WiMAX currently being tested in Kathmandu by Nepal Telecom

Nepal Telecom is currently testing WiMAX Base stations in Kathmandu, which is tentatively scheduled for launch this Dashain or tihar. They have already tested 10 Base Stations inside Kathmandu and going to install/operate 40 more Base Stations in the Valley. AirSpan, a US based Vendor is providing the Wimax solution to Nepal Telecom for the whole of Nepal and currently involved in fast roll out of Base Stations in Kathmandu. 

It is found from the test that a single Base Station can provide coverage up to 1 km with a speed of at least 4 Mbps but in compact building area, the coverage goes down to less than 500m. Now with the completion of 50 Base Stations and 400 more Wi-Fi hotspots in Kathmandu, Nepal Telecom will be launching the service after getting approval from NTA for the tariff. They have proposed a volume based package of 5GB WiMAX Internet service, worth Rs 800 to NTA and soon will be launching more packages for wholesale services to corporate (banks, NGOs, INGOs, Government offices and other companies). It is also known that they will be outsourcing the CPE/Support Services from another company and NT will soon make a pact with them for those services.

With the ever increasing demand of Broadband in Nepal, NT intends to install more of WiMAX Base Stations and around 1500 Wi-Fi hotspots in whole of Nepal to quench the bandwidth hungry customers and extend broadband coverage to remote areas. As WiMax allows users to have high speed internet service without having to rely on telephone or Optical fibre cables, We believe it will be more popular in remote areas where it will be the only one option to get wireless broadband there. The Wi-fi hotspot availability of the service with WiMax will be a sure-shot hit due to ubiquitous nature of Wi-fi in smartphones, tabs/pads and Laptops.

As the Internet reach extends to remote places of Nepal, this sort of project helps to lessen the digital divide (the gap between people who have and have not access to Information Technologies like computer, Internet) in the country and boost the economic activities there.
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Nepal's first 3D movie shooting completed, enters post production.

First 3D movie being made in Nepal named 'Vigilante' has recently entered studio for post production, completing its shooting in different locations of Nuwakot and Kathmandu. Dipendra K Khanal who stormed the box office with Sex psychology movie Chapali Height, is the producer/director of the movie. It is known that the overall budget of the movie will be 1 crore of which 20 lakhs is for the 3D camera alone.

Director Dipendra K Khanal and Actress Priyanka Karki of Vigilante

According to Khanal, the movie portrays urban life and it's problems. He believes the 3D movie will fully entertain people, bringing out new taste in Nepalese Film Industry. The movie include actors like Subash Thapa, Raj Ghmire, Priyanka karki in lead roles and other actors include Deep Shika Shahi, Menuka Pradhan, A Gurung, Shankar Acharya. Purushottam Pradhan is the cinematographer of the movie. Works like Editing and Sound mixing is being done in the post production according to the Cinematographer. 

Actors Priyanka Karki and Subash Thapa on the set of Vigilante.

Though the movie will be ready to be released in a matter of month, the movie release will be limited to Kathmandu and some multiplexes that support 3D projection (like QFX, Big, Gopi Krishna, Guna). So, single Screen Theaters need to work parallel to make themselves ready for screening the first 3D movie of Nepal "Vigilante"- I cannot read any story or even a part of the movie from the title itself which was easy for many of the Nepali movies before.

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Soundgarden to Release 'King Animal' on Nov. 13

Soundgarden will release "King Animal," the veteran rock band's sixth studio album and first in over 16 years, on Nov. 13. The set's first single, "Been Away Too Long," hits digital retailers on Sept. 27.

Since reuniting in 2010, the Seattle group has issued retrospective album "Telephantasm" and live release "Live on I-5." In June, they hit No. 4 on the Rock Songs chart with "Live to Rise," a hard-driving rocker written for "The Avengers" soundtrack that has sold 90,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Chris Cornell, Matt Cameron, Ben Shepherd and Kim Thayil co-produced the album with longtime collaborator Adam Kasper and recorded at Studio X in Seattle. "King Animal" will be released on Seven Four Entertainment and Republic Records.

In March, Cornell told Billboard the album's sound would be diverse.

"I don't really know how to describe it musically," he said, "because typically with Soundgarden... every time we write a song we always take it for what it is and try to make it the most it can be. It's very diverse, I can tell you that."

"King Animal" is the band's first studio effort since 1996's "Down on the Upside," which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Other releases include the grunge standards "Ultramega OK" (1988), "Louder Than Love" (1989) and "Badmotorfinger" (1991). They reached a commercial peak in 1994 with "Superunknown," which has sold 3.8 million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, and topped the album chart, yielding five hit singles and two Grammy Awards.

Overall, the band has 8.2 million albums sold in the U.S. during their career, according to SoundScan.

With this release of the studio album by Soundgarden, I expect an album from Rage Against The Machine (RATM) as well. Thanks to disbanding of Audioslave ( formed with Chris Cornell from Soundgarden and Others from RATM), after which Soundgarden and RATM got reunion and started performing live but no studio album news yet from RATM.

"King Animal" Track Listing

Been Away Too Long

Non-State Actor

By Crooked Steps

A Thousand Days Before

Blood On The Valley Floor

Bones of Birds

Taree

Attrition

Black Saturday

Halfway There

Worse Dreams

Eyelid's Mouth

Source: Billboard.com

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Samsung Galaxy S4 to be unveiled in Feb 2013.

Samsung is planning to launch its high end smartphone of the Galaxy series- Galaxy S4 or S IV at Mobile World Congress MWC 2013, Barcelona. Different media reports the news quoting an Official from Samsung as published in The Korea times on Sunday. This will be the launch of an smartphone in nine months for Samsung Electronics after this years May release of Galaxy S III- the record breaking Smartphone for this year. 

Samsung Galaxy S III launched May 2012

Samsung's new flagship rumor was heard immediately after the iPhone 5 launch but now with the official's words, it seems Samsung is becoming ready to compete with Apple's iPhone in terms of hardware and much more features. 

It seems obvious now that Samsung Galaxy S4  will be supporting LTE or who knows it may support LTE Advanced ( 3GPP Release 10 LTE Advanced)!. It is also rumored that the device will have 5 inch OLED display, powered by Google's Android Jelly Bean and Quad core processor.

Here is round up of rumors of the Samsung Galaxy S4 specs.

• 5 inch OLED display.
• Some change in the curved rectangular shape.
• LTE.
• Samsung's Exynos/ Qualcomm's Snapdragon Processor.
• Android Jelly Bean OS.
• MWC Mobile World Congress 2013 Launch day.

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Comparison of iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920 and Samsung Galaxy S3.

The latest smartphone to hit the shelves is Apple's iPhone 5 launched last Wednesday in San Francisco, with 4 inch integrated display, LTE support, iOS 6 and nano SIM. The iPhone 5 launch was just one week after the release of Nokia new flagship phone, Lumia 920 with 4.5 inch display, Wireless Charging, 8 MP pure view Camera, Windows phone 8 OS and Qualcomm Dual Core Processor. Though both devices are yet to hit the market, here is a comparison of iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920 with 2012's best selling (till now) smartphone Samsung Galaxy S3. 

iPhone 5 is termed as "the thinnest and the lightest" smartphone in the market as claimed by the manufacturer Apple and it seems they have downsized many components to make it thin and light, the integrated display(the screen having the touch censor in it) being one of them. Nokia on the other hand claims their latest flagship to be the brightest smartphone with HD display. Samsung claimed their smartphone Galaxy S3 to be the Smartest phone with display lighten till you close your eyes and lifting of the call as you put the phone in your ears like features. 

All three devices have LTE capability though their operating frequencies are different depending on the carriers they deal with ( LTE frequency spectrum shown in the chart below). iPhone 5 slips a little with no NFC support which goes against the major speculation whereas Nokia 920 and Samsung Galaxy S3 both have NFC support. 

Nano SIM is what Apple's iPhone 5 take in, whose size is smaller than the micro SIM that Nokia 920 and Galaxy S3 supports. This makes the iPhone 5, clumsy to be used immediately in countries like Nepal where nano SIM card is not being distributed by the telecom operators, and gadget buffs have to wait till the nano SIM becomes available.

We take a look at the processor specs when it comes to compare the speed and processing capabilities of a phone but Apple's Dual core A6 processor falls short as compared to the Qualcomm's processor in Nokia 920 and Samsung S3. 

Panorama feature in Apple's iPhone 8 MP sapphire Lens Camera is big to many who don't know the presence of many Android applications for better panoramic photo. Nokia Lumia 920's 8MP pureview Camera with better image stabilization and long shutter is a major feature for the photography driven Smartphone user.

Now lets put the point wise comparison of the iPhone 5, Samsung S III and Nokia Lumia 920 in the picture below.

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