Shanzai.com Publishes “Essential Guide to Android Widgets” eBook

Taipei, Taiwan, 31 March, 2011 – Shanzai.com today announced the introduction of the “Essential Guide to Android Widgets” eBook, providing owners of Android smart phones and tablets with expert advice on how to choose and install the right widgets for your device. Read More:

 

Nokia makes new claims against Apple

The ongoing war between the two tech giants Nokia and Apple has taken a new turn with Nokia filing a second suit with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), claiming that Apple is violating Nokia patents in practically all of its products. Read More:

 

Indian government says make it here… ZTE says OK Read More: Indian government says make it here… ZTE says OK

What is the easiest way to beat the rules and regulations of exporting? Building up a domestic manufacturing unit and localizing the products? Chinese mobile giant ZTE seems to think so and the Indian government has given them the green light to go ahead.

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Microsoft concedes that they'd better offer NFC too

Microsoft has become the latest entrant into the NFC arena with the announcement that Windows Phone 7 will have NFC chip/support in the future. The US patent office already holds 14 NFC related patents in Microsoft’s name. Read More:

 

ARMDroid marches forward with possible standardization plan of attack

French Proverb: “The more things change the more they stay the same.”

They say history repeats itself. The sad part this time however is that our Wintel overlords aren’t even dead yet (well not officially) and might have to bear witness Read More:

 

NFC heats up: Google get MasterCard and Citigroup signed up, but Amex not on board Read More: NFC heats up: Google get MasterCard and Citigroup signed up, but Amex not on board

Google has partnered with MasterCard and Citigroup in their building of an eco-system that uses NFC for making payments from mobiles. Meanwhile American Express has developed its own system for mobile payment.
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Baidu says we're sorry and also reveals interesting China usage stats Read More: Baidu says we're sorry and also reveals interesting China usage stats

On March 15th, which was World Consumers’ Day, about 50 Chinese writers accused China’s search engine giant, Baidu of infringing upon the copyright of their work. Baidu has issued an apology. Meanwhile, the prolific use of pirated versions of Windows has been revealed in Baidu’s visitor stats.
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Shanzai.com now bringing you eBooks, Android widgets for a start

Widgets have advantages over apps as they display real-time snippets of information from an app or web serve on the home screen. But with so many wonderful widgets in the Android Market how do you choose which ones to populate your maximum of six home screens? Read More:

Nokia accuses Apple of Shanzhai dealings, trade commission disagrees Read More: Nokia accuses Apple of Shanzhai dealings, trade commission disagrees

The legal dispute between Nokia and Apple over supposed violation of mobile technology patents has come to an end, with Nokia losing out.
Nokia filed a suit against Apple questioning the alleged unlawful use of Nokia’s patents which included GSM, 3G, Wi-Fi networks, camera, battery technology, touchscreen, speakers and messaging. The dispute began in October 2009, with Nokia demanding royalties for iPhones sold since their introduction in 2007.

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Amazon fires the next round in the cloud wars with its digital music locker Read More: Amazon fires the next round in the cloud wars with its digital music locker

I’m using the image of the pointed muskets for this skirmish because the front lines are getting closer and bloodier. It’ll be bayonets and knives soon. For now though it also be only happening on American soil.
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Samsung shanzhai’s people, magazines and articles to promote Galaxy tab Read More: Samsung shanzhai’s people, magazines and articles to promote Galaxy tab

Harry McCracken at PC World is the latest to fall victim to old school shanzhai practices, and of course it wasn’t some small Chinese vendor behind all the evil machinations but non other than the Korean consumer electronics behemoth Samsung. Read More:

Apple accuses Amazon, Microsoft and adult apps market of shanzhaigans

Apple has become a benevolent dictator... is that too strong?... and they like to hit newcomers with a hammer of lawsuits and bans. But this time it’s not the poor Shanzhai who are being targeted by Apple, but Amazon and Microsoft. While Microsoft has already challenged Apple’s ownership of the “App Store” trademark, Apple has now sued Amazon for the use of the term “Appstore” in its new Android app marketplace. Read More: 

 

Huawei is not Chinese government pleads VP

"We're certainly sensitive to the fact that there are geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Chinese governments, that's a reality. But Huawei is Huawei, not the Chinese government…" said William Plummer, VP Huawei. The mounting political tension between the US and China is taking a toll on Huawei. Read More:

 

HP TouchPad might just beat the iPad 2 to Chinese markets

Despite an increasingly aggressive retail stance in China Apple still hasn’t got the country on their latest list of 26 new countries to get the iPad 2. HP on the other hand is just beginning their retail plans with a new “experience center” planned to open in Beijing and possibly the TouchPad will be part of the stock Read More:

 

Will the new Blackberry PlayBook get shanzai’d?

It wouldn’t be the first time that RIM had their product copied by the Chinese. Some of you might remember the “BlockBerry” phone endorsed by non-other than Obama himself …pictured below. But something tells me this time around, only a few weeks before the official availability of the PlayBook that it won’t be getting the shanzai treatment. Read More:

 

Shanzhai'd mapping services targeted in crackdown

China set a deadline for Google, Microsoft and 42,000 other mapping portals to buck up and register their mapping services. It seems like they haven’t taken the government threat seriously and will now face consequences. Read More:

 

The Amazon threat, Google and Apple… look out

Amazon’s app store is more of a threat to Google & Apple than most people realize or are reporting right now. It won’t be long before Amazon is challenging them on the music and ad revenue fronts… but they’re already stumbling over Angry Birds. Read More:

 

Ghosh gives his notice to ZTE

ZTE India has announced the stepping down of Dr. D. K. Ghosh, the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of its India operations. Ghosh took over as the CMD of ZTE India in 2007 and under his guidance the enterprise has grown from USD 100 million to USD 1 billion. Read More:

Nokia and Apple enjoying excellent reputation in China according to new study

With a population of over 1.3 billion and a booming economy, China is the world’s biggest consumer market. China also touts the largest number of mobile subscribers in the world and therefore it was certain that top mobile brands will made into the list of top engaging brands in China Read More:

 

Baidu coming under fire again

“We know Chinese best”, Baidu ads seem to have no great effect on the Chinese netizens as the antipathy against the Chinese Google is growing, first from the international community, then the local Chinese writers and now one of its biggest customers. Read More:

 

Samsung’s Goldilocks tablet gets a price tag

If you’ve been following our reviews for a while you might realize that way back in November we threw together a form-factor guide video talking about the different screen sizes and aspect ratios for tablets. Our favorite at the time was the 8.9” 4x3 variant. Read More:

 

Can Samsung and Android take on iPods and iTunes?

The iPod is turning ten this year. It wasn’t the world’s first, cheapest or the best music player, but it has revolutionized the way we listened to music. Ten years later Samsung has introduced a new contender, the Galaxy Player.Read More:

 

Zoltar Speaks; “told you so”, big screen phones are step 1 for the end of tablets

Recently I wrote a long diatribe op-ed piece about how as we approach the end of the PC era and move into the tablet fueled era of touch computing that tablets were doomed as merely a temporary device category along the way.Read More:

 

IBM China's top honchos caught with slush funds and partying with government officials

International Business Machines Corp. has been sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly paying bribes to government officials in China and South Korea. Read More:

 

Huawei shining and ZTE rising among the most innovative brands in China

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower”, said Steve Jobs, founder of one of world’s most innovative companies. Whether it’s Apple or Shanzhai, innovation is the most important step to a successful enterprise and the latest success ratio of the Shanzhai proves that they are right on the target. So who’s leading the innovation in China? Read More:

Shanzhai's favorite chip maker now in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS game

MediaTek has a very strong presence in 2G, but is lagging a little in 3G. Qualcomm is aware of that and are therefore trying hard to lure mobile makers in China to start using their chips instead. Read More:

Maybe China isn’t blocking Gmail, but the words inside of specific emails from any email client

I’m just a mere blogger so forgive me if this amateur deduction turns out to be wrong but it seems to me that I’ve spotted something common between Google’s recent accusations of being blocked in China by the government and recent local Chinese email blocking problems.Read More:

Demo Androids apps before you buy, in the Amazon app store

Jason Kincaid over at TechCrunch has broken some interesting news about the new Amazon App store. For one thing it will allow you to demo the apps (in your browser) in advance of purchasing them on your device! Read More:

 

Tablet babysitting software gets blasted… possibly unfairly?

Want to never have to spend any real time with your kids reading bed time stories, but still come off as a loving parent? There's an app for that.Read More:

 

Amidst the tablet revolution eBooks hit double growth, paper books don’t

As I’ve admitted before, after being such a tablet fanboy for so long, I’ve often overlooked the eBook reader hardware. Well a few weeks ago, I broke down and actually used one and came away impressed. Read More

 

Interactive TV on show in China courtesy of Ericsson

Ericsson’s brand of promotional activity for its integrated TV solutions has been kick-started with road shows in twelve cities in China. The road shows have already started in Shanghai and will cover another 11 Chinese cities from March to May 2011. Read More:

It's not just the US that is pointing the finger at Baidu, so are Chinese writers

There was uproar a few years ago when Google decided to scan millions of books from major libraries across the world to make digital copies for online viewing. While readers were thrilled, publishers and authors opposed it unanimously and sued Google for copyright infringement. Read More

 

Nokia, unlike RIM, is testing solutions for monitoring email in India

Nokia is India’s all time favorite (despite an eroding market share in recent years). Nokia is now testing a consumer email monitoring service in India. They have already set up servers in the country for the purpose. Read More:

 

China Telecom and Taiwan APT to procure sub USD 150 phones and tablets

Asia Pacific Telecom (APT) holds the only CDMA network in Taiwan with nearly 2.94 million subscribers. Now APT wants to increase their market share by supercharging its subscriber base to over 3.2 million by the end of 2011. Read more

 

Intel to push Android onto notebook makers for Atom based tablets

According to Taiwan based Digitimes Intel has asked up to 8 notebook manufacturers including Compal and Inventec to make Android OS based tablets around their Atom processor platform. Read more

 

CPUs in the US, made in China ... well 20-odd years from now

"Our information industry was using foreign technology… Just like a country's industry cannot always depend on foreign steel and oil, China's information industry needs its own CPU." Hu Weiwu, the lead developer of the country's Loongson microprocessors added China will stop importing supercomputer chips from Intel, AMD and NVIDIA by the end of 2011, and will instead use its homegrown Loongson chips. Read more

 

Japanese made parts will be in shortage

Electronic components that are manufactured in countries like China and Malaysia are largely dependent on parts made in Japan and may face manufacturing problems next month as they run out of stock, in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami.Read more

 

Nokia casts light on next billion, hopes next billion will shine on them

In hopes to restore some confidence in the brand and their efforts after recent events such as the adoption of Microsoft Windows Phone 7 as their future smartphone software platform, Nokia continues to blog about the “pillars” of their business strategy. Read more

 

Biggest China to India loan ever bails out Reliance Communications

The 3G spectrum in India was touted as a money spinner, but some operators who won parts of the 3G spectrum are now in debt? The leading Indian telco Reliance Communications is one of them; stuck with paying an exorbitant amount of interest. Just as Reliance struggled to keep their nose above the water, the China Development Bank stepped in to loan USD 1.93 billion. Read more

 

Remember Opera? They're after China mobile browsers

Opera hasn’t been able to carve out an important place in the desktop browser segment, but is doing better in mobile browsing. Opera recently surpassed the 100 million monthly mobile users’ benchmark. The Opera Mobile Store has improved its popularity with different mobile platforms including Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Java. Now Opera is customizing its browser to woo the netizens from China. Read more

 

In Hong Kong the iPad 2 comes at twice the price

There is always a period of lag time between the launch of the hottest new Apple products and their actual availability in different markets. Typically Hong Kong is not on the early location release list and thus a sizable grey market usually exists for Apple gear. Read more

 

Trademark violations in China up 10% in 2010, Shanzai feel the heat

Reports yesterday from the State Administration for Industry & Commerce have revealed that trademark infringement cases totaled 56,000 in 2010, a rise of 9.78 percent compare to 2009 figures. Other figures also seem to point to China's continued efforts to rid the country of its image as the world's clone kingdom. Read more

 

China tracking cell phone movement to improve traffic conditions

I stopped whining about morning traffic after I heard what a hellish commute some people in China had last year in what was perhaps the longest traffic jam in history, lasting for 9 days and affecting a stretch of 100kms. The Chinese government wants to make sure gnarly traffic jams like this will not happen in the future, so they re-evaluated the highway system and announced a super -fast train, lanes for express buses, electric taxis, transportation hubs and now … Read more

 

Croc sandals the top Shanzhai'd product in Japan

Earlier this week a whole bunch of knock-off Nintendo DS handheld game consoles were seized at the Japanese border. These were found to be exported from China. Ironically, the original Nintendo DS gadgets are also made in China. Read more

 

HP plans to enter OS war, starting with PCs, but also smartphones and tablets Read More: HP plans to enter OS war, starting with PCs, but also smartphones and tablets

HP has decided to dive into the OS/packaging competition with WebOS, not just in the mobile industry, but in the overall PC industry. Starting in 2012 Hewlett-Packard will ship WebOS on every PC it makes, says Leo Apotheker, the newly appointed CEO of the world’s largest PC maker. Now that’s interesting since software was always the Achilles heel for HP, so this is a big gamble.

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JP Morgan burst ARM stock bubble amid fears of a glut

ARM Holdings shares took a nose dive yesterday on the back of some less than positive commentary from JP Morgan's Rod Hall, who apparently sees the iPad as the only real device that has a chance of shifting units, thus putting a dent in predictions that ARM is on the verge of usurping Intel and others in the larger microprocessor battle for supremacy.

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More NFC testing labs coming to Asia, Europe and US

Near Field Communications or NFC is the buzzword that’s doing the rounds in the technosphere in 2011. Whether it’s Google, Apple, Nokia or RIM, all are in the hurry to surf this new technology wave, at least the recent addition of many new testing facilities announced by the NFC Forum hints at this. AT4 wireless, a leading testing and certification laboratory from Taiwan, with testing labs in Europe, US and Asia, now offers testing services to certify devices for NFC Forum global standards. Read more

 

China Mobile getting set for extensive 4G testing in a year

TD-LTE is a verion of LTE, the technology behind delivering 4G, which was developed by China Mobile. After years of development and testing, the real world tests are now slighted to begin about a year from now. Read more

 

iPad 2 stirs Samsung to reflect, but can the lowly Shanzhai compete?

Recent comments from Samsung's executive VP regarding the positioning of the the company's Galaxy Tab in relation to the forthcoming iPad 2 see a proud and ambitious company enter a period of quiet reflection,  taking stock of Apple's latest improvements particularly when it comes to specifications, form factor and pricing. It also begs the question, if Samsung are re-thinking their tablet strategy, what of the major PC vendors?...and where does that leave the Shanzai?  Read more