Software Theft in Pakistan Totals $217million in 2010

From 2009 to 2010, installations of unlicensed software on personal computers (PC) in Pakistan remained constant at 84%, putting Pakistan in 15th place among the countries with the highest piracy rates.

However, the commercial value of this illegal software amounted to $217 million, its highest level since 2006.

This was said in an annual report published by Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international association representing the global software industry.

The study is conducted in cooperation with market research firm, IDC, and incorporates 182 discrete data inputs for 116 countries and regions around the world.

This year, it also includes a new dimension: a public-opinion survey of PC users on key social attitudes and behaviors related to software piracy, conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs. The opinion survey found strong support for intellectual property rights, with seven in 10 respondents expressing support for paying inventors for their creations to promote more technology advances. Strikingly, support for intellectual property rights was strongest in markets with high piracy rates.

The usage of pirated software in Pakistan is blocking the progress of the country and preventing it from benefitting from a huge investment opportunity in software development arena. Curtailing the piracy would encourage entrepreneurship in IT sectors, resulting in higher software exports as well as a greater market share in the business process outsourcing industry.

Emphasizing on the need for close coordination between the government and private sector to avoid software piracy Mr. Kamal Ahmed, Country General Manager, Microsoft, Pakistan said

“Software piracy has been an impediment in the way of foreign investment in the sector. Although the government has taken some initiatives to raise awareness in regard with elimination of software piracy and the protection of intellectual property, but clearly it is not enough.

Perhaps, the government and private sector need to enhance level of cooperation on this particular front so that a shared vision may be achieved and to educate the people about the benefits of using genuine software.”

Globally, the value of software theft grew to a record $59 billion which is nearly double that when the study began in 2003. Half of the 116 geographies studied in 2010 had piracy rates of 62 percent or higher, with the global average piracy rate at 42 percent. Emerging economies have become a driving force behind PC software piracy.

Piracy rates in the developing world are 2.5 times higher than those in the developed world, and the commercial value of pirated software ($31.9 billion) accounts for more than half of the world total. The most cited advantages of licensed software globally are access to technical assistance (88 percent) and protection from hackers and malware (81percent).

Among the common ways people to engage in piracy is to buy a single copy of software and install it on multiple computers. Strong majorities of PC users around the world believe intellectual property rights and protections produce tangible economic benefits: 59 percent globally say IP rights benefit local economies, while 61 percent globally say IP rights create jobs.

“Today’s study shows that while piracy continues to threaten the global economy, people clearly understand and appreciate the value of intellectual property, especially its role in driving economic growth,” said Robert Holleyman, BSA president and CEO. “Software theft continues to stifle IT innovation, job creation, and economic growth around the world. This report clearly shows the importance of educating businesses, government officials, and end users about the risks of software theft — and what they can do to stop it.”

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How To Get Rid Of Your Chatting Addiction?

World is progressing at a very rapid pace. Every sector, may it be technology, business or culture is evolving very fast. This evolution has resulted in intense competition in every field. Like our local cellular companies, they bring new packages each forth day to stay in the market at large. All these low SMS and call packages enable us to communicate with others quite effectively.

Another quite popular way of communication is online chatting. As chatting is cost-effective and very user-friendly, many people prefer it most of the time. There are also many chat rooms online, some are free and others are paid. On these chat room you can talk to many people from diverse demographics. It is well said that nothing itself is bad, but the use of it decides whether we are going to get benefit from it or it is going to ruin our lives by becoming a curse. It is a bitter fact that chatting has become such a curse, these days.

Following is a brief overview on drawbacks of so much chatting addiction and at the end we may be able to have some key points on how to get rid of it, even not getting complete rid, but still we may have enough control over it to decide when and what is correct.

Most of us are living in an e-life, where we have lost our real relations, values and most importantly, family members. Try spending maximum time with your real mates, like your family members, plan an outing with your friends, or even go on a walk alone. Try to have a topic to be discussed on, discuss it with your siblings, or discuss your problems with your parents. This will make you realize the importance of real relations and you may get an inner feeling that you are wasting time over there.

Most important step in this regard, to get rid of chatting addiction is that, try to place your computer in some common place, like where one can easily have a look at what you are doing. I prefer to place it in your parents’ room that would be really effective, even more than you can think or may be your lounge. Placing computer in a common place will put an automated check on you that will not let you talk to those, about whom you don’t want to tell your family members.
Try defining a list of tasks that you have to do daily and do this by keeping in mind that you have to spend as much less time on computer as you can. Try to strictly follow your own made rules. At start, fix a hour or two for chatting, that you will be available only in those specific timings. With the passage of time, try reducing this span and eventually you will reduce it to zero.

This is not just about getting rid of chating, this will really have a great impact on our life in every regard. We see students chatting around in colleges and adults in offices. This has its effects, everywhere.

This is the need of hour to say good bye to this hitch, and this is only possible if one agrees to do so. No one can be your best well wisher unless you are your own. Be wise, understand the facts and try to spend less time on it.

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Upload Photos Straight From iPhone Camera Roll To Facebook Using FBuploader

Ever thought of uploading pictures directly from the Camera Roll on iOS to Facebook? Well that thought is now a reality thanks to a new Cydia app called FBuploader. As described, FBuploader lets you upload photos straight to Facebook without having to leave the Camera Roll.

Undoubtedly the best thing about FBuploader is that it blends beautifully within the Camera Roll itself. All you get is a new option in the Export menu of the iOS Camera Roll. It looks like FBuploader has always existed within this menu as the only addition you will notice after installing FBuploader is a new FaceBook button.

Normally, for uploading pictures to Facebook via your iOS device, you first have to launch the Facebook app, choose the album you want to upload pictures to, touch the Camera button to import the photo from the Camera Roll and then wait for it to upload after you have added the description. FBuploader changes all of that.

Jailbreak tweaks/apps do whatever is left behind by iOS and that is why it is essential for most users to jailbreak their devices. Similarly, in this case, for FBuploader to work on your device, you first have to jailbreak it. Don’t worry, iPhoneism has all the information you need to jailbreak your iOS devices.

Here’s how to jailbreak iOS 4.3.3 untethered using sn0wbreeze 2.7 (windows), pwnagetool 4.3.3 (mac) and redsn0w 0.9.6rc15 (mac/windows). If you’re on iOS 4.3.2, here’s how you can untether 4.3.2 jailbreak using sn0wbreeze 2.6(windows), pwnagetool 4.3.2 (mac) and redsnow 0.9.6rc14 (mac/windows).

And oh, FBuploader costs $1.99.

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Cellular Users in Pakistan Cross 105 Million Mark

Cellular users in the country have crossed 105 million mark in February 2011 to reach a total of 105,151,871 mobile subscription, according to the data released by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.

PTA said that cellular teledensity in February 2011 reached 63.2 percent showing 0.8 percent growth rate in February 2011 alone.

Stats said that all five cellular companies showed consistency in adding 1,145,103 mobile phone users in February 2011, as compared to 1,229,381 cell users in January 2011.

During January and February 2011 Mobilink remained at top in terms of new sales with 705,203 new subscriptions, followed by Zong, which managed to add 703,322 mobile phone users to its network to surpass 9 million subscribers mark.

Telenor added 696,060 users in reported two months. Warid could add 176,150 new users while Ufone added only 93,750 users due to clean-up of records.

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Technology Triangle and Need to Get Rid of it

In this era of technology our way of living has changed altogether. We are much advanced, more sophisticated and quicker to do our work.

Every other day we get to know some new invention or some new products launched in tech world. This is not going to get over as the competition and our demands are growing.

Life has become robotic. We think about technology, we work on technology and we live on technology. In fact its hard to live a life without technological products.

Though technology has made certain good impacts on our lives but as it has been said by someone wise: Excess of every thing is bad

Using something in limit is always good but when one uses it beyond the limits then it may start creating issues and that’s what is happening with us right now.

We are moving in a technological triangle most of the time especially the young generation. Our mornings start with updating “Good Morning” status on Facebook and sending text messages to bulk of friends. Our evenings are spent in front of televisions and our nights in front of laptop and internet.

In schools, colleges, universities most of us are busy talking or texting on phones and even during the lectures. Same is going on in offices. If one gets a chance to use internet anywhere the first thing he/she will be doing is to log-in on Facebook.

All these things not only hurt our productivity but also put a question mark on our social values. If one gets free from texting or talking from cell phone then he/she switches on television and after that may come the laptop.

On average we spend 80% of our time with these technology oriented gadgets. Our socialization is becoming less. We don’t have knowledge about our neighbors and colleagues. We like to ask how one is feeling through Facebook or through texting but don’t like to walk to that person for a single minute.

We don’t have time to spend with our family but we do have time to talk with our girl friends. We don’t have time to offer prayer but we do have time to watch television. We don’t have time read a book but we do have time to use Facebook. As a result of all this we are getting away from our core social values, in fact we are becoming robots.

The need of the hour is to bring a balance in our life. We should use all these things but we should take time out to get to do our socializing, sports and spend time with family and friends. We should give ample time to all the things. In this way we will be able to get more positive results and we will be more successful in our lives.

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White iPhone 4 Best Buy Release Slated For April 27

According to a previous report, we know that the white iPhone 4 is launching on April 27th in Europe, particularly Netherlands if not somewhere else. What about the folks in the States? Well, it has been learnt that the white iPhone 4 will be coming to Best Buy on April 27th.

As 9to5mac reports, their source claims that Best Buy will start selling the white iPhone 4 from April 27th. The Best Buy inventory screenshot shows the AT&T GSM rendition of the white iPhone 4 and it is believed that Best Buy will also be selling the CDMA Verizon white iPhone 4.

It is also being said that Best Buy has received both 16 and 32GB models on all locations across the United States and will begin selling them on Wednesday. It is also being said that majority of the Best Buy stores have around ten 16 GB units on order on the day of launch while one can hope that more units come soon. There is no word as yet as to how many 32 GB units will be available on order on the day of the white iPhone 4 launch.

Stay tuned as we’ll let you know more about the white iPhone 4, as it comes in.

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iPhone 4S: Next Generation iPhone Name Confirmed?

Everyone anxiously awaits the iPhone 5 release, and while there’s no news on that, a report claims that the next generation iPhone will actually be called iPhone 4S and not the iPhone 5.While we’re probably months away from the next generation iPhone release, this claim comes from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek who makes this claim after running industry checks.

He also said that the iPhone 4S releaase will not bring any substantial differences or complete redesign to the next generation iPhone. iPhone 4S changes were listed to be minor cosmetic changes, the previously confirmed A5 dual-core processor, possibly an 8 megapixel camera and HSPA+ support.

The reason given for iPhone 4S release is that Apple wanted to incorporate 4G chipsets which support high speed networks in the next generation iPhone and because those chipsets are not available on time, Apple is just pushing out a minor refresh of the iPhone 4.

Earlier reports have suggested that the iPhone 5 will be completely redesigned with a larger screen. That yet remains to be seen.

Keep checking back on Sizlopedia as we’ll definitely report once we hear more about the next generation iPhone

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IMEI iPhone Unlock Services Discontinued For Good

A couple of weeks earlier, literally every blog and site covering iPhone unlocks in particular and Apple in general blew up with posts on remote IMEI based iPhone unlocking solutions that were being offered by a company called CutYourSIM. We however chose a different path and chose to ignore that. Now, as it turns out, that very remote iPhone unlock service has been discontinued for good. Reason, after the break.

It turns out, CutYourSIM wasn’t itself aware of how the remote unlocking was done. Basically the company asked users seeking for a permanent GSM iPhone unlock to provide them with the IMEI which later when to their source, which did the remote iPhone unlocking. The service came at a price tag of $169.99.

Actually when you get your iPhone unlocked from the carrier, the carrier adds the IMEI of your iPhone to its ‘whitelist’ making the iPhone useable on any GSM network worldwide. So this source of CutYourSIM might have had access to the ‘whitelist’ of carriers in the UK. Is it possible that this source of CutYourSIM is an Apple employee?

CutYourSIM has done over 400 remote iPhone unlocks already, but due to the stoppage of service from its ‘supplier’ the company has stopped taking further orders and has also refunded the full amount to those customers whose unlocks were still queued up. Their source says that the service may return soon, but honestly, we think otherwise.

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