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Microsoft Pakistan and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) jointly conducted a training session to increase awareness of copyright infringement cases amongst FIA officials. The session was aimed at identification of different forms of copyright infringement, detection of counterfeit software, and investigation of software evidence to prosecute culprits in the court.
Mr Kamal Ahmed, Country Manager Microsoft Pakistan shed light on Microsoft’s commitment to deploy measures to safeguard interests of the consumers and said: "The ability of the government and IT eco-system to create new jobs and a better quality of life through information technology is strongly affected by how they handle piracy. Pakistan needs to demonstrate its unwavering resolve to combat piracy on an urgent basis in order to improve its competitiveness in the IT industry. A legal environment that protects intellectual property rights (IPR) and takes a robust approach to software counterfeit trade is essential."
Microsoft and FIA have realised the need to ensure a proactive counter-strategy to protect the interests of unsuspecting Pakistani consumers who end up paying original price for pirated software. In the year 2008, Economist Intelligence Unit sponsored by the Business Software Alliance downgraded IT Competitiveness of Pakistan to 62nd. Additionally, an alarmingly high rate of software piracy which stands at 84 per cent negatively impact Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the Software Industry and R&D within the economy.
Training program, delivered by experts from Microsoft, was attended by representatives of all branches of FIA including Crime Circle wing, Cybercrime wing etc. Dale Waterman, Corporate Attorney, Antipiracy Microsoft, Middle East & Africa presided the session and said: "The commitment of FIA in countering software piracy sends a very clear message to counterfeiters that Pakistani government is serious about stopping this form of criminality and are willing to step forward to protect their citizens from the harm caused by pirated as well as counterfeit software. Currently, about eight out of 10 softwares being run on PCs are pirated; this is resulting in huge losses not only to legitimate businesses but also to the national exchequer in terms of lost taxes & duties. FIA has a leading role to play in addressing this situation and Microsoft is keen for working with FIA to support them in delivering this commitment."
Mir Zubair Mahmood, Director FIA Sindh, informed the participants of recent initiatives of FIA in countering crimes of piracy and counterfeit. He commented: "FIA is a national agency aimed at protecting consumer rights. FIA liaises with Local Law Enforcement Agencies to curb the growing threat of piracy within the country and educate end-user consumers and business customers on the risks of software piracy and how it is harmful to their interests. In an environment which is highly prone to counterfeit or pirated software, the local software companies are unable to compete on a level playing field. This lack of opportunity prevents them from competing in the international arena and attracting the much required investments in our country".
Microsoft Pakistan aims to collaborate closely with the government, businesses and media to highlight the current challenges faced in combating the IPR violation in the country and devise and implement strategies through which IT competitiveness of Pakistan can be enhanced.
The next major iteration of Google Chrome has graduated to Beta and is now available for download and testing.
In less than a week after releasing the last developer preview of Chrome 5.0’s successor, Google has signed off the first Beta development milestone and is now offering the bits to early adopters.
Google Chrome 6.0 Beta brings to the table a variety of bug fixes, but also delivers more horsepower improved stability, a graphical user interface redesign and new features.
Users will be able to find the necessary download links for Chrome 6.0 Beta at the bottom of the screen.
As always, Google once again focused on kicking performance up a notch. Of course, in terms of touting speed improvements in Chrome 6.0 Beta, the Mountain View-based search giant is focusing on applauding advances related to the open source browser’s JavaScript engine, as per usual.
“Our new beta release continues to be faster than before,” revealed James Hawkins, Google Chrome Software Engineer.
According to information shared by Google, Chrome 6.0 Beta is no less than 15% faster than the Chrome 5.0 Beta on the V8 benchmark.
At the same time, the latest Beta Build also delivers a 15% performance improvement on the SunSpider benchmark, compared to the Beta for the previous version of Chrome.
“Additionally, we’ve improved by 64% on Mozilla's Dromeao DOM Core Tests,” Hawkins added.
Chrome 6.0 Beta also comes with touchups to the user interface. Of course, early adopters and developers that have already been playing with the Dev channel releases of Chrome 6.0 are already familiar with the small UI redesign details. UI optimizations have been focused on streamlining the upper toolbar, delivering a better UX for the Omnibox, and better centralizing the browser’s options into a single menu.
As far as new features are concerned, Chrome 6.0 Beta offers Autofill and enhanced synchronization capabilities.
“Autofill, helps you fill in web forms automatically with information that you specify, such as your name, address, phone number, and the credit card number you use for shopping online,” Hawkins explained.
“Autofill builds up and saves this information for you over time, so that you can fill in long web forms with just a few clicks without typing in the same information over again,” he added.
“In addition to syncing bookmarks, preferences, and themes, you can now choose to sync your Chrome extensions as well as your Autofill data (excluding credit card numbers) through your Google Account,” Hawkins said.
Google Chrome 6.0.472.33 Beta for Windows is available for download here.
The next major iteration of Microsoft’s browser will reach the Beta development milestone on September 15th, 2010.
The company confirmed the date officially as it started sending out invitations to members of the press, but also developers and designers for the Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Beta launch event in mid-September.
With IE9 hitting Beta, the software giant is gearing up to celebrate the “Beauty of the Web” in San Francisco on September 15th.
The “Beauty of the Web” website is already live, and comes with a small puzzle that can be resolved by typing “native.”
Only after visitors complete the Internet Explorer 9 “Unlocking the native web” puzzle are they redirected to the R.S.V.P. page for their invitation.
“Starting today, a select group of VIP web developers, designers, bloggers and press begin receiving their invitations to an event we’re holding in San Francisco on September 15th to celebrate the Beauty of the Web and to mark the launch of the IE9 Beta,” revealed James Pratt , IE senior product manager.
Users can also check out the video embedded at the bottom of the screen in order to get an idea of what the “Beauty of the Web” site is all about. “Reception for IE9 has been very positive since MIX with over 2.5 million downloads of the platform previews. The most recent platform preview – our 4th – was released last week,” Pratt added.
“Since space is limited at the event and not many invites have been sent out, I captured what the invite process looks like so everyone could see.”
“Invitees get an e-mail invitation with a link to a special HTML5 website. To RSVP, they have to complete a word puzzle by typing the letters shown on the screen: Unlock the _ _ _ _ _ _ web. The letters they have to work with are V E A N T I and the solution is a single word.”
“Once the puzzle is complete, the RSVP button appears so they can RSVP for the event,” Pratt stated"
