While China has a history of blocking computer users' access to many sites on the world wide interwebs, many clever Chinese citizens have figured out that RSS feeds provided a way around the Chinese firewall. Until now.
Ars Technica reports that China has started blocking any URL that starts with "feeds," "rss," and "blog." That makes it pretty difficult to access the feeds for an awful lot of websites, including pretty much any site syndicated by FeedBurner.
It looks like some Chinese users are having success with online feed-readers like Newsgator. We'll see how long it takes before China bans Newsgator. In the meantime, there's always proxies and anonymous web browsers like Tor.
We've all heard the horror stories, often emanating from the neighborhood of the far east, of people who take their online gaming a little too seriously. These are folks that get real-life revenge for in-game defeats, like the guy who murdered (in real life) an online opponent for stealing his in-game weapon. There have even been cases, reportedly, where folks who were otherwise healthy just up and died while playing online games.
Apparently, the trend continues. Today, CIO Insight reported that a Chinese man died after playing Internet games in a Net Cafe for three straight days, ostensibly one that stays open 24 hours a day. If the case was like the previously mentioned Korean case, the one must wonder why, if starvation and dehydration were the culprits, the proprietors of the cafe didn't kick him out for being a bum and not ordering something to drink. Exhaustion was the stated reason for death, but even then--don't you think you'd fall asleep before allowing an Internet game to exhaust you? Perhaps not if you play with this level of intensity.
On Wednseday, the company has cut the price of Windows Vista Home Baisc to just under $66 US dollars, which is about 1/3rd the price it had been selling for. The price of Windows Vista Home Premium has also received a 50% price cut. It now retails for about $120 US.
Any way you look at it, the new prices make it a lot cheaper to buy legal copies of Windows Vista in China than in the US. But it's still hard to compete with free, or next to it. China has long been a hotbed of software piracy, and word on the street is that you can pick up a copy of Windows Vista for about a buck.
Get out your data condoms if you're headed to China. A recent report says China is hit the hardest by computer viruses. Over 35 million computers were infected in the first half of the year according to Chinese anti-virus company Rising.
China Tech News reports, "There are a great deal of hidden troubles in domestic Internet software and applications that apparently lack effective protection measures. Often software makers do not spend time creating patches for their software, leading virus makers to attack the holes in the applications."
Much of the world may still be dominated by Microsoft, with Apple running a distant but statistically significant second; That hasn't stopped Linux installs from growing at an outstripping pace in China.
The FBI and Chinese officials have seized more than 290,000 CDs with pirated software in a crackdown on groups in China and the US who were making and distributing the discs around the world. 25 people were arrested in the sting.
The CDs have an estimated value of $500 million, with software titles from companies including Microsoft and Symantec. Of course, if you do the math, officials are estimating that the the average disc was worth $1724.13, which just goes to show that the numbers are often somewhat inflated in these operations.
And of course the "retail value" of the software is often based on estimated losses from the companies who make the software, not on how much the bootleg versions will sell for. Sure, some of those who purchase pirated software would buy the legal version if bootleg discs weren't available, but that's not true for everyone.
This is not an endorsement of piracy. Those who create useful or fun software deserve to be compensated for it. All we're saying is you have to take these numbers with a grain of salt.
Google has been working hard the past few years to gain the respect of the Chinese government. It looks like that hard work has started to pay off with a recent license they have partially obtained to serve content to the second largest internet market in the world.
What does this mean exactly? It means that first steps have been made in a preliminary approval to potentially supply news to China.
There are still certain procedures which Google has to follow in order to get a full license and final approval; nonetheless Google is slowly on the move to being seen as a viable resource for the Chinese market. There has been no word as of yet as to the steps that Google must make in order to obtain a full license to serve the news content.
If you can't beat them, join them -- and charge them. That's Warner Brother's latest strategy for battling video piracy in Hong Kong. The movie studio will offer 100 titles online, including recent DVD releases such as Superman Returns and Happy Feet as well as popular older titles like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The videos will be available for a fee through ViDeOnline's 08Media web site.
Hollywood studios say they lose billions of dollars a year to video piracy, with China being one of the hottest spots for internet pirates. Warner Brothers' move is designed to give Chinese consumers a chance to get high quality movies for a small price rather than turning to the black market.
The files will include DRM to prevent copying. No word on exactly how much the studio will charge for the downloads, or whether anyone in Hong Kong will actually use the service.
Chasing after software pirates in the US is one thing, but China's a whole other ballgame. Pirated copies of Windows Vista are widely available throughout the country, for as little as $1.
So while Microsoft spent millions to promote Vista in China, the company apparently sold just 244 copies of the operating system during the first two weeks it was legally available in China.
Microsoft has spent a lot of time and effort making it as difficult as possible for pirates to activate copies of Windows Vista. But just last week Microsoft admitted that there were two working activation cracks that the company has no plans to fix. It's not clear what method Chinese users are using to activate pirated copies of Vista.
What's left for Google to conquer? A browser of course! Michael Arrington reports that Google has just bought a minority stake in the Maxthon Browser. The browser currently has over 80 million downloads, with over half of the users living in China. Searchers from this browser seem to account for 25% of Baidu traffic, Google's competition in China. If Google replaces the default search option to direct to Google search, they have easily gained a nice spot in the Chinese market.
This new purchase could spell a better relationship between Google and China, with whom they have had trouble with in the past. And it's going to make a lot of Google users happy to know that there is a small chance that Google will use their expertise to enter the full fledged browser marketplace.
Google has a little problem in China lately. It seems as though some software developed by a rival company ended up in a recently released Chinese software tool that Google 'developed'.
Google apologizedonce they were called out for after they found out about Sohu's software being inside of their Pinyin Input Method Editor. For their part, Google said that Sohu's software it was used during development of the application and that they utilized non-Google database resources to build the tool, but didn't say how they obtained the database used.
Since Google uncovered the issue, they have released a new version on Sunday that uses a new dictionary. Google Pinyin is a piece of free Google software that allows users to input Chinese characters using the alphabet keyboard without using the operating systems built in inputting system.
Flickr's on the move boys and girls. After debuting a new Collections feature, Yahoo's darling photo community has announced plans to release a Hong Kong version using traditional Chinese characters. The new site will contain all the same features of the wildly popular English version, which is probably a good move since the BBC's numbers put China at the second-largest online market with 137 million users.
As a move to "localise and increase the accessibility of its websites, especially in Asia," this seems like a great first step for one of Yahoo's arguably most popular services. Still, after nearly two years since Yahoo bought Flickr, it seems like there is still quite a ways to go with integrating the service on the home front.
Sure, Vista sales might not be the greatest so far, and Microsoft has already made the bizarre announcement of "Vienna" to follow in 2009, but things aren't all bad for Microsoft's bouncing baby OS. While SFGate reports on Microsoft's efforts to squash rampant piracy in China, ButterBoom has some choice quotes from a South China Morning Post report that says Vista says are doing pretty darn well in Hong Kong. To quote Adam Anger, director of Microsoft's Hong Kong business marketing organization:
"Some retail shops have told us that they have been selling 30 times more than what they usually sell, especially during the launch weekend on February 3 and 4. Some even said that their sales were comparable to high-selling holiday seasons like Christmas."
However, in this blogger's opinion, those numbers might be somewhat skewed both from Microsoft's efforts to 'inspire' Chinese citizens away from their pirating ways, as well as the fact that Windows XP has been around long enough for nearly everyone who wants a copy to get one - legitimately or otherwise.
Mozilla is looking at opening shop in China to get closer and more involved with that market to push the open source opportunities. Mozilla is the employer to 100 staff members who are scattered throughout the world, who together with volunteers chug away at testing and sharing open source software that comprises of the Firefox browser. Their biggest goal with the new office is to educate the open source Chinese market, and adapt and mold it for local tastes and requirements. With fewer than 100 Million Mozilla users around the world, there are one million who call China home. China's government rules on software piracy and expensive licenses look to sway residents to shift towards the open source market. As the second largest Internet using area in the world, behind the US, 137 Million users could soon be getting cozier to Mozilla's technology.
While China has a history of blocking computer users' access to many sites on the world wide interwebs, many clever Chinese citizens have figured out that RSS feeds provided a way around the Chinese firewall. Until now.
We've all heard the horror stories, often emanating from the neighborhood of the far east, of people who take their online gaming a little too seriously. These are folks that get real-life revenge for in-game defeats, like the guy who murdered (in real life) an online opponent for stealing his in-game weapon. There have even been cases, reportedly, where folks who were otherwise healthy just up and died while playing online games. 
Although Microsoft claims that Windows Vista sales in China are better than previously reported, the company has reduced the price of its latest operating system in order to spur sales.
Get out your data condoms if you're headed to China. A recent report says China is hit the hardest by computer viruses. Over 35 million computers were infected in the first half of the year according to Chinese anti-virus company Rising. 
Much of the world may still be dominated by Microsoft, with Apple running a distant but statistically significant second; That hasn't stopped Linux installs from growing at an outstripping pace in China. 
The FBI and Chinese officials have seized more than 290,000 CDs with pirated software in a crackdown on groups in China and the US who were making and distributing the discs around the world. 25 people were arrested in the sting.
Google has been working hard the past few years to gain the respect of the Chinese government. It looks like that hard work has started to pay off with a recent license they have partially obtained to serve content to the second largest internet market in the world.
If you can't beat them, join them -- and charge them. That's Warner Brother's latest strategy for battling video piracy in Hong Kong. The movie studio will offer 100 titles online, including recent DVD releases such as Superman Returns and Happy Feet as well as popular older titles like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The videos will be available for a fee through ViDeOnline's 08Media web site.
Chasing after software pirates in the US is one thing, but China's a whole other ballgame. Pirated copies of Windows Vista are widely available throughout the country, for as little as $1.
What's left for Google to conquer? A browser of course! Michael Arrington reports that Google has just bought a minority stake in the Maxthon Browser. The browser currently has over 80 million downloads, with over half of the users living in China. Searchers from this browser seem to account for 25% of Baidu traffic, Google's competition in China. If Google replaces the default search option to direct to Google search, they have easily gained a nice spot in the Chinese market.
Google has a little problem in China lately. It seems as though some software developed by a rival company ended up in a recently released Chinese software tool that Google 'developed'. 
Flickr's on the move boys and girls. After debuting a new Collections feature, Yahoo's darling photo community has announced plans to release a Hong Kong version using traditional Chinese characters. The new site will contain all the same features of the wildly popular English version, which is probably a good move since the BBC's numbers put China at the second-largest online market with 137 million users. 
Sure, Vista sales might not be the greatest so far, and Microsoft has already made the bizarre announcement of "Vienna" to follow in 2009, but things aren't all bad for Microsoft's bouncing baby OS. While SFGate reports on Microsoft's efforts to squash rampant piracy in China, ButterBoom has some choice quotes from a South China Morning Post report that says Vista says are doing pretty darn well in Hong Kong. To quote Adam Anger, director of Microsoft's Hong Kong business marketing organization: 
Mozilla is looking at opening shop in China to get closer and more involved with that market to push the open source opportunities. Mozilla is the employer to 100 staff members who are scattered throughout the world, who together with volunteers chug away at testing and sharing open source software that comprises of the Firefox browser. Their biggest goal with the new office is to educate the open source Chinese market, and adapt and mold it for local tastes and requirements. With fewer than 100 Million Mozilla users around the world, there are one million who call 
