You know that pseudo-tactile feeling you get when you fondle your mouse’s clicky scroll wheel, the one that satisfies your obsessive need to touch everything? Logitech wants to give you more clicks, and smoother scrolling to boot. This M325 wireless mouse’s new “micro-precise” scroll wheel features 72 tiny ratchets, making our self-counted 22-ratchet mouse wheel seem downright barbaric by comparison — not that we ever really considered the number of teeth our mice had before now. The rodent’s 18-month battery life won’t quite live up to your 2-year Couch Mouse, but at least they can share a Logitech Unifying Receiver. Your scroll wheel of tomorrow can be had for $40 later this month, or £30 right now for lucky folks in the UK.

Logitech (1), (2)

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On Friday, 18^th March 2011, Qubee launched a reward program for its users, giving them the opportunity to avail a 20% discount on their monthly bill for 3 months.

“We at Qubee believe in delighting our customers’ everyday with not only a service that is centered on his/her daily internet needs but also with promotions & features that add value to your daily Qubee experience.

Moreover, with “Tag a Friend, Bag a Discount”, we would like to reward our customers for choosing Qubee as their choice for reliable internet,” said the Chief Marketing Officer of Qubee, Mr. Hashim Sheikh.

To avail this discount all a customer has to do is refer a friend to Qubee with his or her given Qubee account number and they will automatically be entitled to the mentioned discount of 20% in their next month’s Qubee bill.

On the occasion, Mr. Hashim Sheikh also mentioned that the promotion is due to conclude on the 18^th of April 2011.

The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has imposed Rs10 million on the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) and Rs5 million on Wateen Telecom (Pvt) Limited for entering into a prohibited agreement.

The proceedings were initiated against the two as Wateen was granted exclusivity in respect of right of way and to dig soil, the CCP order passed here on Tuesday said that the agreement was in violation of Competition Laws and had no legal effect.

The order had been passed by the CCP bench comprising Chairperson Rahat Kaunain Hassan and Member Vadiyya Khalil who maintained that continuing the breach would entail serious consequences and the parties shall be liable to pay maximum penalty of Rs1 million for every day of the continuing violation.

The CCP initiated proceedings on receipt of several complaints from the residents of DHA, Lahore, in respect of the lack of choice of service providers, other than Wateen, for provision of telecommunication and media services including broadband internet along with cable TV with phone and many services, but the residents complain that they have no choice.

During the course of enquiry the information provided by DHA and Wateen to the Commission revealed that there was an exclusive arrangement between the parties whereby Wateen was the only service provider entitled to provide telecommunication and media services in certain phases of the property under the control of DHA.

Show-cause notices were issued to DHA and Wateen, for prima facie contravention of Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2010, which prohibits undertakings from entering into agreements in respect of provision of services which have the object or effect of preventing, restricting or reducing competition within the relevant market unless exemption has been granted by the Commission.

DHA in the hearings and through written submission admitted that the agreement between DHA and Wateen was a violation of the law and showed its willingness to modify the agreement in accordance with law, while Wateen argued that the arrangement between Wateen and DHA did not have the effect of restricting other service providers to provide services within the DHA region.

Wateen responded that the residents of DHA could avail services from any other service provider using wireless technology and the exclusivity granted to Wateen only pertained to right of way.

Wateen also submitted that the exclusive arrangement for 30 years would qualify for an exemption under Section 5 and 9 of the Act, as Wateen has made huge investments, offers competitive rates, deploys a superior quality network, life of the cable used is thirty years and significant environmental hazards would occur if other parties laid their own cable or used Wateen’s.

The rates submitted by Wateen were the lowest among the service providers, however, the bench observed that merely offering the lowest rates cannot be the sole determinant of competitiveness as factors such as availability of choice, quality of service and after sales service are also be taken into account.

It was concluded by the Commission that due to the inherent nature of the services provided by using wireless technology, no service provider could be excluded from the DHA region.

However, the CCP acknowledged the request by DHA for a revised agreement with Wateen, but the new revised agreement will have to be submitted with the Competition Commission within 30 days from the date of its signing.

PTCL has announced PTCL EVO Big Bonus Offer, that allows all new customers to enjoy free second month if they purchase PTCL EVO device today.

Who can avail the offer?

The promotion is valid for all new EVO customers except for customers making purchase on DayPass package.

All you have to do is buy a new EVO Connection and you get full value of your first month’s usage absolutely FREE the next month.

This is a limited time promotion.

Terms & conditions:

• This offer is valid on purchase of all new commercial EVO packages except Day-pass.
• Offer is not valid for Nitro and EVO Wifi cloud customers.
• Customers are not allowed to downgrade their package till they have used free balance
• Additional usage in Go, Lite & Wiz packages will be charged from bonus balance.
• Customer must connect to the internet within first 3 days of the 2^nd month to be eligible to use free balance or it will expire.
• Customer is not allowed to downgrade their package during this offer but customer can upgrade the package, in which case customer has to load the additional balance required to subscribe to the upgraded package.
• In the Advance billing package, customer will be required to pay Rs.2000 advance bill. After first bill payment, the next month will be free.
• In Landline package, customer will be billed for first month; after payment of first bill 2^nd month usage will be free.

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Back when we first laid eyes on Samsung’s Central Station, we were excited by its wireless docking capabilities, and now it looks like the company’s ready to let the monitor loose on European soil, albeit with a decidedly less American moniker. The SyncMaster C27A750, a 27-inch affair, uses Ultra Wide Band (UWB) technology via a USB dongle to connect to your laptop. It touts a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution and sports HDMI, VGA, and USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports. The new SyncMaster will hit Europe by the end of April for about €600, but we’ve yet to hear anything about Central Station’s ETA — very sneaky, Samsung… very sneaky.

SlashGear

Samsung

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Greek provider of telecommunications products Intracom Telecom has signed a contract with Pakistan Telecommunication Company PTCL to supply its point-to-multipoint WiBAS systems covering in the initial phase in Lahore.

Under this agreement, Intracom Telecom’s WiBAS system will enable PTCL to provide broadband corporate wireless access services to its business customers in Lahore.

With this, PTCL will be able to provide high speed broadband over wireless network to its corporate users.

WiBAS is optimized for applications requiring high availability and high capacity on demand using Adaptive Coding and Modulation up to 256 QAM, statistical multiplexing and dynamic bandwidth allocation.

Read the full story

Mobile body area network (MBAN) technology has the potential to be a boon to the healthcare system of the future by enabling remote patient monitoring through disposable wireless devices — meaning less doctor visits for everyone and great news for latrophobes. Until now, MBAN was opposed by the Aerospace & Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council (AFTRCC) because it utilizes the same radio bands that aircraft manufacturers do when they’re testing new planes. AFTRCC didn’t want all that medical chatter “polluting their spectrum” but decided to get on board with MBAN when the health care industry promised to create a way to stop signals that disrupt aeronautical traffic. MBAN is a part of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan and purports to use short-length radio waves (not unlike Bluetooth) in the 2300 and 2400 MHz range to transmit physiological info to treating physicians — as opposed to other patient monitors that use web-based communications. MBAN would initially be used in hospitals but could later find its way into residential use by employing home entertainment systems (Wii Fit integration, here we come!) to collect and transmit data. With the FCC expected to decide on the final rules for MBAN later this year, the Intel Health Guide may have some company in the at-home patient monitoring business. We can only hope that the next time the aeronautic and health care industries combine forces, it will take the form of jetpack-wearing doctors making house calls.

Short version: part useful application of new technology, part marketing gimmick, the HP eStation is a solid all-in-one printer that uses a wireless Android-powered touchscreen tablet as its primary interface. The printer is about what you’d expect from HP these days, while the tablet presents some interesting new usability options. You certainly shouldn’t buy the eStation just because you want an Android tablet, but it makes a decent bonus if you’re looking for a functional all-in-one printer anyway.

Features:

• wireless all-in-one supports HP ePrint and iPrint technologies
• includes 20 free faxes per month via eFax.com
• separate ink tanks per color
• includes a 7″ wireless Android-powered tablet called “Zeen”
• MSRP of $399.99

Pros:

fast, sharp printing
• easy to set up
• decent paper tray

Cons:

• the Zeen tablet feel under-powered
• No market:// URI support for Android apps
• Limited Linux support

Review:
Reviewing printers in the year 2011 just isn’t that exciting. Unless, of course, that printer also includes a wireless Android-powered tablet. The output quality from the eStation is what you’d expect these days: fast, high quality text and graphics. Photos on photo paper look good. The printer is not particularly quiet about its job, though: loading paper is actually a fairly noisy process, and the sound of the print head speeding back and forth across the page is more than a little noticeable.

HP calls the tablet portion of the eStation the “Zeen”. It’s a 7″ touchscreen that provides you control over your printer, and for its primary task it does a great job. It’s unobtrusive and intuitive to use. When a print job completes, the Zeen makes a demure little “ding” sound to let you know. Using the Zeen, you can copy, scan or fax without ever using your computer.

The integration of printer information and controls into Android is very well done. The Zeen system dashboard shows you a quick overview of your wireless network settings, Zeen battery charge, estimated ink levels in the printer, and info on any SD card inserted into the Zeen. The typical Android slide-down notification system reveals active print jobs as well as the printer’s IP address and ePrint email address.

Setting up the Zeen’s home screen is a little laborious, and includes a rather paltry selection of widgets. It’s not possible to add widgets, so if you don’t like what they give you you’re out of luck. One of the most striking things about the widget selection is the complete lack of anything from Google. Instead, you get Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Weather, and Yahoo! Daily Digest news headlines widgets. It’s pretty obvious that HP and Yahoo! made a deal over this, and it’s a little unfortunate that they’ve chosen what widgets you can use on the Zeen.

The eStation supports the same print apps that other HP printers do, with the difference being that you access the apps through the Zeen. This is the biggest real-world use of the Zeen you’re likely to see. The physically attached interface of other printers means you need to gather the kids around the printer itself to select which PBS Kids coloring book pages you want to print out. With the eStation, you can give the Zeen to your kids and let them find and print the pages they want. Be advised, though, that the Zeen will not be responsive enough for most hyper-stimulated kids today. It literally takes about ten seconds to launch the PBS Kids print app. Navigating within the app, and selecting something to print is also measured in seconds.

The selection of content within the print apps is fairly stagnant. I haven’t seen a lot of new coloring book pages or CubeeCraft constructs since I first got my review unit of the eStation. I haven’t looked at the Coupons, My Recipes or the daily Sudoku apps, though, so maybe those have more regularly updated content.

The eStation driver software is pretty typical. Printing and scanning is easy if you’re using Windows or Mac. Linux users should note that Ubuntu 10.10 is not yet supported. Linux support comes via the HPLIP Open Source project.

Interestingly, the Zeen made it possible for me to print from and scan to my Ubuntu 10.10 laptop, although in a very roundabout way that few sane end users would opt to use. Remember that the ePrint print-by-email service has a 5 megabyte limit on files it will accept, so to print anything larger than that I had to first copy it to an SD card, then insert that SD card into the Zeen, and finally print the item from the Zeen’s QuickOffice app. Like I said, roundabout. A similar process worked for scanning: scan to an SD card in the Zeen, put the SD card into my laptop, retrieve the files.

The Zeen has a very specific set of features, and is not a general purpose tablet. You’re not going to whip it out to check IMDB while watching a movie. You can load an SD card full of MP3s and use it as a portable music player, but really, why would you? Web browsing on the Zeen is so slow as to be not worth the effort. Checking your email on the Zeen is a novelty you’ll try, just to see it work, and then never use again.

One real shortcoming, I think, is that the Zeen has no support for market:// URIs for Android apps. I understand they don’t want to support third-party apps, and some (many?) apps might not even function very well, if at all, on the Zeen. You can load Android apps if you can find a .apk file, but it seems really lame to me for HP to completely disable access to the Android marketplace.

Bottom Line
Does the marriage of an Android tablet to an all-in-one printer make sense? Yeah, actually it does, as long as you understand the limitations of the pairing. The Zeen isn’t a fully featured tablet, but rather a specific feature, with a specific set of functionality tailored to the eStation. Don’t buy the eStation for the Zeen. Buy the eStation because you need a reliable all-in-one printer, and enjoy what the Zeen offers you.

Cable cutting is almost a reflexively good thing, right? Wireless mice, wireless console controllers, wireless internet—but is this wireless KFA2 GeForce GTX460 graphics card just wireless for the pure sake of it? Or is this the future? Read the full story