Ultra cheap Indian tablet to aid in poverty survey

It’s raining tablets in India this month. After the rumors of a Galaxy Tab debut and cheap MSI tablets, the market is buzzing with news of the arrival of the USD 35 Sakshat Indian tablet within a few weeks. Yet another ultra-low cost tablet is all set to debut as well, from a state owned company called Bharat Electronics Ltd. It’s not as cheap as the Sakshat, but still boasts an inexpensive price of only USD 67 (INR 3000). Read more...

India’s dirt cheap USD 35 tablet might turn up in a few weeks

The Indian government’s super-duper 35 dollar tablet is said to be alive and well and will arrive soon, according to Kapil Sibal. The Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development unveiled $35 educational tablet PC for Indian students last year. After being absent from the scene for a long time, the news of an imminent arrival has rekindled interest in the tablet. Read more...

Apple stores Shanzhai'd in the US, sued

Remember the huge stir that the discovery of fake Apple stores in Kunming, China caused last month? It seems like Apple has finally decided to act on the issue and for starters, they will be suing fake stores in New York that are named the ‘Apple Story Inc.’, ‘Fun Zone Inc.’ and a few other unnamed businesses. Another 50 “John Does” are also being sued for trademark infringement. Read more...

India to enjoy sub USD 315 MSI tablets

We have been witnessing a surge of interest from tablet makers to tap the untouched Indian market, ever since the Apple iPad was sold out on the first day in the country. While the Indian tablet market is warming up to the rumors of a Wednesday launch of a brand new 10-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, the Taiwanese tablet maker MSI has also announced two Android tablets for India, both in an alluring sub USD 335 price range, which will surely intensify competition. Read more...

iPad market share going down in China

Although slowly, the mighty iPad has started losing its pace in China, the largest tablet PC market in the world. According to new findings released by Analysis International, a research firm in China, the Apple iPad suffered a market share loss of 5.14%, falling to a still admirable 74.3% hold on the Chinese tablet PC market. Read more...

Huawei makes it big in Egypt

The Chinese telecom manufacturer has found another big market in Egypt for its phones. The company has apparently sold 100,000 handsets there. Read more...

Samsung 10-inch Galaxy Tab is expected to touch Indian floors on Aug 10

Grrr... Grawr... Argh... the Samsung and Apple fight gets uglier! The patent folly has taken a terrible toll on the Galaxy Tab, like in Australia where Apple has stopped the Korean giant from selling or advertising the much awaited 10-inch Galaxy Tab. Samsung is living under the fear that Apple might take the lawsuits further to its other leading markets. Rumor has it that Samsung might try their luck in India, with a launch tipped for August 10th. Read more...

New light product lets you play God and stimulate your creative juices

"And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light." And it was certainly pretty darned good. But man-made lighting hasn't always been so great, or interesting... until now. The new Bask Blade LED lamp is more than just a great light source it's the building block for creative new lighting ideas. Read more...

Are Nokia and Microsoft planning a Windows Phone announcement on Aug 17?

Android is partying hard with its 50% hold on the market. Meanwhile the other two giants, Nokia and Microsoft, have been in hibernation. While Microsoft is howling over a scanty 1% share of the smartphone market, Apple snatched the top smartphone maker crown from Nokia recently. The wounded lions have decided to roar back, to deafen the rivals and guess what? The date is not too far off; it is August 17 and the venue is Cologne, Germany. Read more...

No 10-inch Galaxy Tabs for Australians

Apple is crying copycat not just in the US but everywhere, seeking a ban on the Samsung’s latest Galaxy Tab 10.1. It seems like Australian courts have bowed to cranky Apple’s calls and have stopped Samsung from advertising or selling Galaxy Tabs in Australia. Read more...

Google’s Street View Shanzhai’d in China

Google Maps is the most popular maps app in China, but the Internet giant hasn’t been able to provide the Street View feature because it‘is difficult to get the government’s approval, considering all the hang-ups that the company has with the Chinese government. A small Chinese mapping website has therefore gone ahead and cloned Google’s Street View feature for China. Read more...

ZTE ranked first in PTN market revenue share

ZTE Corp., China’s own telecommunications equipment and network solutions provider, announced that according to the Dell’Oro Group, they (ZTE) ranked top in the Packet Transmission Networking (PTN) market for Q1 of 2011 when it comes to revenue. Read more...

Alibaba devises its own NFC system

China’s online business portal, Alibaba, has introduced an ‘Alipay’ app that will help customers make their purchases using their mobile phones. Read more...

More Chinese browse the mobile web on Nokia

Nokia is still the favored choice of mobile phone users in China. If you ask the question, which is the most popular mobile brand for web browsing in China, the answer is not the iPhone, it’s the Nokia 5230. Read more...

Accused Chinese spy (Huawei) now fighting cyber spies in India

Huawei has teamed up with the Indian Government to help them fight cyber attacks and espionage from other nations done through mobile-phone technology. The company recently set up a lab in the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore to search smartphone and telecom devices imported to India for spyware or malware. Read more...

Half a million Android devices every day, says Andy Rubin

The Android number game started in May 2010 with 100,000 daily activations, and then reached 200,000 by August, 300,000 in December and finally 400,000 in May this year. Android world domination still isn’t slowing down. The proud dad Andy Rubin tweeted the pretty amazing figures for Android this week—500,000 activations every day. That’s not every week or month, it’s half a million activations daily! Read more...

More US adults own an eReader rather than a tablet

Last week fans with their owls waited eagerly for Rowling to reveal the mystery of Pottermore. And then Harry Potter finally made an appearance with a magical wand in one hand and an eReader in the other! Yep, Harry Potter will soon fly over your eReaders on his broom and this is sure to boost eReader ownership. But according to Pew research, eReaders are already quite popular and have outpaced tablets with US adults. Read more...

A Cloud hovers over the Great Firewall of China

China is building a Cloud Computing region called the ‘Special Administrative Region’ (SAR), in Chongqing, a major city in SouthWest China, in order to gain market share in cloud computing. Read more...

iPhone 5 to be shown off in September?

Apple certainly knows how to generate attention for upcoming projects;rumors with no source keep the mobile industry busy and engaged with expectations over the release of the iPhone 5. Read more...

GoAPK getting investors as Shanzai Android ROM spurs revenue

Shanda, a Chinese online media provider and online game developer invested USD 1 million in GoAPK, a Chinese alternative market for Android apps. Read more...

Free apps rule in China and other Asian countries

China’s craze for Apple’s products is well known so it may not surprise you that the country is Apple’s second biggest Apps market after the US. The apps market in Asia, across all platforms, is growing along with the uptake of smart handsets, but free apps are far more popular than they are in the West. Read more...

Huawei brings the cloud to India

Huawei has  launched cloud services in India to not only enter the enterprise services market, but to help telecom providers launch their applications in a cost-effective way (obviously to add value to their handsets). Read more...

RIM wiped out, Shanzhai BlackBerrys next

Last year RIM ranked fourth in the IDC’s list of top five mobile brands, but 2011 has marked the exit of RIM from the top five. Although on Thursday RIM announced excellent first quarter earnings, RIM is in trouble. Aside from good earnings, RIM also announced job cuts, delays in product shipments and forecasts for reduced earnings. Dark clouds are looming on the horizon for RIM while Shanzhai BlackBerry services are gaining mass adoption. Read more...

Alibaba to split Taobao into three

Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma wants a better focus for their grand Chinese eBay venture, which has flourished into the leading ecommerce portal we all know. Ma is splitting Taobao.com into three separate retail units to serve the consumers “more effectively” and to deal with the momentous growth and rising competition. Read more...

Angry Birds say they are proud to be Shanzhai’d!

Angry Birds is quite a phenomenon in China; the game holds the No.2 spot in the App Store. Rovio is very happy with the game’s popularity there, and is now looking to set up an office in China, to develop its businesses of stores, games and business co-operations. Read more...

Nokia a flop in Europe; turn back to forgotten Asian markets

Nokia is busy changing strategies and longing to get back its lost territory in the Asian mobile market. They have decided to focus on low-end handsets again. After experimenting a lot with their own mobile OS Symbian and MeeGo, Nokia realized it couldn’t catch up with the competitors in the high-end smartphone market and the only way to get back to profitability is to go with low-end handsets. Read more...

Three sent to prison in China for leaking iPad 2 specs

A Chinese court has sentenced three people, who leaked the design of the Apple iPad 2 from Foxconn to third-party manufacturers in order to make counterfeits before iPad 2 was officially launched. The guilty parties have to pay a USD 23000 fine and serve 18 months in prison. Read more...

Shanzhai … err Asian Microvendors account for 13% of Android smartphones sold in Q1, 2011

Android has become iconic mobile operating systems in less than three years and has moved into a fleet of brands such as Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG, Micromax, Spice Mobile and Yulong Coolpad… oh wait! Haven’t heard about the last three before? They are the “Asian Microvendors” accounting for 13% of all Android smartphones shipped in Q1, 2011 and are as popular as Sony and Motorola, says Strategy Analytics. Read more...

Tencent teams up with Huawei, ZTE and China Telecom to launch six 3G smartphones

China’s Tencent is the world's third largest Internet Company in market capitalization after Google and Amazon. Lately Google and Amazon have tested the waters in other fields; Google has rolled out the blockbuster Android for smartphones and tablets while Amazon has forayed into hardware with Kindle and now has new tablets in the pipeline. Now the Chinese Internet giant is planning to enter the mobile hardware market with 3G smartphones. Read more...

Huawei Android phones to come with Kineto Smart Wi-Fi application preloaded

Kineto Wireless, the company that provides Smart Wi-Fi solutions to a number of operators all over the world, announced that select Huawei smartphones will now come with the Smart Wi-Fi app preloaded. The first of these phones will be coming out as early as July this year. Read more...

Start your engines and get ready, set, go -to Taipei Startup Weekend

Join in with enthusiastic entrepreneurs, devs and designers for a 54 hour weekend long crazy start up jam session aimed at turning the next big ideas into the next big businesses from Taiwan. Read more...

ZTE eye off mobile market in Europe and US

China’s ZTE are all set to take on the smartphone markets of Europe and the US. The company wants to cash in on the popularity of the Android OS, which is increasing day by day. Read more...

Google applies for map license in China

Google Inc. has applied for a regulatory license in China to operate its online mapping service in the country. The Chinese government set a deadline to apply for licenses to digitally map the country; and the deadline is 1st July. It will be illegal for map providers to work in China without a license from that date onwards. Read more...

Shanzhai phone kills 25 year old in India

In India this is a common joke, centered on China made products and translates that China made products will either work for ages or only until the evening. There are loads of jokes about funny incidents related to cell phones, but you might not find this incident that funny. A 25 year old died of electrocution in India while attempting to make a call from his “Made in China” phone when it was plugged in for charging. Read more...

Indian mobile market bowled over by Android

Indians are expected to buy around 100 million handsets in 2011, out of which 10% will opt for smartphones, a doubling from 2010 figures. Although Symbian is still ruling the roost for Nokia in India, Android is catching up fast. According to Cyber Media Research, Google's Android has emerged as a new hot favorite and will take over 12% of the Indian smartphone market. It will also grab a big slice of the tablet PC market in India, which is estimated to account for 100,000 tablet sales in 2011. Read more...

Samsung, Apple and HTC climbing over Nokia

The struggling Nokia will concede its position as the top smartphone makers to Samsung, while continuing to lose ground to its rivals. Nomura Investment bank says this will happen this quarter. Nokia has enjoyed the top spot for the past 14 years (or top handset maker at least when there weren’t any smartphones). The next quarter is also going to be tough for Nokia, with Apple predicted to bunk them down to third spot and then by the end of the year HTC’s sales figures are predicted to match Nokias. Read more...

SIS helps MIPS play the Android tablet game too

I can’t say that I’m overly familiar with the technical architecture and instruction set differences between ARM and MIPS based SOC solutions, and frankly I hadn’t seen many MIPS based tablets until I arrived at the SIS booth during Computex 2011. Read more...

Chip makers scramble to help China Mobile out with their 4G plans

Disappointed with the poor response that 3G technology generated from the consumers, China Mobile is now planning to quickly step into the 4G zone, and put the bitter memories of 3G behind. Read more...

Huawei to invest USD 2 billion in Indian tablet market

Huawei, the China-based telecom equipment manufacturer, plans to invest USD 2 billion in India, eying opportunities in the fast growing tablet market in the country. Huawei also wants to become one of the top five companies in the Indian tablet market within the next five years. Read more...

ZTE and Huawei at war again

The latest twist in the ongoing war between the Chinese mobile equipment giants, is that ZTE has filed a case against Huawei in a Shenzhen court demanding that Huawei stop using equipment related to 4G TD-LTE technology. They have accused Huawei of infringing on three of their TD-LTE patents. Read more...

Lenovo to get hold of German PC maker

Lenovo, China’s biggest PC maker is eager for growth in Europe and they’ve just acquired 37% stake of the German PC maker Median AG. The new acquisition will expand Lenovo’s share in the German PC market by up to 14%.Lenovo is the fourth largest vendor of PCs in the world. The deal with Median AG can make Lenovo’s market share increase by about 7.5%, bunking them up to the place of third largest player. Read more...

Japanese Shanzhai get a savior in Alibaba.com

Shanzhai manufacturers in Japan have found solace in the Chinese firm Alibaba.com as their quake hit economy struggles to recover. Alibaba.com, the popular Chinese eCommerce portal that deals in both white box and Shanzhai goods, is partnering with the Chinese retail website, Taobao.com, to help Japanese makers get their products directly to Chinese consumers. Read more...

ICube eyeing Shanzhai Android tablets

It‘s been a little over a year since Apple unveiled the first iPad and kick started the tablet revolution. The iPad has been unstoppable ever since, selling well over 25 million units, but inching closer are the Android tablets from China, resting comfortably in second spot. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants a share of the booming Chinese tablet market. Local chip manufacturer ICube, which has rolled out its own architecture of multi core processor to lure Chinese tablet makers, is no exception. Read more...

China targets 50m domestic 3G users in 2011

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has targeted 50 million users for its home-grown 3G technology TD-SCDMA by the end of 2011.The total number of 3G users in the country is already exceeded 67.7 million with TD-SCDMA users accounting for 26.99 million of the total. Read more..

Taiwan’s chip industry to overtake Japan’s in 2011

Taiwan is home to HTC, MediaTek and the world-renowned annual Computex trade show; now Taiwan’s tech industry is to be recognized as driving the largest chip industry in the world. According to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), Taiwan’s semiconductor materials market will overtake Japan’s fir the first time in 2011. The global semiconductor market is on a growth curve and the Taiwanese chip industry has stepped up to the demand. Read more>>

HP open to license WebOS to mobile makers

“It’s a great OS — why wouldn’t we want to offer it to other companies?” said Leo Apotheker, CEO of Hewlett Packard, of WebOS at the All Things D’s D9 conference. So who are potential WebOS customers? Appliance makers, small to medium businesses, enterprises even the Taiwanese giant HTC. Read more>>

Nokia to release WP 7 smartphone in Q4 2011

We all knew that Nokia was planning to produce smartphones packed with Microsoft Windows Phone 7 OS, and it seems that it’s going to happen before the end of the year. Nokia plan on starting fully-fledged shipments in Q4. Read more>>

Lenovo hints at new tablet models; wants to squash iPad’s market dominance in China

Lenovo, one of China’s most popular computing manufacturers, plans to release more tablets in a move aimed at grabbing some of Apple’s 80% market share. Lenovo’s first tablet PC, the Android based LePad that was specifically built for the home market, has sold so well since its launch in March that Lenovo had supply problems. Read more>>

A web of accusations

We’re often writing up stories on Shanzai.com about big tech and telecom companies suing each other. If you read tech news you’ll know that there seems to be a never ending stream of law suits and counter law suits. It’s quite alarming to see it in a graphic though. Read more>>

China’s mobile phone users go over 900 million!

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced that the number of cell phone users in the country has reached 900 million (plus). There were 679 million users at the end of 2010. The number of subscribers grows daily, with 41.39 million signing up in Q1 2011 alone. Read more>>