A Study Says Most Users Don’t Know About Piracy

Online piracy is a sensitive issue, not just because activists make it sound like it, but it is also something that users don’t benefit from if seen closely. Recently, a study by a British legal firm revealed that most of the people don’t even understand what piracy actually is and which of their acts could be considered as indulging in piracy.

According to the survey from Wiggin, respondents actually liberty feigned and pretended that they are not aware, because internet downloading sites are also very clear about copyrights and if any infringe upon these, they are incriminated.

However, despite this, many people really don’t know what could constitute in them passing the line into illegal downloading of any text, image or video, or any other content. Intellectual property rights are safeguarded to protect the integrity and respect the labour of the creative people from whichever sphere they may be.

In Pakistan, cyber laws are not too strong already. There are many advocacy groups, however, that are working to get some sense into what behaviour is acceptable and legal online and where it is crossing the line, especially with piracy laws.

Although, there are many movies, books and even other items which are available in Pakistan in the open market, the law enforcement agencies themselves don’t take a keen interest in stopping it, simply due to corruption and incompetence. But when a user gets into trouble with international piracy laws or infringes upon rights of a copyrighted item from another country, there is bound to be an action against that user.

Softopreneurship in Pakistan – A Lost Opportunity

We – Pakistanis – develop software, but we don’t sell it; because we develop these software for Americans and Europeans who ultimately sell them at considerably higher prices.

How wonderful it could get if we develop software and sell them ourselves to earn all the margins and profits to ultimately bring back the entire revenue to our homeland.

Generally Asian countries are considered to be the outsourcing hotspots by IT industry leaders around the world. That is why most companies in Asia are famous for providing IT services to the small, medium and large enterprises mostly located in affluent European countries and in the US.

The companies abroad take huge benefit from the low-cost software made by their outsourcing partners and by selling these software to an unimaginably large internet market.

As a thumbs rule the foreign companies indulge in outsourcing to reduce their costs of doing business and consequently to increase their profits. The IT resource-pool is abundant in India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries in the Asian continent. Adept at communicating in English makes things easier for the professionals providing IT and IT-enabled services as English has dominated the world of internet.

However, there is this firm called Sorcim, run by the ‘softopreneurs’ from Pakistan who decided to go on a different route, i.e. product way.

Earlier, known as an IT service provider, today, Sorcim is product-based and explores the dynamics of online market. The software made by the company called RegInOut falls into the system utilities category and helps to boost slow working computers and fix common PC errors such as Windows Registry errors.

The decision to sell product by itself rather than making a product for foreign businesses was a transition in the company’s life. Such transitions are healthy for the businesses and today the IT companies from Pakistan shall try to either penetrate into global online markets or create opportunities in the domestic market.

Sorcim Technologies of Pakistan shares a similar story. However, as business always remains in motion, the company now has successfully become a software vendor. It also plans to launch software products belonging to different categories. RegInOut (reginout.com) has taught great lessons to the company and now they are rapidly learning how to market product with credibility even if you don’t live in the Western part of world.

Before starting to sell RegInOut, Sorcim had made various software and utilities which are still being sold by the American and European web entrepreneurs.

Samsung Unveils the Dual-Sim Galaxy Core

A new week, a new dual-sim smartphone from Samsung. Samsung, the world’s largest phone manufacturer has announced another dual-sim phone, the Galaxy Core.

Galaxy Core phone falls in the mid-range category and will have optional dual-sim capability.

To start off, the Galaxy Core comes with a 4.3 inch display with WVGA resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, which is just enough for most people but far from outstanding. It is made of plastic and will be available in Blue and White colors.

Under the hood lies a 1.2Ghz dual-core CPU along with 768MB of RAM. The amount of internal storage on Galaxy Core is set at 8GB, which is expandable via a microSD card slot.

At the back of Galaxy Core is a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and HD video recording, along with a front-facing camera at the front.

The phone runs on Android 4.1.2 which is a bit outdated but far from bad. The phone features several of the software tricks of its bigger brethren, including Smart Stay, Smart Alert and of course, S Voice.

The connectivity package is quite modest too with microUSB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, Wifi and 3G.

Here are the specifications of the phone:

• Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean customized with Nature UI
• weight: 124g
• 8.95mm thick
• 4.3 inch display with resolution of 800 x 480 pixels
• Optional dual-sim 
• 1.2Ghz dual-core CPU and 768MB of RAM
• 8GB of expandable internal storage
• 5 megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording
• VGA front-facing camera
• microSD card slot, microUSB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, Wifi, 3G
• 1800 mAh battery

The Galaxy Core will be going on sale this month. The regular, non dual-sim version will start retailing in July. Pricing is unknown as of now but it should will most probably around Rs. 30-35K.

The Battle of the eReaders Turned Tablet- The Kindle Fire HD vs. The Nook Tablet

While many avid readers still tend to prefer books over technology even the most stalwart have to admit that the portability, the vast amount of storage and the quick access to the latest titles as well as to so much from the past make an eReader a very tempting buy.  Now that these devices have become more like tablets and are able to allow one to view media, listen to music, and run some other apps, they are even more appealing to so many people.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD is probably the most popular device of this type while the Nook by Barnes and Noble also has its loyal users as well.  These two devices are priced in the mid-range when it comes to tablets and both have features that make them good values and well worth checking out.

The 9” Kindle Fire with ads, which are screensavers that Amazon uses to advertise and make special offers, is currently priced the same as the Nook HD+ Tablet which is also a 9-inch device.  The ads from Amzaon are a bother for some owners, but many actually like these as there are offers for discounts that are great for those who like to buy their books and other goodies from Amazon.

The Kindle has a front facing camera that can be used for video chatting or calls as well as for picture taking.  The Nook does not have this feature. The Kindle and the Nook both offer cloud storage from their respective companies.  This comes in handy when one wants to access something on the pc or pother device that is in the cloud.

Amazon offers access to a huge library of books, movies, and television shows.  There is a great deal of free content, especially for Amazon Prime members, which is a yearly subscription that has a moderate price range with many benefits. Barnes and Noble also offers an extensive book library but its range of other content simply does not beat Amazon.  Both offer third party apps and while Amazon does seem to offer more of these, neither is as good as some of the other tablets on the market.

Amazon’s reading apps are far more extensive than others in the eReader category.  While both devices do offer a reading experience that mimics as closely as possible that of reading a book, some of the other features can be quite useful.  For instance synching with Audible so that a book can be listened to while one reads along is a great feature that one will find with the Kindle.  Both offer a way for parents to monitor and place limits on their children’s access to more adult materials.

While either of these eReaders turned tablet are a good buy, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is becoming increasingly popular.  It is priced so that it is affordable enough for families and is easy to use and will offer hours of enjoyment for a long, long time.

Are you an owner of one of these eReaders or are you interested in purchasing one? Please leave a comment below and let us know which model you prefer.

Author Bio: This article was compiled by Kiran Smith who writes reviews on cool iphone 5 cases for the company Ace Case. They supply mobile phone cases and accessories.

Acer, the once famed PC maker is not exactly having a great time right now, especially due to the plunging worldwide computer market after the arrival of tablets but has nonetheless made a valuable addition to its Windows 8 computer line-up. The new Aspire R7 is unique in its own right.

Design

The laptop features a special “Ezel” hinge which allows it to be used in a variety of modes. It can be straightened up to work like any other ordinary laptop, placed at an angle to bring it closer to your eyes, turned around completely for watching movies and other entertainment-related stuff or just simply laid down upon its keyboard to work like a tablet. And that, of course is where Windows 8 really shines.

The keyboard is backlit and all its keys are placed at some distance to each other. The touchpad, strangely though is placed above the keyboard.

The Aspire R7 has already won an award for the unique design.

The specs

The Aspire R7 has a 15.6 inch Full HD 1080p display with resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. It is also a multi-touch, capacitive touchscreen.

Under the hood breathes an ultra-low voltage Intel Core i5 (upgradeable to i7) processor along with 6GBs (upgradable to 12GBs) of RAM. The hard drive size is set at 500GB along with a 256GB SSD. There’s a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M graphic card too.

On the connectivity front, the Aspire R7 features 3 USB ports, HDMI port, SD card reader, audio jack, Wifi and Bluetooth 4.0. The system runs on Windows 8 64-bit.

Price

The laptop will be available in May this year and will be priced at $999, which is a bit strange because most of the Windows 8-running systems available right now mostly cost much higher than that.