).
I will try out the service and will possibly post a review.
I just came across this site, Starz.pk. The site is a local business listings site and I was astonished to see the number and details of entries available on this website. The site has listings for 26 possible cities of Pakistan. You can search a wide range of business listings and I must say, the people maintaining this site have done a nice job. I tried several searches in Lahore and always ended up with a relevent list of results. Some of the searches I tried on the site were printing, kabab, fish, books, stationers, dentist, vegetable, sabzi, chinese, dvd, cinema, cricket, software house, milk shop and even tyre shop. Wow, I do get results, may be not very close to my current location, but still, most of them make sense.
I remember Osama’s earleir post on Green & White, that talked about Zong’s advertisement campaign that used a stock image that was already used for a book’s cover. Well, that could be shortage of time and resources and somebody at Zong marketing department went to istockphotos and bought an image for the campaign (I hope they bought it).
