Technology

A Pakistani edtech startup named Maqsad has raised $2.1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Indus Valley Capital but also participated in by Alter Global, Fatima Gobi Ventures, and several individual founders from Pakistan and the Middle East. The startup aims to build a mobile-only platform to offer after-school academic support to “100 million” Pakistani students, says a …

The quartet of newly minted citizen astronauts comprising the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission safely splashed down in the Atlantic off Florida’s coast on Saturday, completing a three-day flight of the first all-civilian crew ever sent into Earth orbit. The successful launch and return of the mission, the latest in a recent string of rocket-powered expeditions bankrolled by their billionaire passengers, marked another milestone in the fledgling industry …

The last one year has seen an exponential rise in Pakistani start-up companies, as more and more tech-savvy entrepreneurs attempt to solve longstanding business issues with the help of technology. Backed by investment, pitches are finally moving from mere buzzwords to reality. Eos profiles some of the most prominent of these new companies and the people behind them… President Arif …

Apple revealed its new models called iPhone 13 on September 14. The battery size of the latest models has gotten significantly bigger since last year, according to a document posted to hazardous material information and response company Chemtrec’s website. Battery sizes have been described in watt-hours instead of traditional milliamp hours. Following are the battery sizes of Apple’s new phones and the …

Ireland’s data privacy regulator on Friday said it had asked Facebook to demonstrate that an LED indicator light on the social media giant’s newly launched smart glasses is “an effective means” to let people know they are being filmed or photographed. Ireland’s Data Privacy Commissioner (DPC) is the lead regulator of Facebook under the European Union’s strict data privacy laws …

ISLAMABAD: TikTok has launched an Urdu-language “safety centre” in the country in order to ensure that videos shared through the platform do not overstep the guidelines spelled out by the government. The decision comes in the wake of complaints that some of the videos created by users are too explicit and go beyond the bounds of decency. The telecom regulator …

CAPE CANAVERAL: A billionaire e-commerce executive and three less-wealthy private citizens chosen to join him blasted off from Florida on Wednesday aboard a SpaceX rocket ship and soared into orbit, the first all-civilian crew ever to circle the Earth from space. The quartet of amateur astronauts, led by the American founder and chief executive of financial services firm Shift4 Payments …

Chinese astronauts returned to earth on Friday after completing the country’s longest-ever crewed mission, the latest landmark in Beijing’s drive to become a major space power. The capsule carrying the three astronauts was suspended on a parachute and landed in the Gobi desert at 1:35pm local time (05:35 GMT). The crew of the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft were in “good health” after …

ISLAMABAD: The government officially awarded additional spectrum to Ufone during a ceremony on Wednesday. Ufone was the only company to have submitted bids for the additional spectrum auction while Jazz, Telenor and Zong 4G — country’s top three mobile operators — had opted to stay away from the process. Sharing his thoughts on spectrum acquisition, president and group CEO of …

Facebook’s messaging service WhatsApp on Wednesday launched a new feature to make it possible to search for businesses within its application for the first time. The test in São Paulo, Brazil, which allows WhatsApp users to find shops and services through a directory in the app, is the latest feature in Facebook’s drive to bolster e-commerce on its services. “This …