CDT points to an International Herald Tribune article on recent comments by Chinese government official Hu Qiheng, chair of the Internet Society of China, a government-sanctioned public-private
group founded five years ago to promote the Internet in China. According to the article:
Fighting Internet crime, which Hu defined broadly to include acts
counter to the interests of the Chinese government, requires a more
certain way of identifying people online, she said. The IPv6 standard offered the best mechanism for establishing the identity of users online.
China is a leader in IPv6 infrastructures, which create trillions of new URLs that will allow more people, as well as things, to have an online presence–the so-called Internet of Things.
link
Julian Bleecker explores the general edges of surveillance in the Internet of Things (with cool pix as well) more thoroughly here.
China’s official internet research group, CNNIC, has translated its 17th Survey Report with stats that are up to date as of 12/31/05. There’s a nice analysis section that shows trended data over the last 9 years since CNNIC has been doing these surveys.
Of note:
- majority of users are (still) male, unmarried, under 30, with educational levels below Bachelor’s degree and monthly income less than 2,000 Yuan (~US $250)(including no income).
- 97.2% of Chinese Internet users use desktop computers to log on, 18.2% use lap tops.
- broad band (xDSL, Cable Modem, etc.) users reached 64.3 million, a 50% increase since the same period last year, comprising 57.9% of all Chinese internet users.
- Chinese internet users spend 2.5 hours more per week online as compared with one year ago.
- urban internet penetration about 17%; rural about 3%.
- almost 30% of those aged 18-24 are online.
- growth rate of Internet use has slowed significantly in past two years.
link
If you’re familiar with the WuXia 神雕侠侣, then rejoice! Here are excerpts from two BBS posts that mock the recent TV recreation of the famous novel, where the post-authors have written some hilarious commentary with screencaps from the show:
"First, we thank CCTV for bringing us the latest historical/medieval (古装版) remake of Tarzan."
"Band: Is this the set for Journey to the West?
Director: Up yours! This is the set for Condor Heroes (神雕侠侣)!"
Links to BBS posts: here, here, and here.
Source: PostShow.
"I realized that exporting virtual items through the Internet is the same as transmitting Chinese labor to America."
So says Tietou, the owner of a Chinese virtual item factory, also known as a gold farming factory or gaming workshop, in a fascinating video clip from a documentary film on Chinese virtual item production by Ge Jin, a Ph.D student in at UCSD.
(via Stanford’s Nick Yee on Terra Nova)
In the extensive comments on Terra Nova, Ge says: One farm owner told me that there are more than 2000 gold farms in
China and more than 200,000 gold farmers. I find it possible because in
the forum of 1t1t.com (a large Chinese portal for gamers) I saw
recruitment ads for gold farmers from gold farms all over China.
The background of gold farmers varies too. Some are young peasants who
came to cities with nothing (gold farms are in cities because they need
Internet infrastructure), but some are urban unemployed youth from
average family. The latter kind were often game fans before they found
the job, and they would be living off their parents and paying to play
games in Internet cafes. I speculate most gold farmers would be doing
manual labor or stay unemployed without this job. At least, every
farmer I interviewed loves the job and they are very uncertain what
they can do if they lose this job.
Check out photos from the self-described Chinese geek get-together in Nanjing over the weekend, where a select group of China’s technorati spent the weekend to talk about art, web 2.0 innovation, and technology. Based on the first Silicon Valley Mashup Camp in Feb. 2006, and organized by Robert Mao, founder/CEO of UUZone, a Chinese social networking site. Invitation-only guest list included: Isaac Mao, blogger, VP of UCI; Jianshuo Wang, blogger, CEO of Kijiji China; Jack Gu, blogger, Founder of podlook.com; 6e (luliang), blogger, CTO of bokee.
Robert Mao describes the event here (in Chinese).
logo via Isaac Mao’s Flickr
From the wonderful folks at PostShow:
Goto Google Translate.
Type in 百度 (= Baidu).
Select Chinese to English.
Translate.
Result: "Lower".
Write a blog post. Have the computer speak for you. Blog becomes blog + podcast.
It is essentially a good idea, but the technology is not up to it.
Source: PostShow
ESWN posts a magnificent (as usual) translation of a massive Chinese BBS forum post. This one, from popular BBS Tianya, was written in June 2005 and has gotten 1.7 million pageviews and 21,000 comments as of today. ESWN translates a fraction of the action, which is called My Seven Years in World of Gangsters, and is juicy with details like a huge green dragon tattoo, a guy with a crewcut and three pigtails, and hiding in the ditch of a public toilet to escape a beating.
The post didn’t start out as a collective project, or necessarily even as fiction at all. But somewhere along the line other commentators jumped in to continue or augment the story line. The end of the ESWN translation: "The translator does not know how long the story goes on because he has not made it past even a fraction of the comments…"
link
original Chinese post on Tianya
From Toys365, a China production: 可儿娃娃, a Chinese Barbie-like doll:
Here’s the official Mattel one, circa 1994 (courtesy of Barbie Collector Showcase):
Hong Kong has won the bid to host the annual Chinese Wikipedia conference (see Wikipedia article).
Source: PostShow
Recent Comments