For the first year ever, total PC sales around the world were outpaced by total smartphone sales, in units at least, according to data released Friday by market analyst firm Canalsys. Nearly 488 million smartphones were shipped, compared to just (just!) 415 million PCs.

Of course, this doesn’t mean PCs are dead. The global PC market grew 15% in 2011, Canalsys says — almost entirely because of the 274% increase in tablet sales, which itself is largely due to the iPad. (Canalsys counts the tablet as a PC, which is not exactly a settled point).

The real story here is the inexorable rise of the smartphone. Total shipments of the devices grew by a whopping 63% over 2011. Again, this was partly driven by the success of Apple; thanks to the iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S, the Cupertino company not only smashed the record for the most smart phones shipped globally by any single vendor in one quarter, it also displaced Nokia as the world’s leading smartphone vendor. (Nokia’s Symbian-based devices, very popular in the global market count as smartphones.)

For those of us in the U.S. who are quite familiar with — even blaze about — the iPhone’s market dominance, this global performance is something of an untold story. Apple shipped an incredible 93.1 million iPhones worldwide in 2011, a growth of 96% over 2010.

Figures like that simply have not been seen before. Nokia’s record was 28 million smartphones shipped in a quarter; Apple’s new record, set in Q4 of 2011, is 38 million. To be fair, the record would have been smashed with or without Apple; Samsung shipped 33 million smartphones in Q4.

ان میں شدت پسندی کے واقعات میں ملوث تنظیمیوں کے علاوہ دیگر تنظیمیں بھی شامل ہیں جو بظاہر سماجی کاموں میں مصروف ہیں تاہم حکومت کے مطابق ان تنظیموں کے شدت پسندوں کے ساتھ تعلقات کی وجہ سے اُنہیں کالعدم قرار دیا گیا ہے۔
خفیہ اداروں نے خدشہ ظاہر کیا ہے کہ رقوم کی منتقلی کی وجہ سے یہ تنظیمیں ایک مرتبہ پھر زور پکڑ رہی ہیں۔
وزارت داخلہ کے ذرائع نے بی بی سی اردو کو بتایا کہ خفیہ اداروں کی طرف سے جو رپورٹس دی گئی ہیں اُن کے مطابق سات کالعدم تنظیموں سے تعلق رکھنے والے افراد مختلف بینکوں میں متحلف ناموں سے اپنے اکاؤنٹس کھلوا رہے ہیں۔ ان تنظیموں میں جیش محمد، تحریک اسلامی، ملت اسلامیہ پاکستان، غازی فورس، حزب التحریر، جمیعت الفرقان اور خیرالنساء انٹرنیشنل ٹرسٹ شامل ہے۔
ذرائع کے مطابق ان رپورٹس میں اس بات کی نشاندہی کی گئی ہے کہ مذکورہ تنظیموں سے تعلق رکھنے والے افراد نے اپنے اور دیگر افراد کے ناموں پرملکی اور غیر ملکی کرنسی میں اکاؤنٹس کھلوا کر اُنہیں استعمال کرنا شروع کردیا ہے۔
رپورٹس میں یہ بھی کہا گیا ہے کہ ان افراد میں متعدد افراد ایسے ہیں جو پہلے بھی ان تنظیموں کے نام پر کُھلنے والے اکاؤنٹس میں رقم جمع کروانے اور نکلوانے کے لیے اُنہیں استعمال کرتے رہے ہیں تاہم وفاقی حکومت کی طرف سے ان تنظیموں پر پابندی لگنے کے بعد اُنہوں نے ان اکاؤنٹس کو استعمال نہیں کیا۔
“کئی کالعدم تنظیموں نے بینکوں میں مختلف نئے ناموں سے اکاؤنٹس دوبارہ کھلوالیے ہیں جہاں پر نہ صرف ملک کے اندر سے بلکہ بیرون ممالک سے بھی رقوم منتقل کی جارہی ہیں۔ ان میں شدت پسندی کے واقعات میں ملوث تنظیمیوں کے علاوہ دیگر تنظیمیں بھی شامل ہیں جو بظاہر سماجی کاموں میں مصروف ہیں تاہم حکومت کے مطابق ان تنظیموں کے شدت پسندوں کے ساتھ تعلقات کی وجہ سے اُنہیں کالعدم قرار دیا گیا ہے۔”
ذرائع وزارتِ داخلہ
ذرائع کے مطابق اس بات کا ذکر بھی کیا گیا ہے کہ ہنڈی کے ذریعے پیسے بھجوانے کے عمل کی سخت مانٹرنگ کے بعد بینک اکاؤنٹس کے ذریعے رقم منتقل کرنے کا طریقۂ کار اپنایا گیا ہے۔
رپورٹس میں خدشہ ظاہر کیا گیا ہے کہ ان اکاؤنٹس میں آنے والی رقوم کی وجہ سے یہ تنظیمیں ایک مرتبہ پھر بھرپور طریقے سے منظم ہو رہی ہیں۔
ان اطلاعات کی روشنی میں وزارت داخلہ نے وفاقی تحقیقاتی ادارے کے بینکنگ سرکل اور متعلقہ حکام سے مختلف بینکوں میں کُھولے گئے ایسے کھاتوں کی تفصیلات اکھٹی کرنے کو کہا ہے جن میں بھاری رقوم اور بالخصوص غیر ملکی کرنسی میں رقوم بھیجی جارہی ہیں۔
حکومتِ پاکستان نےچوبیس کالعدم تنظیموں کے بینک اکاؤنٹس پر پابندی عائد کر رکھی ہے ان میں مذکورہ سات تنظیموں کے علاوہ لشکر جھنگوی، سپاہ محمد،لشکر طیبہ، سپاہ صحابہ پاکستان،تحریک نفاذ شریعت محمدی، القاعدہ، تحریک جعفریہ، جمیت النصار، بلوچستان لیبریشن آرمی، انصارالاسلام ، حاجی نامداد گروپ، اسلامک سٹوڈنٹس موومنٹ آف پاکستان اور تحریک طالبان پاکستان شامل ہیں۔
اس کے علاوہ اقوام متحدہ کی جانب سے جن چار تنظیموں پر پابندی عائد کی گئی ہے اُن کے مختلف بینکوں میں کھلے ہوئے اکاؤنٹس بھی منجمد کیے گئے ہیں ان میں جماعت الدعوۃ، الاختر ٹرسٹ، الرشید ٹرسٹ اور حرکت الاجہاد اسلامی شامل ہیں۔
وزارتِ داخلہ نے سُنی تحریک کو سنہ دو ہزار دو سے واچ لسٹ پر رکھا ہوا ہے۔ ذرائع کے مطابق ان تنظیموں پر سابق فوجی صدر پرویز مشرف کے دور میں سنہ دوہزار ایک سے لے کر دو ہزار چار کے درمیان پابندی عائد کی گئی تھی۔

An internal Microsoft video that was supposedly leaked to a website reveals that the entire mobile operating system will be revamped later this year to better integrate it with the upcoming Windows 8. Many abilities will be added and some software will be junked, but if the report is true one thing’s for sure: Windows Phone 8 will be the biggest leap forward for the mobile OS to date.

PocketNow reports that Windows Phone 8, code-named Apollo and scheduled for after the next update (“Tango”) will greatly expand the hardware options available to Microsoft’s manufacturing partners. Right now Microsoft keeps tight guidelines on Windows Phone to avoid Android‘s “fragmentation” problem, but Windows Phone 8 will expand support to four different screen resolutions, multicore processors and removable microSD cards.

Another notable addition: support for near-field communication (NFC), the same wireless tech used for mobile payments. The leaked video describes Windows Phone’s “wallet experience” as being potentially carrier-branded and controlled, and it’ll work across multiple platforms, letting the phone share content with PCs and tablets.

More fundamentally, Windows Phone 8 will share many software components with its big brother, Windows 8. Developers will apparently be able to reuse most of their code when porting an app from desktop to mobile. The kernel, networking stacks, security and multimedia elements will all have some interchangeability.

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They seem to agree that core al-Qaida — the group that launched the Sept. 11 attacks and looked to bin Laden for guidance — is in trouble.

Now, the discussion is about a loose affiliation of groups that present a diffuse and entirely different threat.

This week, leaders of the intelligence community were on Capitol Hill for a series of hearings to provide their annual assessment of threats to the U.S. The sessions went on for hours. Officials discussed the growing threat from Iran and their concern about cyberattacks and weapons proliferation.

What was dramatically different was how long the discussion on al-Qaida lasted: It clocked in at just minutes.

EnlargeAminu Abubakar/AFP/Getty ImagesA resident inspects a police van outside Sheka police station in the northern Nigerian city of Kano last month. Members of the Boko Haram Islamist group attacked the station the previous night. The group recently released a video calling for jihadis to focus on the United States.

The head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, summed up the al-Qaida threat this way: “The bottom line, I think, is that al-Qaida is weaker now than it has been in the last 10 years,” he told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday.

At a House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said: “As long as we sustain the pressure on it, we judge that core al-Qaida will be of largely symbolic importance to the global jihadist movement. But regional affiliates, and to a lesser extent small cells and individuals, will drive the global jihad agenda.”

Threat Shifting, But Not Disappearing

Experts say officials are talking about more than just a terrorist group that is decentralized. What they are saying is that something more significant than that has happened: Al-Qaida, as a movement, has fragmented. And according to Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University and a terrorism expert, that means that the threat al-Qaida presents has fundamentally changed.

“The threats may not be as serious as 9/11- and 2001-type threats, because the groups are smaller and, fortunately, less capable,” Hoffman says. “Nonetheless, they are much more difficult to identify, much more difficult to track, and much more difficult to anticipate, prevent. So I think the threat is shifting, but it is not going away.”

That’s why the U.S. intelligence community is turning its focus to groups like al-Qaida’s arm in Yemen or Islamic militias in Somalia such as al-Shabab. More recently, in Nigeria, a local separatist group called Boko Haram has taken aim at the U.S. It released a video message this week that called on jihadis to focus on the United States; their leader said President Obama was waging a war against Muslims.

This is the kind of clarion call that al-Qaida used to sound. Experts are quick to say that it is unclear that Boko Haram has the reach to launch any attack against the U.S., but intelligence officials are watching the group all the same.

Audrey Kurth Cronin, a professor at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, says the hearings revealed another important development closer to home — the intelligence community has become far less breathless about al-Qaida.

“I think that we’re returning to a slightly more normal perspective on terrorism,” Cronin says. “We’re not seeing al-Qaida as the only organization that uses terrorism, and we’re going back to a broader view where we have threats of terrorism from many different sources, and I think that is the transition that is under way.”

Groups May Exploit Arab Spring Instability

This broader view means that officials aren’t focusing exclusively on al-Qaida affiliates. Instead, they are trolling for any terrorist groups that might be seeking to take advantage of the instability that has followed the Arab Spring. In some cases it might be groups aligned with al-Qaida; in other cases they might not.

Consider the availability of guns and other weapons. According to intelligence officials, before the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, an AK-47 in North Africa cost about $1,000. With the flood of weapons coming out of Libya, an AK-47 now costs about half that.

Georgetown’s Hoffman says that’s only the beginning.

“If the Syrian government falls and there is the same instability that attended the fall of the Gadhafi regime with the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime, the region could be flooded with weapons,” he says.

Whether that will help fledgling al-Qaida affiliates or new groups is still to be determined. And that’s why intelligence officials are watching the developments so closely.

The more immediate question, however, is where this leaves al-Qaida.

“The bottom line is, when is it ‘rest in peace al-Qaida?’ ” says Cronin.

“And my answer would be ‘not yet,’ some things require the passage of time. All the indicators are positive, particularly with respect to al-Qaida’s core,” Cronin says. “Al-Qaida has declined. But only a historian can declare it is dead.”

What shouldn’t be lost in the discussion, however, is that for the first time, U.S. officials seem willing to say publicly the group’s pulse is weak — and it’s time to look for threats elsewhere.