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Pakistani Social Impact Initiative, ‘Dil Se’ Wins Gold at ‘Dragons of Asia’

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PTCL Group (PTCL & Ufone 4G)’s flagship social impact initiative, ‘Dil Se’, has earned the prestigious Gold Dragon Award at the ‘Dragons of Asia’ in the Digital Campaigns category. This recognition is more than just a win as it reflects how powerful vision, and purpose can be when driven by empathy.

The Dragons of Asia platform has celebrated marketing and CSR excellence across Asia Pacific for over two decades, recognizing work that drives real change. ‘Dil Se’- PTCL’s group social impact platform stems from the Group’s belief that as Pakistan’s national telecom carrier, its responsibility goes beyond networks and digital services and that it should give back to the communities it serves. Dil se has continued to grow and evolve over the years to respond to unevenness in services accessibility and opportunities for upward social mobility.

The campaign in focus addresses one of the most fundamental needs of life: clean water. One of the most pressing challenges in Pakistan is access to clean and safe drinking water, especially in water-scarce regions like Thar in Southern Pakistan. Communities, especially women and children, walk miles every day just to fetch water. As a result, health, education, and livelihoods all suffer.
‘Dil Se’ set out to change that.

Speaking about this accolade, Syed Atif Raza, Group Chief Commercial Officer, PTCL & Ufone 4G, said, “We are truly honored to receive this recognition at Asia level. Winning the Gold Dragon is not just an achievement for PTCL Group, but for Pakistan as well. This platform represents our heartfelt commitment, just like its name, ‘Dil Se’. We’re proud of the difference it has made so far, but our journey doesn’t end here. We are expanding this initiative in Thar, Southern Punjab, and other water-stressed areas of the country, ensuring that access to clean water becomes a reality for all.”

In the first phase, PTCL Group installed water pumps in Thar, in collaboration with Shifa Foundation. This effort has transformed daily life for nearly 15,000 people by giving them reliable access to clean and safe drinking water, many for the first time in their lives. The campaign highlights the critical importance of access to safe drinking water, which most of us take for granted.

This compassion has already changed thousands of lives in the desert region, and across the country. But PTCL Group isn’t stopping there. Its underway to expand this initiative to various water scarce regions of the country aiming to benefit around 200,000 people.

PTCL Group has joined forces with the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) to expand the water project to Phase Two, which will benefit around 200,000 people across Southern Punjab and Thar. It will be one of the largest corporate-led clean water initiatives of Pakistan. PTCL Group believes access to clean water is a basic human need and is committed to fulfilling it for the underserved communities with sustainable water solutions.



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Samsung TVs Bring Centre Pompidou Museum Masterpieces To Your Living Room

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Samsung has announced that it’s secured a partnership with Paris’s famed Centre Pompidou museum that will bring no less than 25 of the gallery’s most famous and revered masterpieces to Samsung’s online digital Art Store, enabling Samsung TV owners to download digital versions of the artworks to use as stunning low-power screen savers on their TVs. This being, of course, a far superior solution to your TV just leaving a big black rectangle in your room when you put it into standby.

The 25 Centre Pompidou paintings set to join Samsung’s Art Store from November 25 include Frida Kahlo’s The Frame, Piet Mondrian’s New York City, Wassily Kandinsky’s Get-Rot-Blau, Henri Matisse’s La Tristesse du Roi, Raul Dufy’s La Fée électricité and other works from the likes of Marc Chagall, Joan Miro, Yves Klein and Peter Doig. The collection spans more than 100 years of art history, reflecting what Samsung describes as “Pompidou’s role as a living archive of the modern art world.”

The Art Store is available on multiple models in Samsung’s 2025 TV line up, but the “turning a TV into a painting” concept is at its most impressive in the brand’s The Frame and The Frame Pro models. Thanks to such features as remarkably effective anti-reflection matte-finish screens, customisable bezels, flush wall mounts and, in the Frame Pro’s case, external wireless connections boxes so that you don’t have to connect any messy source cables to the TV, the customary differences between TVs and paintings really do get scrubbed away.

The Frame Pros also feature an upgraded “Neo” Quantum Dot LED screen compared with the regular Frame TVs, but experience suggests that the new Pompidou masterpieces will look remarkably life-like no matter which Frame TV you play them on.

Other Samsung TVs that now carry the Art Store and so will be able to access the Centre Pompidou collection include its premium Neo QLED 8K, Neo QLED 4K and even relatively basic core QLED models.

Adding the Centre Pompidou masterpiece collection to Samsung’s Art Store obviously vastly increases the number of people who can enjoy these works of art on a daily basis, without having to physically travel to the museum. There’s an added bonus to the Centre Pompidou collection joining the Samsung Art Store right now, though, since the museum is about to shut its doors for what’s described as a “once-in-a-generation renovation”. So the Art Store will enable art lovers to keep enjoying the museum’s masterpieces in glorious ultra high resolution while we wait for the refreshed Pompidou to open its doors at some point in 2030.

“Centre Pompidou has always stood at the intersection of art and innovation,” says Gaële de Medeiros, Head of International and Economic Development at the Centre Pompidou. “Through this [Samsung] partnership, our collection continues to be seen, shared and lived with, even as our physical space transforms.”

“Art doesn’t lose its power when walls close, it finds new ones,” adds Daria Greene, Head of Content & Curation at Samsung. “Through The Frame [TVs], these works can exist beyond geography, inviting people to experience modern art as part of their everyday lives.”

The new Centre Pompidou’s artworks will join collections already available on the Samsung Art Store from such galleries as The Met, The Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Musée d’Orsay.

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Google Has A Special Offer For Pixel Customers

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Earlier this month, Google refreshed the Pixel Refurbished store by removing the whole Pixel 6 family, leaving only the Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, and Pixel 7a. Many were asking when the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro would be available in the store.

This weekend, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro models are now available in the store.

Pixel 8 And Pixel 8 Pro Arrive In Google’s Refurbished Store

With the main line of Pixel phones moving up a step to the Pixel 10 family, bumping up the models available in the refurbished store would keep the same gap between the various online options available directly from Google. Now that the initial launch window for the Pixels is over — and presumably Google casting half an eye at the holiday seasons — it’s time for the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro to show up.

The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro smartphones are refurbished units. As with the Pixel 7 family already on sale and previous Pixels sold through this part of the store, they will have undergone several tests, and some parts will have been replaced as required. Special attention is paid to the battery, housing and screens during the process, as well as an update to the latest version of Android.

Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro and AI

Crucially, the launch of the Pixel 8 family was the point where Google leaned into artificial intelligence, labelling them “AI-first” smartphones, with the Tensor G3 chipsets introducing extensive silicon to support local AI processing; if mobile AI is a key consideration in a purchase, the edge that the G3 offers over the Pixel 7 family’s G2 is the most significant difference between the sevens and the eights.

Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro Price

Pixel 8 Pro pricing starts at $699 for the 128 GB model (which represents a $300 saving on the retail price for a new model). The Pixel 8 starts at $489 for the 128 GB model (down from $699) and $539 for the 256 GB model. Check the latest Pixel prices here.

Not all colors and storage options are immediately available. This is likely down to the fluctuations that any refurbished product will face, rather than a specific choice. If there is a particular color and storage option that you want in a Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro, you’ll need to keep a close eye on the storefront.

Now read the latest Pixel, Galaxy, and smartphone headlines in Forbes’ weekly Android news digest



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Apple iPhone 16 Pro Prices Slashed Further In New Sale

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In September, Apple launched the iPhone 17 series, and iPhone Air. This meant two things: the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus dropped in price, and the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max were immediately removed from sale at Apple.

But if you were after a Pro, the good news is you can still pick one up, for a lower price than before.

Forbes12 Latest Apple iPhone 17 Pro Cases To Protect Your New Phone

The deals highlighted in this post were independently selected by the Contributor and do not contain affiliate links.

You can’t buy these phones from Apple, you understand — that’s unlikely to be available direct from Apple until next spring or summer, in the refurbished section.

But other retailers, like Amazon, have been selling the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max for some months, and the prices are now especially low.

Amazon has different levels of refurbished offers, with the top tier called Renewed Premium. These offers can be locked to a service provider or be unlocked for use with any network — that’s what I’m concentrating on here.

The lowest-storage option, with 128GB storage, isn’t available, but since the iPhone 17 Pro base storage has now jumped to 256GB for $799, maybe that’s where we should focus anyway.

When it went on sale in September 2024, the iPhone 16 Pro with 256GB storage sold for $1,099 when new. Right now at Amazon, you can snap this phone up in renewed premium condition for $834.99 in black titanium, $838.97 in desert titanium and white titanium. Not only does this work out at $260 or more off the original purchase price, but it’s also a lot less than Amazon’s Renewed Premium pricing in August, before the new phones came out. At that point, white titanium, for instance, was around $70 more. These prices even beat the recent Prime Day bargains.

Move up to 512GB storage, originally $1,299 from Apple in new condition, is available in white titanium and black titanium for $889.95 in renewed premium condition, around $70 less than the renewed premium price in late August, and about $40 less than offers around Prime Day.

Finally, the biggest storage capacity, 1TB, which used to sell new for $1,499, is available in natural titanium in renewed premium for $949.95, which is $549 off its new sticker price. You could also choose it in black titanium, but it’s over $100 more at $1,159.97. For reference, the black titanium cost $999 in the deals around Prime Day.

ForbesApple Now Offering iPhone 15 Pro And iPhone 15 Pro Max At Lowest-Ever Prices



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