Another first by PTCL: Landline service available on mobile phones

“First Time ever in Pakistan, PTCL brings you, the power of your Landline in your pocket”

SmartLink uses your Internet Connection and gives you the freedom of making and receiving your landline calls from your mobile. Not only you can make voice calls to anywhere (Landline & Mobile), SmartLink enables you to do instant messaging and video calling with your SmartLink buddies.

Never miss a call on your landline, even when you are away. Never worry about your mobile balance running out and experience the true freedom with PTCL in your pocket.

Service Details

• App is free without any subscription or monthly charge
• All SmartLink to SmartLink calls are free
• All calls to landline and mobile are charged as per landline tariff
• App can be subscribed by PTCL DSL subscribers only

Features:

• Enjoy free SmartLink to SmartLink voice and video calls, whenever and wherever you are
• Make calls to Landline and Mobile at your landline Tariff
• Stay in touch with all your buddies through Instant Messaging
• Watch 150 PTCL Smart TV channels on your phone
• Now PIA flight enquiry is at your fingertips
• Access your mobile contact directory for calls and messages

Availability:

• The app is currently available in 41 cities.
• All Customers with PTCL Broadband-DSL connections can  subscribe to this service
• The application is free with no subscription and monthly charges

Registration:

• Download and Install the application on your Android Phone and click the “Register” button after opening the app
• Fill in the registration form with your PTCL details, i.e. Name, CNIC, PSTN #, Account ID, email and Cell number
• If the credentials match, the application would be registered and SmartLink to anywhere calls shall be activated

Rotimatic Is The World’s First Automatic Roti Maker!

When it comes to making a roti, one needs to be skilled and patient. Roti is a conventional staple food for millions of people around the world. One requires the perfect mix of ingredients along with fine kneading and flattening to achieve the desired result. A lot of people fail to do this, however, now we have a robot that can make roti for us. Rotimatic is world’s first completely autonomous roti-making robot.

It weighs 39 pounds and measures 40x40x40 cm. It has 15 sensors, 10 motors and about 300 parts that allow it to make baked roti at a pace of 1 roti per minute. It has been created by Zimplistic, a Mountain View, company based in California. The company is comprised of 20 personals. The gadget took 6 years for its development by co-founders Rishi Israni and Pranoti Nagarkar. Engineering aspect was taken care of by Nagarkar while Israni tackled the software side. Nagarkar says that she was so fed up by the process of making roti that she decided to create Rotimatic.

There have been some other roti-making gadgets in the market up till now, however, they were not completely autonomous like Rotimatic, which only requires ingredients to work. The device has three containers; one for flour, one for water and one for oil. These three containers slide into the top and have an opening at bottom to allow for releasing the ingredient. The gadget is quite easy to use and can be plugged into any standard wall outlet.

We won’t be boring you with the details of how the device works, however, some key points have to be listed. The Rotimatic makes one dough for one roti and this allows for its smaller size. The sensors make sure that the consistency of the dough is perfect. The first roti of a batch takes a bit longer since the gadget is calibrating while making it. The dough is flattened to a thickness of 1.5 mm and during this process, sensors ensure that the thickness is even. Cooking is carried out till the roti puffs up similar to a pastry, followed by sliding out of the roti. As per claims by the company, the final product tastes the same as a roti by an expert roti maker does.

Reportedly, cleaning the gadget is also quite easy with each component being removable. The gadget costs $599 in case you’re wondering. As of now, Zimplistic is busy in enhancing the assembly line and is awaiting the US certification. The company has been contacted by potential device buyers and competitors alike. Israni said, “There is not a single appliance company that did not write to sell the product; we did not reply because we are in no mood to sell.”

Malware Is Still Spying On You Even When Your Mobile Is Off

Newly discovered Android malware hijacks your phone when you believe you have switched it off.

Most of us have seen Hollywood movies where hackers trace and spy on mobile devices even though they are switched off. Like most things in spy movies, we disregard it as fiction.

However, the AVG mobile security team recently discovered malware that may challenge this preconception. The malware , known as Android/PowerOffHijack, hijacks the shutdown process and the device remains functional even though it appears to be off.

First seen in China, the malware spreads through Chinese app stores with around 10,000 devices infected so far.

The malware affects versions of Android older than v.5 (Lollipop) and requires root permission to hijack the shut down process.

After pressing the power button, the phone displays an authentic shutdown animation, and the phone appears off. Although the screen is black, it is still on.

While the phone is in this state, the malware can make outgoing calls, take pictures and perform many other tasks without notifying you.

How does this happen?

Analysing the shutdown process

On Android devices, when the power off button is pressed it will invoke the interceptKeyBeforeQueueing function of the class interceptKeyBeforeQueueing. interceptKeyBeforeQueueing will check if the power off button is pressed and go to certain process.

When the power button is released, intereceptPowerKeyUp is invoked and it will trigger a runnable to continue.

So according to above code snippet, we could see that in LONG_PRESS_POWER_GLOBAL_ACTIONS switch, some actions will be done after power off button is released. showGlobalActionsDialog is what we care about, which will open a dialog for your to select actions, such as power off, mute or airplane mode.

So if you select power off option, mWindowManagerFuncs.shutdown will be called.

But mWindowManagerFuncs is an interface object. It will actually call the thread ShutDownThread’s shutdown function. ShutDownThread.shutdown is the real entry point of the shut down process. It will shut down radio service first and invoke the power manager service to turn the power off.
So finally in power manager service, a native function is called to turn the power off.

Now we have understood the whole process of shutting down your mobile. So if we want to hijack the power off process, we definitely need to interfere before mWindowManagerFuncs.shutdown  as that shuts down the radio service.
Let’s turn back to the malware which executes a similar attack.

Analysing the malware

First, it applies for the root permission.
Second, after root permission is acquired, the malware will inject the system_server process and hook the mWindowManagerFuncs object.
Third, after the hook, when you press the power button, a fake dialog will pop up. And if you select power off option, it will display a fake shut down animation, leaving the power on but the screen off.

Last, in order to make your mobile look like really off, some system broadcast services also need to be hooked.
Let’s see some examples:

Recording a call

Transmitting private messages

Luckily, this malware has been detected by AVG.

Reference : AVG Officials

Skype for Android – Share Photos with Offline Contacts Now!

Many of you already use Skype for Android to share photos on the go – be it a beauty, a world wonder, or selfies. With yesterday release of Skype 5.2 for Android, we just updated photo sharing to make it an even simpler and more integrated experience.

Send photos to your contacts – online or offline

Gone are the days when you and your contacts need to be online at the same time for you to share photos using Skype. With this update, you can now send photos to your Skype contacts at a time that’s convenient for you, regardless of your contacts’ online status. When they are back on Skype, photos you shared show up beautifully inline in the chat history, whether or not you’re online – allowing you to easily carry on the conversation.

In addition to a better photo sharing experience, we’ve also made several other improvements recently, including:

• Picture in picture view is now supported on phones, too – letting you keep a video call going even when you navigate away to other applications
• Chats load faster, especially when opened from a notification
• Call quality improvements, especially in low bandwidth scenarios

You can download the update starting today in the Play Store.

Reference : Skype Official Blog

Microsoft Releases Picturesque Lock Screen App For Android Devices!

Microsoft today released yet another lock screen app called Picturesque in Google Play Store. It is also a part of Microsoft Garage project. This new app brings the beautiful Bing home page images to lock screen and allows users to change the image (from the past 6 days Bing homepages) with just a shake of the phone or by swiping to the right. Users can also see their missed calls and text messages at a glance on the lock screen and also search directly from the lock screen without unlocking your phone. 

Find full list of features below.

Key Features:

• Beautiful Bing Homepage images: Your lock screen will be updated with the beautiful daily Bing image; you could swipe through the images from past 6 days or shake your phone to change the image on your lock screen.

• Search on the lock screen: You could search for anything on the web directly from the lock screen and read all the linked pages without having to unlock your phone.

• Latest news: Keep yourself updated with the latest news headlines and tap through to read the full articles.

• Weather: Find out what the weather is at your current location; long tap through on the icons to get the detailed weather predictions for the week.

• Notifications on Screen: See your missed calls and Messages quickly from your lockscreen. Quick call or reply from the notification from Home screen itself.

• Regional Calendars & Muhurats (Only for Indian users): Personalize the lock screen to access your favorite regional calendars and Muhurat. Now you can figure out what festival is on for the day, rahu kalam, chogadiya/hora timings all from the lock screen itself.

• Camera & Phone controls: Access your phone camera from the lock screen; Change your WiFi, Bluetooth, volume, brightness settings; also use your phone as a torch from the lock screen.