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YouTube is expected to announce a new agreement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor under which the world’s largest online video portal will be able to host selected shows of the studios.

The deal, which will be announced in a few hours, will enable YouTube to show selected full-length television shows and films from MGM, The New York Times reported.

Some of these are “American Gladiators”, “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven” and clips from popular movies like “Legally Blonde.”

The movies/shows will be free to watch, with ads running alongside the video. YouTube is often charged with hosting unauthorized content though in recent months it has tightened its control over pirated footage.

In an unprecedented move on Nov. 6, Pakistani government issued a decree under which “cyber terrorism” will be punishable by death.

The law, applicable on both Pakistanis and foreigners living in or outside Pakistan, will allow the government to punish those who commits a crime detrimental to national security through the use of a computer or any other electronic device.

“Whoever commits the offence of cyber terrorism and causes death of any person shall be punishable with death or imprisonment for life”, the law says.

Cyber terrorism is defined as accessing of a computer network or electronic system by someone who then “knowingly engages in or attempts to engage in a terrorist act”, said Reuters.

The ordinance listed several definitions of a “terrorist act” including stealing or copying, or attempting to steal or copy, classified information necessary to manufacture any form of chemical, biological or nuclear weapon, the news service added.

Illegal electronic entry into systems of any sensitive installations, electronic fraud, electronic forgery, system damage, unauthorized access to codes and misuse of encryption are now punishable crimes with penalties of three to 10 years in prison.

Critics are viewing the punishment as “too harsh” and an international outcry is expected soon.

PakHeadlines is a new venture recently launched by two NUCES-FAST alums, Abdul Basit and Mustafa Haroon. Currently in beta, the Web site gathers news from popular news sources around Pakistan and aggregates the headlines on one single page.

The portal also provides links to live streaming of popular TV channels like AAJ TV, GEO and ARY. Mobile users can access this website on wap.pakheadlines.com

The design and usability index of the portal is ‘almost moderate’ with a simple design and content-focused approach. However, the Web site would have looked much better if the moderators have done a little more effort. Currently, they usability of the portal is quite low. Add to this the fact that small fonts are used for headlines (15 are displayed on the front page and the page is refreshed after every two minutes) and no abstracts are attached with them. They can fare better if they update the portal to display the most important news instead of giving headlines about the King of Bhutan and Bangladesh political crisis . Another drawback this website has is that they don’t have a large archive; users won’t be able to access news after its 5 days old.

While doing a review on this portal, I asked one of the team members about their plans of future expansion and if they have taken the permission from the channels shown on their website and if they can do well in this age of feed readers.

We’ve launched a very basic set of features in the beta release of our website. The prototype has been placed in the market to see the response of users. Yes, there are feed readers – tons of news website that are available out there. Although we took the risk to provide all headlines that are collected from popular news sources and place them on one single page, avoiding too much of news that one might have to read through any feed reader. All news is also linked back to their actual news source so that interested users can read more from the source. For the next upcoming release, we’ve planned to include full news from the sources so that users won’t have to run away here and there to read more. Quick access to weather forecast and we’re trying to include forex as well.

Let’s see if this venture is successful or….

This is the first of our posts and activities for World Usability Day - get involved yourself by contributing articles to osama@greenwhite.org

This article is written by Obaid Ahmed, an avid G&W participant, founder of Deensoft and creator of Workspace and Wixd, two of the first startups we covered at Green & White. Recently, Deensoft has also been creating a javascript-based UI framework called ProtoFlow and ProtoChart.

"Usability rules the Web. Simply stated, if the customer can’t find a project, then he or she will not buy it. The Web is the ultimate customer-empowering environment. He or she who clicks the mouse gets to decide everything. It is so easy to go elsewhere; all the competitors in the world are but a mouse click away." - Jakob Neilsen

Over the past few years, Rich Internet Applications (RIA) have really taken the web by storm. We all are using at least one web application which can be classified as RIA. While this transition has created some really neat and nifty applications — it has also broken the traditional web application model that users were familiar with.

If you are a Yahoo Mail or Hotmail user, you might have noticed a big change in your mailbox recently. The new and improved User Interface tries to provide an easy to use and "outlook" like interface.  While all these new techniques under RIA are a good step forward, it also creates a big problem. Creating clean and effective user interfaces just got harder. 

Today being the World Usability Day, I thought it would be worth going through some usability issues and techniques that web developers should be aware of.

User-Centered Design (UCD):

Your application design should revolve around your user. No surprise here. UCD is a standard approach for RIA’s since most of the content in these applications is generated by users, it has to be revolving around the user himself.

Readability:

Making sure that your content is readable and understandable. This means that your headings for various different sections on your site, navigation, controls should be understandable. Readability is not legibility. So making your text pretty does not mean its readable.

Physical Consistency:

Your website should appear the same consistently. If you keep changing the layout from page-to-page, the user has to relearn and you loose them.

Graceful Degradation:

While Javascript and Flash are awesome tools to use, be prepared to provide an alternate option to your users who either don’t have flash or have disabled javascript. If your application cannot work without underlying technologies then be prepared to provide a clear and clean message indicating why they are not able to use the feature.

Cliffhanger-Effect:

Also known as Zeigarnik-Effect was found by Bluma W. Zeigarnik in 1927. The effect establishes an emotional connection with readers and is extremely effective in terms of marketing. The effect creates a suspense in users mind about certain event. You might be using it when you are reading an article and at the end it says: "Subscribe to our feed for the next part". This creates an emotional suspense in users mind which makes them remember your site more prominently.

Shneiderman’s "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design":

You can improve usability of an application by following these 8 golden rules. (Source)

1. Strive for consistency
2. Enable frequent users to use shortcuts
3. Offer informative feedback
4. Design dialog to yield closure
5. Offer simple error handling
6. Permit easy reversal of actions
7. Support internal locus of control
8. Reduce short-term memory load

3 Click Rule:

One of the most important rules to remember while creating a user interface. If the user does not find the information they are looking for in 3 clicks than they will stop using your application. The number of clicks in this rule isn’t that important; what is really important is that visitors should always know where they are, where they were and where are they going next.

Banner Blindness:

As a web user we are bombarded by different ads all the time. We learn to ignore them. Our brain learns the basic characteristics of an advertisements and makes it really easy for us to ignore parts of a webpage that look like an advertisement. When I first visited KarachiSnob.com — I closed the site down in less than 2 seconds because I thought I had reached a "parked domain" with ads on it. The content must not confuse the user by looking like an advertisement.

Why should we care about these rules?

As more and more web applications emerge in Pakistan, it is important that we put on our usability hat to create better systems. Over the past 1 year or so I have seen many create web applications that seem to totally ignore usability. Lets make an effort to think about how you can improve the usability of your application so that user spends the maximum time on your application and generates the maximum revenue.

References:

• Interaction Design Encyclopedia
• Usability First Glossary: Alphabetical Index
• Usability Glossary
• Jakob Nielsen’s Website

Digital garage, partner of Twitter’s Japanese arm- TwitterJapan - launched Twicco, a site that lets Twitter users create groups and then subscribe to them.

TechCrunch reported that Twicco is currently offered in Japanese and the company is planning to launch multi-lingual groups later. The groups are not incorporated into the main portal but are hosted at a separate site - a new concept in groupings.

Here is a demo video of the product

Karachi Snob is quite contrary to what the name suggests. It is not a social network pertaining to the Karachi snobs, but a portal which holds within it the directory of all the leading businesses of Karachi. From restaurants to museums to apparel and cabs, the portal features a short profile of all such service providers present, serving as a plausible tool for Karachi residents and visitors to track down from the directory of the finest places in Karachi, the one of their choice with ease.

The Web site has incorporated some interesting sections, such as New and Now in the city which features the recent happenings in Karachi; restaurants that deliver which provides a comprehensive directory for the user; the New 10 that features the new snob-approved businesses; the Karachi visitor’s guide, which provides concise and precise details a visitor should be acquainted with. Also, there is a “SMS service” which delivers the phone numbers of the snob approved businesses to the client. What really caught my attention was the snobs specials. This section provides special offers from leading businesses just up on mentioning “karachisnob.com”. There is also a free classified ads section, which might just help reselling items a less arduous job. A lost and found section is featured as well; however it seems like a far fetched idea keeping in mind the current situation.

The developers have undoubtedly done a good job at providing a comprehensive directory. But i guess the directory is in the process of being populated i did not see number of Nandos there, maybe i missed but that brings me to another point, Information is over whelming at this place for a user it might be easier to call 1217 to get the number of a place if he knows the name however if he does not then its a good place to hunt out restaurant to eat. Most important thing for any such site to grow at a rapid speed is allowing the users to submit places, this aspect is either in the works or have not been considered, unless you do that you will never be able to keep uptodate with restaurants and places popping up every where. They have their work cut out for them with other players like starz already there allowing users to even review places and give ranking and foodcourt allowing users to directly order for them without knowing the number. Having just a simple classified add thing and a simple listing directory missing the most basic functionality of search wont cut it. Also, if they add a small map of the businesses, it would further ease up things for some one new to Karachi. The general outlook of the Web site needs to be amended a bit especially the placement of the links and the visuals elements needs a lot of improvement.

The advancements in information technology have finally penetrated the health care system in Pakistan. The advent of the “Remote Patient Monitoring System with focus on Antenatal Care”, which is being funded by the National ICT R&D fund, Government of Pakistan, and implemented by  NEXGIN-RC (a unit of NUCES), is the first step of its kind aimed particularly at the rural areas. The project focuses on reducing the infant and maternal mortality rate of Pakistan- one of the Millennium Development Goals as well.

The venture is structured around the principles of artificial intelligence. The hardware involved is a module containing medical sensors and a PDA. The lady health worker, after gathering the required data of the patient will upload it on to the PDA using a wired channel where , after completion, data would be analyzed by the Clinical Decision Support System and the result would be transmitted back to the PDA with the lady health worker. Furthermore, the data of the patient would also be saved on to the central system.

The proper implementation of this system would guarantee a reliable, safe and efficient maternal care routine. The intrusion of I.T in the health sector, will also trigger further research and development in the biotechnology sector. It will also promote technical training of lady health workers, aiding them in polishing their patient management skills through sessions with teaching hospital’s doctors. Also, the risk of loss of data would be minimized by the automated file management of the patients.

In a nut shell, the initiation of such a project is a landmark movement. Up on succession the project can be expanded further and also improvised to provide a much more comprehensive system. Let’s hope that the project actually materializes into a sustainable medical reality.

Downloading, chatting, Youtube, even Facebook is a major NO in most of the office environment- and that for a valid reason. Most employers like their employees to be totally focused on work and nothing else, since this is the exact reason employees are hired for so that the employer’s right to monitor and limit your unofficial online activities.

However, there are two sorts of monitoring, ethical monitoring and un-ethical monitoring. These days, online monitoring is one of the recent ways to judge an employee’s performance. Companies have well defined policies regarding usage of internet. This online monitoring may have many positive aspects but this also raises the chance of unethical monitoring. I tell you what unethical monitoring is, that is reading your emails, chats or personal data without your consent or knowledge under the pretext of monitoring.

Most of us, when come to office in the morning, first thing we do along with checking our official email is to check our personal account as well. How many of us stop and think of what if your boss or any other techie person in your office is also reading your personal emails or chats? Or what if there is a spyware on your computer without your knowledge? This is actually happening! Now if getting the work done is the employer’s right then privacy of checking personal email is the employee’s right too. If the employer fears of valuable information being exploited or leaked then these websites should be banned from the workplace instead of being monitored discreetly as this is I believe, totally unethical.

The past ten years brought in Pakistan a revolutionized, I.T oriented approach which stretched to the educational system as well. Introducing the subject merely was not considered the only pathway to achieving this milestone, but the whole stream of teaching saw an evolution in which the traditional learn-it-off-the-book strategy was downsized by integrating the concept of extensive and comprehensive research. From primary to high school, such approach was what the Ministry of Education aimed to achieved. Recently I thought I’d spend some time to see how far they’ve gotten.

However, unfortunate as it may seem but this milestone is yet to be achieved. Computer labs have been introduced, yet the hardware is inadequate; the software is outdated- and mostly the systems fail to work. Lack of proper maintenance and upgrading of the systems portends an outdated approach of the students towards computer education. Aawareness about this discipline can not be spread just by setting up computer labs. Proper updating of the labs should take place; leading I.T companies should come to schools’ help including counseling sessions. The children of today have to be educated about networking and programming, about cellular technology and artificial intelligence. This should be done right from the elementary classes and not when they enter university.

Putting aside the supposedly superficial short coming of the computer labs in schools, let me focus your attention to the curriculum that is being followed. The general outlay of the curriculum fails to provide a gradual acquaintance of the students with the subject. Computer education is not confined to learning the definition of hardware; it is not synonymous to word processors and spreadsheets and presentation software. computer education is a vast subject and such a vast subject requires the proper breakup of its components, in a gradual grade by grade process. Mostly in their SSC, students are exposed to programming, when previously their approach was confined to writing in the word processor or creating presentations. Thus, many fail to excel. This is the reason why programming appears to many, as a hailstorm of foreign alphabets. The fact that computing is such a cosmic stream, there is a component out there for every student; if only they are exposed to it at the right time in the right manner.

The third flaw in the system is of the quality of teaching. Since every MBA can not teach business nor can every MCS teach Computing. Teaching is a serious issue and only the qualified teachers, who can adequately teach the students the dimensions of this subject should be appointed. A diploma of “25 courses in one month” is not the eligible criteria for a teacher, even if it means teaching primary school children. Primary school and junior high is the perfect age for the students to be acquainted with the magnitude of I.T; from networking to programming to cellular technology, so that they make the right choice in the future.

This is not the age to make “Jack of all trades and master of none” but we need to ‘raise’ experts and we have to start from the grass root level. In order to get Pakistan rolling on the Tech highway, first and foremost the course outline needs to be revolutionized. Subject-specific people should be responsible for making the course, selecting the books and every other thing associated with it. Proper guidance by experts needs to be an integral part of the teaching system. Most importantly, dedicated and hardworking teachers need to be appointed. Education is the key to excellence, and this key need to be fashioned in the most articulate manner so that the benefits are not restricted.

iSMS is a new service offering free SMS to any number in Pakistan. As it is in private beta stage, it’s not possible to give it a full review. However, the basic outlook of the product is simple and catchy.

The service provides online SMS conversations and one can also manage his/her contacts. Spamming is controlled by offering delays in subsequent messages.

Babar discussed the product on his blog and gave it a favorable rating,

One of the attractive feature of iSMS is that you can use your email account to signup – so it works well for those who are not in Pakistan. The solution allows you to build an address book and keep track of your conversations - as shown below. To control abuse, they require users to wait a few seconds before sending new messages. They recently did a redesign of their user interface and it looks very neat. They have a facebook application called SMSFriends as well. By the way this is the same team which built See-N-Report.com. This is a good start and I hope that they can add more features (notifications and reminders are in the works already) and reduce the time it takes to deliver and receive a message back.

They have added just one new feature; One can now send SMS to as many as 5 recipients simultaneously. They have also introduced incentive for people to invite their friends. If a person invites a friend, his/her contact limit increases by 5 upon the joining of the friend.