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"This paper investigates the conditions of the manufacture of low-cost technology in China with the examples of 'pirated' VCD players, 'no-name' DVD players, and Shenzhen's development as a techno-urban city. It emphasizes the significance of the cultural logic of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and argues that the various transformations and deflections that are derived from ubiquitous OEM experiences have gone beyond the original model of an authorized OEM, experiences that are to some extent embodied in the transgression of brand name and patent hegemonies, which are mainly controlled by high technology companies. OEMs have been associated with China's current imperative and uninhibited development of low-cost technology capitalism. 'Made in China' signifies the production of any product, legal or illegal, for transnational high technology giants or domestic technology manufacturers. Learning to 'become an OEM' in China has partly resulted in excessive technological mimesis that may be part of an unauthorized, underground economy that is based on low-cost technology. Based on the Shenzhen experience, part of this study will show industrial production-oriented OEM cultures in which illegal operations and counterfeit trade are incorporated, even in city projects that are shared by municipal governments and Chinese technological companies, and undergo spatial restructuring in the development of the economy, consumerism, and urbanism. "

"While appreciating the need for stopping "Software Piracy", the attention of the Government should however be drawn to long term strategies to make Piracy un economical to both the "Pirate" and the "Consumer". The industry has seen a dramatic reduction of pirated copies of Windows since its prices were brought down. The continuation of piracy in other software is to a large extent a result of unreasonable pricing by manufactures. Prices are being determined by them based on their costs and profit requirements rather than the utility value of the software. For example, how many home users can justify the need to buy a Office 2000 paying say around Rs 20,000 which is the cost of the entire hardware system they have bought?. Most offices would find it uneconomical to buy software at such costs. "

"The country's existing information framework is scattered, with each state establishing its own data centre for automating land records, transport and municipal applications, among others. The PII plans to host all software applications on a cloud (internet), increasing efficiency and speed as well as slashing costs. "Government schemes costing about Rs 130,000 crore annually exist in silos. There is no single delivery point for citizens," said a presentation highlighting the PII's need. "The PII will consolidate about 100 schemes of India, spread across 75 departments and 35 states into a single information infrastructure." Mr Pitroda said duplicity in data will thus be removed. "Each department in the country wants to make its own software, even if it does exactly the same thing," he said. "

The Long Tail was a response to an essay by Clay Shirky, a prominent technology writer who also teaches at New York University. Shirky's argument dampened much of the nascent utopianism about blogs, pointing out that the readership of early blogs followed what economists call a Pareto curve, or "power curve": a small number of sites (the "head") attracted a huge number of readers, but most (the "tail") had few or none. This jarred with the utopian notion of the internet as a new kind of democracy. Why bother to participate if our fates were decided for us by a few block votes? So Anderson turned the notion upside down. The blockbuster was over, he proclaimed, and, like a man possessed, he began to see long tails everywhere. It was the Guardian that lauded this logic by comparing Anderson to Copernicus. The implicit message was that the little people would win. Many people were so keen to believe that Web 2.0 would make the world fairer that they rejected any evidence to the contrary. It was only last year, with an exhaustive study of online music sales by the economist Will Page and an experienced digital retailer, Andrew Bud, that a more useful picture of digital markets begin to emerge. Page and Bud found that most of the songs available for purchase had never been downloaded, and that the concentration of hits was more pronounced than ever before. On the file-sharing networks, the same pattern emerged. So, carrying a huge retail inventory, though cheaper than before, was of little or no value. Now, with Free, Anderson has turned to the criticism that the internet destroyed the value of movies, newspapers and music. Firms could, and now should, cross-subsidise this unprofitable activity, he argues. But cross-subsidies aren't new: they have been the subject of decades of observation by economists. Nor are they a panacea. Alan Patrick, co-founder of the Broadsight media and technology consultancy, points out that despite falling marginal costs, th

"While governments throughout the world have different approaches to how they make their public sector information (PSI) available and the terms under which the information may be reused, there appears to be a broad recognition of the importance of digital networks and PSI to the economy and to society. However, despite the huge investments in PSI and the even larger estimated effects, surprisingly little is known about the costs and benefits of different information policies on the information society and the knowledge economy. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the current assessment methods and their underlying criteria, it should be possible to improve and apply such tools to help rationalize the policies and to clarify the role of the internet in disseminating PSI. This in turn can help promote the efficiency and effectiveness of PSI investments and management, and to improve their downstream economic and social results. The workshop that is summarized in this volume was intended to review the state of the art in assessment methods and to improve the understanding of what is known and what needs to be known about the effects of PSI activities."

"While the ban of Chinese mobiles has discouraged the growth of the shanzhai handsets in India, they still stand a chance if they provide proper IMEI numbers and if they partner with companies like Karbonn. Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst, Gartner, said, "Established global device manufacturers are losing ground due to fierce competition from local and Chinese manufacturers in the low-cost segment." He added, "Price remains the main criteria when buying any consumer electronic device in India, including a mobile device. Carrier strategies, lower tariffs and/or third-generation (3G) data plans will continue to shape the mobile device market in India." This is really encouraging for the shanzhai players."

But the settlement would also create a class that includes millions of people who will never come forward. For the majority of books -- considered "orphan" works -- no one will claim ownership. The author may have died; the publisher might have gone out of business or doesn't respond to inquiries; the original contract has disappeared. Google would get an explicit, perpetual license to scan and sell access to these in-copyright but out-of-print orphans, which make up an estimated 50 to 70 percent of books published after 1923. No other provider of digital books would enjoy the same legal protection. The settlement also creates a Book Rights Registry that, in conjunction with Google, would set prices for all commercial terms associated with digital books. Broad access is the greatest promise of our digital age. Giving control over such access to one company, no matter how clever or popular, is a danger to principles we hold dear: free speech, open access to knowledge and universal education. Throughout history, those principles have been realized in libraries, publishers and legal systems. There are alternatives. Separate from the Google effort, hundreds of libraries, publishers and technology firms are already digitizing books, with the goal of creating an open, freely accessible system for people to discover, borrow, purchase and read millions of titles. It's not that expensive. For the cost of 60 miles of highway, we can have a 10 million-book digital library available to a generation that is growing up reading on-screen. Our job is to put the best works of humankind within reach of that generation. Through a simple Web search, a student researching the life of John F. Kennedy should be able to find books from many libraries, and many booksellers -- and not be limited to one private library whose titles are available for a fee, controlled by a corporation that can dictate what we are allowed to read.

The global software piracy rate rose to 41% in 2008 from 38% in 2007, costing rights owners an exchange-rate adjusted $50 billion, according to a joint study between the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and IDC released last week. One of the factors driving greater piracy is increased high-speed Internet access, particularly in emerging markets where piracy rates are the highest. Software piracy is rampant on many Internet channels, including peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, auctions sites and websites. On auction sites alone, software piracy is estimated to be between 50% and 90%, according to an earlier BSA report. Other key findings from the May 2009 joint study include: * Even though global software piracy increased overall in 2008, the piracy rate actually dropped in 52% of the 110 countries studied and stayed the same in 35% of them * The impact of the global economic recession on software piracy is so far mixed, as reduced buying power is just one of many factors affecting piracy * Sites offering access to pirated software also spread malware. According to a 2006 IDC study, 29% of websites and 61% of P2P sites offering pirated software attempt to distribute malware. * While the US has the lowest piracy rate in the world-20%-it suffered the largest revenue loss in 2008 due to piracy given its leadership position in the global software industry

Details of cheap Chinese phones.