Laptop Battery By Lisa Clemens
If you're like most road warriors, you carry your whole office inside your laptop computer. Projects, presentations, reports, spreadsheets, letters, contacts, mail, - all these vital items are inside that magic book. To use your computer successfully on the road, how to charge the battery in Paris, mail in Manila, and how to avoid costly internet connectivity charges in Hong Kong. "Laptop 101."
Thinkpad (AXcess News) Hong Kong - I read with interest the article by
Isaac Wolf called, "The Entertainment Industry's New Script?
Rewrite the American Moral Code."
Calling Hong Kong Long Distance As a Special Administrative Region of China, Hong Kong adheres to China%š universal time, China Time. Like China, Hong Kong does not participate in Daylight Saving Time so its time difference from much of the U.S. and Europe changes over the year. Hong Kong is 8 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and 13 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the United States. However, during Daylight Saving Time in the U.S., Hong Kong is only 12 hours ahead of the eastern U.S.
Microsoft As a correspondent for two magazines, (One is Jade Screen, a
magazine for fans of Hong Kong films and film makers. The other is
Screen Power, a magazine for fans of Jackie Chan.) I take an
interest in articles on piracy, especially because the piracy
problem in Hong Kong is so bad. And so you can imagine how the
comment by Josette S. Shiner caught my eye. She said, "In Hong
Kong, entertainment bootlegging has largely been eradicated....The
trend away from entertainment piracy in Hong Kong began when Jackie
Chan left because he could not make a profitable movie."
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Laptop Computers Now, claiming that Jackie Chan had abandoned the city he loves
and that this was what sparked an ending to piracy is pretty far
from the mark. Yes, Jackie Chan wanted to have a hit in Hollywood,
that's true. But he did not leave Hong Kong and come here to escape
piracy. (Ok, once upon a time he did escape to the US to avoid a
triad death threat, but that's another story altogether!) His first
big US hit was Rumble in the Bronx which many people mistake as a
Hollywood production, but it was never intended for the US market.
It was a Hong Kong film which New Line bought and edited for US
audiences. It was only then that Jackie was asked to try again to
make films in Hollywood. But even after Jackie Chan did go to the
US to make successful films like Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon, etc, he
continued to act in, as well as produce several Hong Kong films.
Nothing about Jackie Chan's US films made the piracy problem start
to fade. If anything it gave the pirates more films to make into
cheap VCDs.
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Laptop Computer As for the piracy problem being eradicated, let's continue with
the Jackie Chan theme. Jackie Chan's newest film in Hong Kong, The
Myth, was released September 23, 2005. During an interview with
Chan and director Stanley Tong it was reported by
www.china.com
that they were told by a reporter that the pirated versions were on
the street within days of the theatrical release. Stanley Tong
said, "This will definitely affect the market, but no one knows how
much damage it will have!" Chan said to Tong flatly, "Let's go to
South Korea to make films. You be the director and I'll be the
martial arts director. No one will make films in HK anymore!"
According to the indictment, Jones would steal various IBM and Penguin computer servers from Verisign's warehouse in Virginia and sell them to Johnson. Johnson would then sell the servers to several individuals, who would sometimes place them for sale on eBay. As a result of this scheme, the indictment alleges that Jones and Johnson caused Verisign to lose more than $120, 000 worth of computer equipment. In the indictment, Jones and Johnson are charged in three counts with causing the interstate transportation of stolen property, namely IBM 330 and 335 servers, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
Desktop Computer Jackie Chan's feelings of hopelessness are valid. Little by
little the industry in Hong Kong is dying. In 2003 Price Waterhouse
Cooper HK reported: Rampant piracy is the fundamental issue for the
Hong Kong film industry, and although the government has made some
progress in enforcing certain preventative measures, it is still at
the mercy of the pirates, in respect of both the Hong Kong and the
lucrative China and South East Asia export markets. Availability of
cheap, pirated copies of DVDs and VCDs (a lower quality non-digital
format) impact significantly on the cinematic, home rental and
retail markets. In mainland China piracy levels are as high as 98%
of the local market and as an example boot-leg DVD and VCD copies
of The Tuxedo were available at the Hong Kong/Chinese border before
it was released in the Hong Kong cinemas. And this happens for
every Hong Kong film released today, be it international or local -
no one dares to estimate the total impact of such lost revenues on
the local industry.
(http://www.pwchk.com/home/eng/e&m_article_apr2003.html)
Notebooks Pirated DVDs are less prevalent in Hong Kong than they used to
be, thanks in part to an outcry against bootleg copies by
celebrities including Jackie Chan who recently held a press
conference organized by the International Trademark Association.
During the event, Jackie Chan said, "Looking at the counterfeit
problem, it really hurts. We used to make 300 movies a year here in
Hong Kong. Now there are maybe 50 a year."
Lenovo Not only are there piracy problems in regard to bootleg discs,
but satellite companies are being harmed as well by illegal
decoders. The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association's
chief executive officer, Simon Twiston Davies, said, "As an
industry we have long been concerned about the spread of pay TV
piracy in Hong Kong. We've seen piracy come close to destroying the
domestic movie industry and we are determined that we will not be
pushed into that position,". (SCMP link unavailable)
Hard Drive A more serious threat is in downloading films illegally. In a
recent article Stephanie Wong of SCMP quoted a downloader. With the
click of his mouse, Tony - not his real name - downloads them from
the Internet without permission, using a file-transfer program
known as BitTorrent (BT). "Why should I buy them?" the Hong Kong
native says. "So many people on the Internet are uploading and
downloading files, it's very difficult for the authorities to catch
every one."
(http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=115&art_id=qw1131085083996B252)
Travelstar So what can be done? High Security at screenings has failed. At
least three pirated versions of House of Flying Daggers became
available within days of it's opening, despite measures taken.
Zhang Weiping, producer of the film said, "The piracy is earlier
and more rampant than 'Hero'." (After the premier of Hero, major
cities across China and elsewhere were flooded with illegal copies.
Thousands of illegal copies were being sold in music stores. Even
restaurants peddled them at prices between eight and fifteen
yuan-about $1-$2 US)
Gateway While a Hong Kong man has recently been jailed for three months
for film piracy after he shared movie files over the internet,
making him the first person in the world to be prosecuted for
passing on files using BitTorrent, it's unlikely his arrest will
stop others from downloading films.
Laptop Parts Maybe the start of Hong Kong's first legitimate internet movie
downloading service will be of help. It will be launched next month
by a company called Mei Ah, with a library of more than 1,000
movies. The online store is currently on trial, at
www.hongkongmovie.com, with 30 movies available
so far. Downloading a film will cost $5, which allows unlimited
viewing for three days. To download a movie, users have to register
with the website, and download special software developed by Mei Ah
which will lock the files to prevent them from being burned onto a
CD or DVD, nor can they be shared with other computer users.
Patrick Tong Hing-chi, managing director of Mei Ah, said, "This is
like a test for consumers, who have been saying they download
movies from illegitimate channels like BitTorrent because no
official channels are available. We have to wait for the actual
market response!"
(http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-eastasia.asp?parentid=33253)
Software We can only hope that the buying and downloading of illegal
films stops. It is, after all, consumer demand that makes it
profitable for someone to make bootlegs and upload them. More must
be done world wide to educate people that legal copies of DVDs and
VCDs can be found on the internet in shops like
www.hongkong-store.com and www.YesAsia as soon
as they come available which often is not a long wait. In an effort
to keep piracy at bay, many films are released on DVD within two to
three months of a Hong Kong theatrical release. Plus the DVDs are
stuffed with tons of extras and promotional goodies that you will
not find with a bootleg.
Hard Drives Something must be done. This, the industry that brought us Shaw
Brothers classics and the speed and style of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan
and Jet Li. These are the films that influenced Hollywood so much
they are making their own versions of great films like Infernal
Affairs and The Eye. How tragic it would be to never see another
film from this region because piracy has destroyed the
industry.
Electronics Lisa Clemens is a US Correspondent for Jade Screen: The Hong
Kong Movie Magazine and Screen Power: The Jackie Chan Magazine.
Check them out at www.screen-power.com
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