Results tagged “technology”

If you've got a Nokia S60 series and happen to speak Chinese, you can now use Google voice search on your mobile in China. The new service, the first non-English voice search Google has released, is one of many recent attempts to wrestle some more of the market away from current leader Baidu. According to the company, it works best with sharper Mandarin accents (Beijingers might have a little more trouble being understood) and will be rolled out to other phones sometime soon.

So the iPhone was finally launched in China after much rumor mongering and fanfare and... well, it seems like most everyone who wanted an iPhone already has one. While the launch party in Beijing was a rousing success, actual first day sales were nowhere near as wild as in the U.S. or Japan. About what you could expect, we guess, from a crippled product (no WiFi) that came months and months after it was released elsewhere. Especially if it has turned out to be actually more expensive than its gray market brethren.

If you follow us on our twitter, you've probably noticed that, every now and then, we'll ask you to chat with us on the new QQ International. What's QQ? It's the chat platform that's taken China by storm - basically any local with an internet has a QQ ID. QQI is the International English version of the platform, which now gives you a window into the China chatting world (download it here). And we're on it. If you want to join our group, talk to some of our writers and generally shoot the breeze about China and everything else with other Shanghaiist readers, here's our QQ ID: 35321512.

According to a presentation by MTV about youth and social networking in Asia, China is the only country where people actually have more ONLINE friends than offline friends. We guess that's not so surprising coming from the Land of 1,000 Internet Addiction Camps, but it still makes us want to go all Ogre on these kids. NERDS!!

The latest Facebook Global Monitor report released by Inside Facebook has revealed, rather unsurprisingly, that China heads the pack of three countries that actually lost more active users than it gained for the month of September (the other two being Iceland and Cyprus). When Facebook was banned in July, the social network had one million monthly active users. That figure collapsed to half a million in August, before shrinking further to 41,000 in early September, and now as of the beginning of this month, only a measly 14,000 remain. Totally authoritative anecdotal reports suggest that these 14,000 diehard Facebook users comprised mostly of smart Shanghaiist readers who know where to get their VPN and other desperate expats who just miss their friends back home.

With China's tech industry becoming increasingly sophisticated and profitable, it comes as no surprise that the powers that be have pulled out all the stops to jump start the industry. This weekend, the city of Hangzhou hosted a forum for small and medium businesses, featuring heavyweight speakers such as former U.S. president Bill Clinton and executives from Lenovo and Alibaba, two of China's most successful IT companies. But who stole the day? None other than Basketball legend cum technology expert Kobe Bryant. The Lakers star gave businessmen tips on how to succeed using his inspirational "basketball stories are just like life" gospel. Best of all, the crowd gave a roaring ovation when he gave Jack Ma, the CEO of Alibaba, an oversized pair of sneakers. We guess nothing says "reach farther, jump higher" better than a fresh pair of Nikes. Photo: Daylife

How convenient! China Unicom customers can now have a payment card attached to their cellphone SIM cards, allowing them to swipe their mobile phones to pay for subway and bus fares. The transport bills will be tacked directly onto phone bills, and will receive the same discounts that regular transport cards currently get. All you have to do to get this fuction is go to a Shanghai Unicom outlet and ask for it to be added on. Unicom says these cards will soon be able to pay for shopping as well. Other carriers said they were developing similar systems. Japan and South Korea have had a system like this in place for a while now, and we're glad it's catching on in Shanghai too! Source: Shanghai Daily

Woah, we're not sure how it even plans to do this, but China's Ministry of Culture is apparently setting new rules to vet music sold online. Music sites, including Google and Baidu's mp3 divisions, will now be forced to seek approval from censors for all foreign songs they distribute. Besides having to provide written lyrics for each song, translated into Chinese, they'll also need to show documents proving they aren't infringing on copyrights. Google's free mp3 download service at least has the blessings of record companies so perhaps it won't be too hard for it to sail these waters, but we wonder if this will become the storm that sinks Baidu. Source: Wall Street Journal

We're used to seeing mind boggling statistics living here in China, but this one still made our jaws drop. This country now has 703 million mobile phone users - that's double the population of the United States chatting on their cellphones. According to a report released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the number of mobile users rose by 61.41 million in just the last six months. Meanwhile the overall number of people using phones rose by 48.99 million to 1.03 billion. Handset makers, welcome to your heaven. Source: People's Daily online

Months after Twitter was blocked and Chinese Twitter clones Fanfou, Digu, and Zuosa (apparently Zuosa is still alive) were felled by the mighty hand of the CCP censorship army, Internet portal Sina has started its own "microblogging service."

Ministry of Health guidelines for Internet addiction are out and it looks like anyone who spends just 40 hours online each week can be considered an Internet addict. The draft definition was "based on research into the standards used by foreign countries and has also been influenced by China's experience with the problem," according to CRI English. We just took a good look at how many hours we're logged on each week and it seems like we could be considered internet addicts twice over. Uh oh. We hope this doesn't mean someone's booking us for one of those painfully deadly internet addict camps.

Official media said yesterday that a recently released survey found that only 5% of youth were actually against the Green Dam, according to the SCMP. But take a look at the survey: 1,000 pupils around China, aged six to 13, were asked whether Green Dam Youth Escort was a good thing. Pollsters had to then explain to the kids what the internet, filtering software and pornography (aaawwwkwaaard) were. Of the respondants, only 14% actually offered a vote of support, most had no opinion since they're kids and this has nothing to do with anything kids care about. Of all the silly methods to try to win support for the wildly unpopular Green Dam initiative, this has to be the silliest.

We all knew it, but it's still nice to hear it coming from the top. Li Yizhong, Minister of industry and information technology, has admitted that the failed launch of that widely protested Green Dam Youth Escort was kind of a mistake. Li said that the order that went out sounded too much like the ministry was bullying people to install the program, but that had never been the government's intention. He then followed this up by saying that schools and internet cafes would still be required to install Green Dam on all computers... once the developers had improved the software's performance and closed all its security loopholes. Okay, so the fight isn't over yet, apparently. The one question we have: why are they bringing all this up again now? Source: SCMP

Peter Guo (郭宝峰), a self-described "troublemaker in Amoy (Xiamen)" experienced what everyone who Twitters or blogs in China is not-so-secretly afraid of - one of his blog posts got him in trouble with the police, who threw him in jail. He was one of as many as seven bloggers who were detained after writing about a 25-year-old woman, Yan Xiaoling, who had allegedly been gang-raped and murdered by someone connected to local authorities in Fujian. Guo's crime: reposting something that had already been put on a BBS in Fujian Province, titled "Yan Xiaoling (嚴曉玲) much more miserable than Deng Yujiao (鄧玉嬌)." Deng Yujiao is a waitress turned national heroine who became famous for stabbing an official who may have sexually assaulted her. He then posted a video he had found, completely unedited, in which Yan Xiaoling's mother accused local authorities of trying to cover up the case.

The 25-year-old Foxconn employee who killed himself after being interrogated about a missing iPhone prototype had demonstrated a pattern of suspiciously losing products, according to the New York Times. James Lee, GM of Foxconn's China operations, said that several times products had gone missing and then he got them back. Oh. Well then. We guess the solitary confinement and searching his home and alleged beating was justified. NOT. Dear Foxconn, if your employee is acting out of line, you give them a warning and then fire them. Nothing justifies acting like thugs towards them, and any attempts to sully his name after the fact stinks as much as the $44,000 and Apple laptop you paid to his family in blood money. Source: Apple Insider

The words "unconfirmed", "anonymous" and "sketchy" all come to mind whenever we talk about the arrival of the iPhone to China, but this latest story actually originates from Foxconn, the contract manufacturer for Apple's game-changing phone. JLM Pacific Epoch reports that an unnamed source within the company has leaked that they have already commenced mass production of wifi-less versions of the iPhone for release in this country.

Looks like public opinion against the Green Dam Youth Escort software, including the non-stop foreign media coverage and the numerous internet petitions, has finally convinced the government that maybe it shouldn't make the install mandatory. And good thing too:

If you are waiting anxiously for the upcoming iPhone 3.0 firmware update - due to be released tomorrow - but concerned that it will relock your iPhone, you need not fear (too much). @MuscleNerd from the iPhone Dev Team announced on twitter that he would be airing a demo of an unlocked iPhone running on the new software.

The fine folks at TEDxShanghai have offered Shanghaiist readers a chance to crash the event's invitation-only Geeks and Glamour party at M1NT at 7:30 on Monday night. All you have to do is email sage@tedxshanghai.com with this as your subject line: "Me + Shanghaiist + Geeks & Glamour." Send your emails soon — only the first 50 emailers will get an invite to the exclusive party (UPDATE: Entry to the party is RMB 100, paid at the door. The entry fee includes a yet-to-be-announced drink special. Sorry for the confusion!). What is TEDxShanghai? "TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience." Okay, but what is TED? "TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. ... The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes)." Geeks & Glamour is the after-party for TEDxShanghai, Shanghai's independently-organized TED event, which is already booked solid (but you can watch a live feed — with simultaneous English/Chinese translation — on Tudou starting at 10 a.m. Monday). You can learn more on their Facebook page. Start sending your emails! See you on Monday.

Awww, how adorable! From another random shanzhai technology company comes this actually well thought out Winnie the Pooh-themed cellphone.

Here we have it: the most ostentatious religious-themed cellphone in China!

As "G-Day" approaches and suburban Beijing start to get their 3G signal, we are still speculating about the arrival of the iPhone. Rather than relying on official announcements, pundits are now looking further up the iPhone supply chain to make predictions about how and who will bring the iPhone to China.

With major companies all hoping to attract China's massive customer base, especially the burgeoning middle class, the Chinese next-gen phone market is getting a bit crowded all of a sudden.

We've heard that the iTunes app store can sometimes be strangely stringent about what type of applications get to be sold there - so we're surprised that this one made the cut. Stuck Pixel's Cute Asian Girls app gives you hundreds of photos of pretty Asian girls in various poses for an introductory price of 99 cents (roughly 6 RMB).

Kaiser Kuo of Youku Buzz writes:

Here’s a short video of a download speed test of China Telecom’s trial 3G wireless network, which is on the CDMA 2000 1x EV-DO standard. (We usually hear about China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA network, foisted on them by regulators against their wishes, and the “European” standard WCDMA network that will be operated by China Netcom).

Continue reading "China Telecom's 3G to be faster than your ADSL at home?"

The iPhone's arrival (particularly the 3G variety) has been the subject of a great deal of speculation of late. Particularly since China Unicom, the only mobile carrier to provide the iPhone supported WCDMA 3G standard, already announced that they will be rolling out their 3G service on the 17th May.

Most social networks and web businesses generate their revenues from online advertising - but it looks like some do it much better than others.

China Mobile probably won't be seeing an iPhone in its lineup anytime soon, but it has confirmed that its customers will be seeing a customized version of the sexy HTC Magic. The Android OS-based smartphone will be getting a China Mobile-centric makeover before it arrives on our shores - hopefully that makeover will keep the awesome open-source Android app store. While we're not sure exactly when it'll be available in China, it's rumored to be hitting Taiwan around April.

While China lags behind the rest of the world in launching it's 3G service, ChinaTechNews.com have reported from an inside source that China Mobile is already gearing up for a 4G service to be ready by World Expo in 2010.

• Advisor: Financial crisis not to affect success of 2010 Shanghai Expo [Xinhua] "The global financial crisis will have only limited impacts on the Shanghai World Expo 2010, an official with the organizers said here Sunday. Wan Jifei, vice director of the Shanghai World Expo Executive Committee, pledged that the financial crisis would not affect the overall success of the Expo at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual session of China's political advisory body."
• The curious case of the disappearing TV drama [Danwei] "Looking at the headline numbers, 2008 was not a good year for TV drama producers in China. While TV drama production has grown by around 1,000 episodes annually every year since 2003, it actually dropped for the first time in five years in 2008."
• China's key sci-tech projects criticized for "retarded progress" [Xinhua] "China's major projects in its 15-year scientific and technological development program initiated in 2006 is progressing very slowly, a political advisor said here Sunday. The State Council, or Cabinet, approved the last major scientific and technological project late last year, he said. "It means we have spent one fifth of the time to start up the program." "