Baidu.com, China’s search engine Goliath, has combined forces with three major American record companies to develop what is hoped to be a breakthrough against music piracy in the People’s Republic. more ›

According to the blurb on the back of the Unmei Q5: more ›

It's practically impossible to enforce intellectual property rights in China, which holds the heavyweight title for the world's best pirates (of goods, not actual pirating), and that's espeically true on the 'net. It's even harder to enforce copyrights when even the courts won't admit that rights are even being infringed: a Beijing court ruled yesterday that Baidu's MP3 search engine was not violating any rights by offering downloads. more ›

• China and Argentina in currency swap [FT.com] "China, which is pushing to end the dominance of the dollar as a worldwide reserve, has agreed a Rmb70bn ($10.24bn, £7.18bn, €7.76bn) currency swap with Argentina that will allow it to receive renminbi instead of dollars for its exports to the Latin American country. Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, said the deal was signed on Sunday by Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, and Martín Redrado, Argentine central bank president, in Medellín, Colombia, where they are attending a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank."
• Nanotechnology: Tom Mackenzie on China's giant step into nanotech [The Guardian] "Nanotechnology is big business conducted on an atomic scale. China is a major player, using it for a speaker just 1mm thick - or super-strong armour."
• China's Far Too Rosy Self Image [Pomfret's China] "A new poll by researchers at the University of Maryland and Globescan sums it up in the starkest terms. A whopping 92 percent of Chinese surveyed believe that China has a mainly positive influence on the world; whereas a mere 39 percent of people polled in 20 other major countries agree. This is the largest perception gap among the countries' polled. (And it's getting worse. Views about China have declined markedly over the last year.)"

• Japanese investigators have found 'no abnormality' at the dumpling factory in Hebei Province at the centre of a food safety scare in Japan after hundreds of people suffered from pesticide poisoning from eating the dumplings. Traces of pesticide were found on the outside of the dumplings and not in the fillings, leading investigators to point to "deliberate poisoning, rather than accidental contamination". This idea, however, has been rejected by Chinese experts.
• The world's most powerful music labels — Universal Music, Sony BMG (HK) and Warner Music (HK) — have taken Baidu to court in Beijing for not removing links they say infringe on their copyrights. In a related ruling in December, the three firms lost their case against Sohu and Sogou. Meanwhile, Google is preparing to crack China open in the digital music arena. It is in talks with Universal to offer music downloads here. EMI and Sony BMG may join the deal.
• A statement from China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Information Industry has clarified that the controversial new rules requiring online-video companies to be state-controlled don't apply to already-established Web sites, offering hope to privately-owned video startups such as Youku and Tudou which have raised tens of millions of dollars from venture capitalists.

If you think only Chinese people use Baidu, you're dead wrong. Recently, a friend of ours in the US complained that he was unable to find any more music through Baidu's MP3 search service. Not a surprise really, since that treasure trove of pirated music that is now getting sued for big bucks in a Beijing court by some of the biggest names in music including Universal, EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and their local subsidiaries,... more ›

• 3 in US accused of enslaving Chinese acrobats
  Three men enslaved more than 20 Chinese acrobats, feeding and paying them little to work, and confiscating their passports and visas.


• 'Mass incidents' on rise as environment deteriorates
  Chinese people's refusal to accept an ever deteriorating environmental situation has resulted in a rising number of "mass incidents", the country's chief environment official said on Wednesday.


• Becoming Bill Gates' right-hand man
  Showing signs of genius even as a young boy, it was not surprising that Dr Zhang Yaqin would rise to become a right-hand man of the world's most powerful billionaire.

Forgive us if this is old news for you, but we just recently discovered Gmail Mobile, and we are loving it. Basically, it's a tiny app for your mobile device that allows you to read and respond to your email and open up attachments — all very quickly (much faster than trying to look at Gmail through your phone's internet browser). This is just what we needed, since we use Gmail for all of our email and were having trouble getting our @shmobile.com email to work properly on our phone. Speaking of phones, we use a Sony Ericsson k750i, but we think this should work on most phones with GPRS service. Here are some other requirements, according to Google: more ›

If you get a strange feeling of deja vu as you watch the next Spider-Man movie, the chances are you have already seen it. Reuters have reported Sony's claims that there are no genuine fake copies of Spider-Man 3 floating around the Internet or among pirate vendors. The disks you see on the streets of Shanghai these days will probably be Spider-Man 2 in disguise as the latest movie. The real fakes should be available from your local DVD seller on May 4th when Spiderman 3 has its global release. While we would never condone the piracy of copyrighted material, we are always on the lookout for a high quality inspection copy of Spider-Man 3, if anyone would like to prove Sony wrong. more ›

How big will the Shanghai premiere of Casino Royale be tomorrow night at Shanghai Film Art Center? Well, the stars of the movie will actually be there. And that doesn't happen too often — last month, Edward Norton flew to Beijing for a Painted Veil press conference, but didn't make the trip for the premiere in Shanghai the following day. more ›

For more del.icio.us links, visit the Shanghaiist Contribute page, which is updated throughout the day. more ›

Actually, we’ve been eyeing the portable game console/music and video player ever since it came out a year ago. Our buying decision this holiday season has every bit to do with the PSP being a nifty gadget as it does some of the extra "resources" available to us as residents of Shanghai, or China for that matter. As far as we know, other than maybe the original NES, no video game console has ever been released here in China, and for a very good reason: rampant piracy of games. The PSP is no different. Machines for sale here are from either Europe or Japan, but with firmware downgraded/modified so that they can handle “backup” (read “pirated”) games. ISO images of PSP games are readily available at most BT sites — ISO Hunt and Torrentspy just to name a couple — as are music and videos. more ›

Shanghaiist went gadget shopping today -- tired of carrying around the laptop to check emails and blogs, we are planning to upgrade our mobile phone. And we bumped into the Sony Ericsson Z610 (official link). This phone made us happy with its slim design and the nice glamour effect on the outside (despite business functionality, we want to stay fashionable -- gotta keep appearances up). The big surprise was the built-in RSS reader. Wow, keep yourself updated with Shanghaiist feeds on your mobile -- that is very convincing selling point! Actually, we didn't find any other brand offering this function (here a list of Sony Ericsson phones with RSS-reader). more ›

In a less-than-coordinated moment at home, Shanghaiist accidentally stepped on a pair of iPod headphones (sorry -- "ear buds"), mashing them beyond repair. more ›

Shanghaiist was thinking about how to characterize a movie like this: We mulled over “worst movie we’ve ever seen,” and thought this too harsh, as there are probably loads of worse movies that we’ve seen but have repressed the memory of. And we hope the same happens with this movie. more ›

This weekend Club One is holding its grand opening, DJ Zohra will be pumping uplifting house at Rojam, DJ Boro brings the electro to Fabrique ... (thanks SmartShanghai!) "But wait!" you cry. "Where are the guitars? Where are the jam sessions at smoky bars that the police come to shut down at 1 am?" Well, Shanghaiist hears you. Read on for this week's concert preview: more ›

Juan Vargas, filmmaker more ›

for a bottle of water every once in a while? You may have wondered how such a dingy shack could marr the pristine face of Huangpi Lu, a street that hosts towering office highrises and Vincent Lo's Shanghai pride-and-joy. Or maybe the populist inside of you secretly giggled with glee at the thought of these hardy individuals using the law to hold up the greedy Hong Kong developers with their wads of cash and gobs of guanxi. more ›

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