Google has introduced additional requirements for digital lending apps in Pakistan, according to an article published on April 11, 2023.
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Google releases top trending searches of 2022 in Pakistan
KARACHI: Google has released top trending search in Pakistan, recapping the top trends of 2022 in the country.
The searches revealed that over the year, Pakistanis had a diverse range of interests that pivot on politics, famous personalities, government initiatives, current events, entertainment, technology, and food.
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This year, cricket continued to be the major search trend, with the T20 World Cup, Asia Cup 2022, and PSL 7 filling the top three spots in the overall list of top searches. Nationwide financial insecurity, floods, and inflation led people to search for government campaigns and financial aid schemes like the Ehsaas Program.
Meanwhile, celebrities like Queen Elizabeth, Aamir Liaquat, and Arshad Shareef also took their spots on the list. Here is the complete list of all the top trending searches;
Top Trending Searches:
T20 World Cup 2022
Asia Cup 2022
PSL 7
Melbourne weather
Climate change
Ehsaas program
Arshad Shareef
Aamir Liaquat
Queen Elizabeth
Naseem Shah
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In 2022, Pakistani movies were all over the news. The Legend of Maula Jatt stayed at the top of the Movies & TV section, followed by London Nahi Jaunga and Quadi-e-Azam Zindabad.
The love for Hollywood movies can also be seen in the fact that movies like Ms. Marvel, Black Adam, and Doctor Strange remained in the top five search results. The complete list is below or you can check out Fuchsia Magazine talking in depth about it on their channel too.
Top Movies & TV Shows
Maula Jatt
Ms. Marvel
Black Adam
Thor Love and Thunder
Doctor Strange
London Nahi Jaunga
The Batman
Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad
Sinf e Aahan
House of the Dragon
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People in Pakistan mainly searched for politicians and athletes in the last year. Due to Naseem Shah’s brilliant performances in the Asia Cup and T20 World Cup, he remained at the top of this category. People also looked for the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, due to the political situation in the country.
Also, famous Pakistani cricketers such as Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, and Muhammad Rizwan took their spots, respectively. Here is the complete list;
Top Searched Personalities
Naseem Shah
Pervez Musharraf
Salman Rushdie
Iftikhar Ahmed
Mohammad Rizwan
Shahbaz Sharif
Shadab Khan
Amber Heard
Azhar Ali
Imran Riaz Khan
In 2022, Pakistanis actively searched for smartphone brands, which include Infinix, iPhone, Samsung, and OPPO. Whereas, Vivo grabbed the majority of the attention because of the launch of its new Android mobile phones and got featured multiple times in the list.
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The complete list is mentioned below. Also, take a look at the analysis of VideoWaliSarkar on the top tech searches in Pakistan
Trending Tech Searches
Vivo V23
iPhone 14 Pro Max
OPPO F21 Pro
Vivo Y21
Vivo V23e
Realme c35
Infinix Note 12
Infinix Hot 12
Samsung A32
OPPO A16
With such ease under COVID-19 restrictions, people in Pakistan celebrated all major festive occasions in 2022 and turned to Google for finding modern recipes and a variety of food items.
The search categories reflected Pakistan’s love for food, with desi cuisine having the upper hand in the results. Check out the full list or visit Food Fusion, where they discussed the top food searches in Pakistan over the last year.
Trending Food and Cuisine
Chicken Recipe
Pulao recipe
Shami kabab recipe
Chicken soup recipe
Nuggets recipe
Chicken pakora recipe
White chicken recipe
Imli ki chutney recipe
Brownies recipe
Hot and sour soup recipe
Pakistanis also browsed Google for updates on local and international news, with the tragic death of Amir Liaquat Hussain topping the trending news list. News related to the Murree incident and Imran Khan also garnered a lot of interest in 2022.
People were also interested in events worldwide related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Below is the full list;
Trending News
Aamir Liaquat News
Ukraine News
Imran Khan Latest News
Murree News
Fatima Tahir News
Arshad Sharif News
Pervez Musharraf News
Salman Rushdie Latest News
Iqrar ul Hassan News
Sri Lanka News
To see more information about Google’s Year in Search 2022, please visit yearinsearch.google
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Google adsence announces new advertisement format
Google adsence announces new advertisement format for websites from December 13, 2022. The advertisement format is called side rails which will be viewed on widescreen devices.
The side rail advertisements will stick on the sides of webpage when the user is viewing page.
The side rail advertisements will automatically appear on those websites, which have anchor ads enabled on their adsence account.
There is no action required from the website for this change to take effect. However, if it is preferred not to show side rails, the option of “Side rails” in Auto ads settings can be turned off
Moreover the benefit of this option is that, overall revenue from advertisements will also increase.
The Google adsence notified that, “Today, we’re announcing a new ad format called side rails. Side rails are ads that stick to the sides of your pages when they’re viewed on widescreen devices, such as desktops. If you already have anchor ads turned on, side rails will automatically start to appear on your site after 13-12-2022.”
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YouTube issues lists of trending videos for Pakistan
KARACHI: YouTube has released the lists of the top trending videos, top music videos, top creators, breakout creators, and top shorts for Pakistan for the Year 2022, said a press release on Friday.
It is safe to say that Pakistani audiences enjoyed a wide range of content that kept them entertained throughout the year.
Farhan S. Qureshi, Country Director at Google, said: “YouTube has helped create an ecosystem in Pakistan that allows people to pursue their passions as full-time jobs while also enabling them to support their households financially.
“Pakistan has over 5,400 YouTube channels with over 100,000 subscribers, and over 350 of them have more than a million subscribers. It is also thrilling to see that the number of Pakistani YouTube channels making 1 million or more in revenue (PKR) has increased by more than 110 percent in a year.
“This year, we’ve had some amazing content creators who topped our lists in different categories and won over the hearts of average YouTube users with a wide range of content and creativity.”
In 2022, we saw a variety of videos that were the most popular in the country, dominated by the Pakistani drama and film industry. A Telefilm ‘RUPOSH’ on a young couple embarking on the journey of love and matrimony took the number one spot on the Top Trending Videos list followed by the first episode of the famous Pakistani dramas Kaisi Teri Khudgharzi’s and Sang-e-Mah’s. Here is the complete list of all the top trending videos.
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Pakistan rebuts reports of stopping payments to Google
KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Saturday strongly rebutted the reports that it has stopped the payments to Google.
Certain media has reported that Google PlayStore would not be available from December 01, 2022 due to the central bank had stopped payment to Google apps.
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The SBP in a statement said recent news circulating in some sections of the media that certain payments to Google are stuck at SBP, are baseless and misleading. “SBP strongly refutes all such assertions.”
The fact is that in order to facilitate the domestic entities, SBP specified certain Information Technology (IT) related services, which such entities can acquire from abroad for their own use and make foreign exchange payments there against up to $ 100,000 per invoice. Such services include, Satellite Transponder, International Bandwidth/ Internet/ Private Line Services, Software License/Maintenance/Support, and service to use electronic media and databases.
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Entities desirous of utilizing this option designate a bank, which is approved by SBP one time. Subsequently, after designation, such payments can be processed through the designated bank, without any further regulatory approval.
However, during recent off-site reviews, it was observed that in addition to utilizing the aforesaid mechanism to remit funds for IT related services for their own use, Telcos were remitting bulk of the funds for video gaming, entertainment content, etc. purchased by their customers using airtime, under Direct Carrier Billing (DCB).
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DCB is, in general, an online mobile payment method, which allows users to make purchases by charging payments to their mobile phone carrier bill. The Telcos were allowing their customers to purchase above mentioned products through airtime and then remitting funds abroad reflecting such transactions as payments for acquisition of IT related services. Thus, in effect the Telcos were acting as intermediaries/ payment aggregators by facilitating acquisition of services by their subscribers.
Therefore, in view of the violation of foreign exchange regulations, SBP revoked the designation of banks of Telcos for such payments. However, to facilitate their legitimate IT related payments, Telcos have been advised through their banks to resubmit their requests.
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If any entity, including a telco, intends to operate as an intermediary/payment aggregator and such arrangement involves outflow of foreign exchange, it has to approach SBP, separately through its bank, for seeking special permission for providing such services under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947.
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Google Career Certificates to bring digital revolution in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: The President of Pakistan, Dr. Arif Alvi has said that the launch of Google Career Certificates to bring digital revolution in Pakistan, according to a statement issued on Thursday.
Pakistan is in dire need to capacitate the youth to enable them to contribute in the development of country, especially those who cannot afford to attend the universities, the president said during his video keynote address in the launching ceremony of Google Career Certificates in Pakistan, being carried out jointly by Google, Institute of Rural Management (IRM) and Ignite.
Dr. Arif Alvi further said: “I am very pleased that google, IRM and Ignite are launching google career certificates in Pakistan. This program has ensured the women participation throughout the program. These courses will play an important part in creating a shift towards digitization and introduction of digital technology.”
He expressed hope that initiation of such projects will bring about the required digital revolution in Pakistan.
Dr. Arif Alvi stressed the youth to take benefit of these courses and enroll themselves in digital programs to increase their earnings as they are completely online and free.
During the ceremony, speakers from Google, Ministry of IT, Industry and Academia addressed the participants on the importance of the Google career certificates in Pakistan.
Dr. Roomi S. Hayat said that “he hopes that with the help of such programs, soon we would be a thriving country in the digital world.” CEO Ignite said, “Ignite has always contributed to the digital economy of Pakistan and through this certificates Ignite intends to further strengthen the digital economy.”
Participants were also given a detailed orientation session on how to enroll and join the Google Career Certificate program.
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Google announces vaccine requirement for its officials
Google is the first big tech company to announce a vaccine requirement for returning to its offices. The decision may push other tech companies to follow with similar moves.
Google will now require employees who work in its offices to be fully vaccinated and is pushing back its start date for when they need to report back to the office in response to the highly contagious delta variant spreading across the United States and around the world.
Google made the announcement in a note sent to employees from CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday.
In it, Pichai says the company has seen high vaccination rates for Google employees so far and that is why it is comfortable in bringing workers back into the office.
Currently, there are some early volunteers who are already working at various Google campuses.
“For those of you with special circumstances, we will soon be sharing expanded temporary work options that will allow you to apply to work from home through the end of 2021,” said Pichai in the note.
In the spring, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon started rolling out their return-to-office plans which largely involved a hybrid approach — three days of work in the office and two at home, starting for most employees in the fall.
For the most part, wearing masks was not going to be a requirement for vaccinated in-office workers at most companies, and getting vaccines was not mandated. Now the companies’ plans appear to going through another round of revisions.
Apple was the first company to change its fall 2021 return-to-office date, announcing in July that workers would not be required back until October instead of the previously announced date in September.
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Google Cloud, Ericsson to jointly develop 5G, edge cloud solutions
KARACHI: Google Cloud and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) on Monday announced a partnership to jointly develop 5G and edge cloud solutions to help communications service providers (CSPs) digitally transform and to unlock new enterprise and consumer use cases.
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