If you're a girl, that is. If you are female and have ever had the slightest inclination to futz around with building web applications, then you should check out what's happening over at Rails Girls Shanghai later this month. But the application deadline is tomorrow, so hurry up! more ›

At 7am on Friday morning the doors of Shanghai's Apple Stores will open allowing all Chinese citizens who properly queued overnight an equal and fair chance at receiving their new, unlocked iPhone 4S. Hah, fat chance! In an impressive feat of organization, scalpers have bussed in over 200 people (all wearing matching red hats) from out of town to wait in line overnight and buy iPhones at Shanghai's Huaihai Road Apple Store! more ›

“Youku think they can live on free traffic without paying for the content,” said Tudou CEO Gary Wang in a statement, “and they are trying to hide the fact that they are actually not as competitive as they pretend to be.” more ›

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Chinese hackers gained acces to one of the most heavenly guarded databases in the US and obtained everything stored on its systems. The stolen data includes information regarding the interests of many US businesses and trade associations, according to information just released by the US Chamber of Commerce. more ›

Bill Gates enthusiastically confirmed on Wednesday that TerraPower, a company where he serves as Chairman, is cooperating with the China National Nuclear Corporation on the development of a new type of nuclear reactor. The new reactor is said to be eco-friendly, and able to endure any type of earthquake. more ›

iPad news-reading application Flipboard is partnering with Sina Weibo and Renren for its debut in China, its first overseas destination. Here's why more ›

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Apple's iTunes platform now allows customers in the People's Republic to pay for their mobile apps and music purchases with their Chinese bank cards. However, instead of paying for each purchase as you go, you'll now have to first top-up your iTunes account in pre-set amounts of 50, 100, 300, or 500 RMB. Payments via Alipay or Union Pay are also not currently available. Steven Millward of Penn Olson dissects Apple's move:

The move is also designed to combat piracy of iOS apps in China, which has been thriving under the previous inconveniences/restrictions. Just this week we saw a major Chinese web company, Tencent (HKG:0700), launch a shanzhai iTunes app that helps you avoid Apple’s tightly-controlled ecosystem, and there’s the Chinese-made iTools desktop app that assists in the jailbreaking and adding of pirated/cracked apps. more ›

How many of these people do you reckon are queueing up for phones destined for the black market on the mainland? more ›

On Tuesday, dissident-artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) who was freed not too long ago from an 81-day detention, was slapped with a RMB15 million fine for tax evasion, a princely sum he has been given 15 days to cough up. The very next day, his mother Ai Ying (高瑛) and brother Ai Dan (艾丹) announced that they were mortgaging the former residence of his father, the poet Ai Qing (艾青). Following calls on Twitter by Shanghai human rights lawyer Li Tiantian (李天天) and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming (艾晓明, no relation) to send money, his supporters also swung into action, setting up Alipay and Paypal accounts to collect donations. more ›

The unmanned Shenzhou VIII spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert, on its way to docking with the Tiangong-1 space module in two days' time. more ›

Researchers at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou recently unveiled two robots that can play a decent game of ping-pong with both backhand and forehand capabilities. Taking four years to develop, the twin robots' eye-mounted cameras capture stills at 120 images per second, which allows processors to then calculate a whacked ball's position, speed, angle, landing spot and trajectory. more ›

'Today we have got two from Canada, they're 11,000 yuan (S$2,183) each. If you're interested, you need to come straight away,' a salesman at a mobile phone shop at Hailong market told AFP. She said it was a 16GB model, the least expensive in the range. In the United States, the same phone is sold for US$199 (S$252) with a two-year contract. more ›

With the iPhone 4S being released today, it's only a matter of time before the first arrive on China's gray market, where Chinese will rush to bask in Apple's latest creation. However, those early adopters with sub-par English skills may not be as enthusiastic after having a few minutes to play around with Apple's newest gem, Siri. more ›

The devout Apple faithful will be making their pilgrimage on September 22nd to Beijing's China National Convention Center, for what will be the first ever Macworld expo to take place in China. And though other reports state that this will be the first expo outside of the US, Macworld has taken place before in Tokyo, London and Paris. more ›

Taiwan megastar and singer-songwriter Jay Chou (周杰伦) has joined the ranks of Ashton Kutcher as a celebrity tech investor. His latest venture comes in the form of 31SMS, a mobile messaging application for iPhones and Android phones which he's hoping his star appeal will help make a WhatsApp-killer, at least for the Greater China market. more ›

Looks like the subway mobile shopping space is really heating up. First we had the subway supermarket shopping app Yihaodian that seeks to replicate the success that Tesco had in South Korea. Now we have Ubox, a mobile app for iPhones, Android and Java-based phones, that allows you to pay for your vending machine purchases with your cell phone. more ›

Um, we're sure you're really interested in new trends within the Chinese gaming industry on display at the 9th China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference (aka Chinajoy) held in Shanghai over the weekend. After all, there's all sorts of exciting developments about the country's still maturing digital entertainment landscape, which has yet to produce the sort of world-beating entertainment properties regularly featured at game conferences like the Tokyo Game Show, or the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) held annually in Los Angeles. However, we have little to say on the subject, and unfortunately can only provide as a consolation prize this modest gallery of women (and perhaps at least one or two males, we really can't say for sure) hired for, uh...um...sorry, we lost our train of thought. We're just going to look at a few more pics to figure out what they were hired for. It'll come to us, we're sure. more ›

Grindr, the gaydar-in-your-pocket mobile app that's taken the international gay community by storm is now back online in China after an extended period of being blocked by the Great Firewall. more ›

A US stealth helicopter crash-landed in Pakistan during the commando raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, and there are now concerns that Pakistan may share the wreckage with its close ally, China, which may then be able to reverse engineer the technology that went into the stealth chopper. CNN's Brian Todd reports:
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Via Telegraph TV: Some of the most technically advanced robots in the world go on show at the Shanghai International Conference on Robotics and Automation in China. more ›

Gadget Republic proclaims that this means it's "goodbye Twitter" forever in China. We think the verdict's still out on that. Still, it's good to know if you had been planning on getting your feet wet in the Weibo world, but had been dismayed by the language barrier. Unfortunately, no similar app for Android users yet. Also see: Digicha's Sina Weibo guide. more ›

“The iPad is produced in China. It's not produced here in the United States. So the Chinese get to take advantage of our First Amendment value to provide freedom of speech through the iPad to the American people, but there is no protection of jobs here in America.” more ›

"FUDAN University has teamed up with Harvard University and the University of Tokyo to launch open online lecture classes. This is seen as another step forward by local universities developing web resources. The Sandel Classroom will be held six to eight times a year, focusing on a wide range of topics, including how people should survive disasters. Michael Sandel, an American political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University, delivered a lecture to students from the three universities for the first time over the weekend. "It's great to attend the class and talk with students across the globe," said Kuang Shenda, a student at Fudan's School of International Relations and Public Affairs. Previously, Fudan launched lectures on NetEase Open Course. Other universities have open courses on iTunes U and other public platforms." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

"BLACKBERRY is expected to officially launch its App World service for Chinese mainland users in the next couple of days, sources said yesterday, and users now can access the service for a trial period. A company source told Shanghai Daily that the short trial period would help the company solve any problem before the official launch whose date was not confirmed by the firm. The App World went live in other countries and regions in 2009, but BlackBerry didn't open it to domestic users. Industry observers said the move to officially launch the App World was to coincide with the launch this month of the Playbook tablet computer by Research In Motion, also the maker of BlackBerry phones. BlackBerry phones accounted for about 4.6 percent of the domestic smartphone market in terms of sales in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to research firm Analysys International." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

The world 30 years from now, after Apple conquers the universe. [h/t to MicGadget] more ›

BarCamp is a fun, user-generated "un-conference." The BarCamp model started in the Silicon Valley as a response to formal, exclusive, and boring tech conferences and has since spread to 350+ cities worldwide. It's a can't miss event for techies, entrepreneurs, and social innovators. more ›

What began as a simple call by Professor Yu Jianrong for internet users to snap pictures of street children and post it on Sina Weibo, the leading Chinese microblogging service, has become something of a revolution that is being talked about by everyone today. At last count, the campaign's official account @随手拍照解救乞讨儿童 (lit. Snap a picture to save a child) has about 152,000 followers while @Yujianrong himself has become something of a superstar with close to 380,000 followers. more ›

Yay for faster Chinese input, and double yay for our homegrown talent! more ›