China :: Science & Technology

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China has published statistics on its official website, stating that during the first two months of 2011, China's software industry maintained stable growth. The statistics reveal that from January to February 2011, the Chinese software industry realized revenue of CNY216.7 billion, a year-over-year increase of 23.8% and the growth rate was 0.4% higher than the same period of last year. Its total profit reached CNY27.15 billion, a year-over-year increase of 31% and the growth rate was 20.1% higher than the same period of last year.By region, revenue from the eastern areas of China was CNY190.9 billion, accounting for 88% of the total software revenue in China; revenue from the western areas increased by 31.4% year-over-year to CNY16.7 billion; and revenue from the central areas increased by 25.2% year-over-year to CNY9.1 billion.In addition, China's software export reached USD3.96 billion during the reporting two months, a

Add to My Stories Mount Nyiragongo is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world - and scientists say it is only a matter of time before it makes the city below a modern day Pompeii.But they don't know when since, located as it is in the war-torn eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the two mile high cauldron of lava is also one of the least well understood. At the base of Nyiragongo sprawls Goma, a city of an estimated one million people, numbers swelling by the day as villagers from the countryside seek refuge from rebel and government forces. Deadly: Mount Nyiragongo is one of the most deadly volcanos on Earth but has barely been studied because of its dangerous location Twice in recent years Nyiragongo's eruptions have hit the city, destroying homes and sending residents fleeing. But now, seismologists believe, the risk is not just near the city, but directly beneath it. More... More photos from the volcano For the past 20 years the region has suffered n

What is the thread that ties together the rapid rise of companies as different as Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, The Huffington Post and Quora? Wedbush Securities, a brokerage firm that analyzes the valuations of private companies, says they are all players in what it calls the Second Internet. Wedbush says there are certain attributes that allow such players to grow and thrive while more traditional players including some of the leaders from the early days of the Internet fail to prosper and gradually recede into history. The most important of these attributes, the firm says, is an understanding of the value of the social web. The social nature of this new wave of Internet companies is such a major factor that Wedbush also calls it the rise of the Social Internet in a new report on the sector, and says successful companies are powered by similar features, including: Platforms open up their API to developers Continuous and rapid pace of innovation (see Facebook) The company/brand must li

Cisco Videoscape is a service provider solution that lets consumers bring together content from pay TV, online, and on-demand sources. They can then combine content with social media, communications, and mobility to create a truly immersive TV experience. Cisco Videoscape reinvents the TV experience and makes it something entirely new: More simple. Less complexity, with fewer devices needed for immersive experiences More visual. A vast array of content delivered to consumers, wherever and however they want to view and interact More social. Social networking and communications so consumers can show, share, and engage through video experiences More mobile. Consumers can take their TV experience on the go and view it over multiple screens in or out of the home And its all delivered by service providers and Cisco together. To experience Cisco Videoscape first hand, please click here .

Top Stories... Qihoo 360 shares more than double in NYSE debut China Telecom rings changes Google lost in a new world without maps Baidu to Transfer Merchants Off Youa Foxconn International 2010 Loss of $218.3 Million Is Wider Than Estimated Tencents Ma Sells Stock at Discount After 2009 Contract

In an entirely too-predictable development, a group of media outlets has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creators of Zite , a magazine-style aggregator for the iPad. The publishers allege that by pulling in their content and displaying it in a more readable way that is, without a lot of the extraneous website elements, including ads Zite is guilty of copyright infringement. While this may be true in a legal sense, it ignores the bigger picture, which is that readers are looking for better ways of consuming content, and they arent getting it from traditional publishers. Why not learn from Zite and others like it instead of threatening to sue them? The letter to Zite from the group, which includes the Washington Post and the Associated Press (the full letter is embedded below or you can read it here ), uses the standard legal language about damaging our businesses by misappropriating our intellectual property etc., and says the company puts publishers at risk by reformatting, re

Last week, I had the chance to interview Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and many other game-changing companies. Whether it was time spent with him, or the news that Oracle was shutting down Sun.com, Ive been dwelling on a morbid thought the death of a technology company: Not a day goes by when I dont say or hear the following: Yahoo is dead. Microsoft is so dead. Nokia is dead. Upon hearing me say this time and again, my friend Pip Coburn, a veteran technology investor and author of The Change Function asked me, What do you mean by a company being dead? We had a long conversation, which he summed up in a newsletter to his clients. Silicon Valley is all about the New New Thing that certainly no one aspires to gracefully age! A couple weeks ago at lunch my friend Om discussed that this company and that company were dead. I finally said Hey, Om, how are you using this West Coast version of a company being dead because the companies you just mentioned are large, still

When faced with allegations of antitrust activity, European regulators have a habit of taking sweeping action against technology companies. Witness a string of huge fines levied against companies including 400 million ( USD $563.9 million) against Siemens, 899 million against Microsoft and 1.45 billion against Intel. So perhaps its no surprise that another major force in technology, Google, is currently subject to a European investigation . What is unusual, however, is that the latest complaint added to the pile comes from an unusual source Microsoft itself. The company, which spent years fighting antitrust cases all over the world, has filed documents with Europes Competition Commissioner , the regulator who oversees continent-wide antitrust actions, arguing that its rival is engaging in a number of anti-competitive practices around search and advertising. A post by Brad Smith, the companys top lawyer, explains a number of areas where Microsoft feels that Google is unfairly using i

After much rumor and speculation about a new Google social feature of some kind, the Internet giant finally unveiled what it calls its +1 service today. The service as Om explained in his post on the launch is an attempt to add social validation to search, via Googles version of the Facebook like button. While these kinds of social cues may help improve search, however, the move also appears to be the latest attempt to jump-start some kind of Google-oriented social network, something that seems to have substantially less likelihood of success, at least as its currently configured. Why? Because people dont go to Google to be social. As Om describes in his post, and as Search Engine Land lays out in more detail , the main feature of the +1 system is that it allows users to vote on search results or ads. Their vote is then displayed next to the result for anyone in their Google-based social network. And what is that Google network? Good question. At this point, its people in your Gmail

The Japanese social networking site Gree plans to open three new offices in Beijing, Singapore, and London, respectively, to expand its overseas markets. According to reports in foreign media, Gree said that the opening of these offices aim to help its expansion in China, Southeast Asia, and Europe. The company already set up a subsidiary in the U.S. in January 2011.Gree offers a variety of functions that support members' information sharing, including a profile page, diary, communities, photo sharing and emailing. Initially only for computer users, Gree broadened its service range and started the SNS for smartphone users. It also offers free-of-charge mobile phone games to its users. The social media company claimed that by the end of 2010, the number of its users increased by 56% year-over-year to 21.13 million. The website is popular with young people between 16 and 30 in Japan.

www.thomascrampton.com In this video, Thomas Crampton interviews Martin Sorrell about the role of social media and how it can be incorporated into traditional agencies.

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Salesforce.com today agreed to acquire Canadian social-media monitoring company Radian6 for a total of $326 million in cash and stock, and said it will make the companys tools and services a core part of its Sales Cloud customer-relationship management dashboard for businesses. The acquisition of Radian6 is part of Salesforces ongoing attempt to remake the company around the concept of social media for the enterprise, which Salesforce CEO and Chairman Mark Benioff discussed in December at GigaOMs Net:Work conference . Radian6 was one of the earliest providers of business-class monitoring services for tracking what customers and potential customers are saying about brands and companies on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media. The company, which sells its service in the form of monthly licenses just like many other software-as-a-service providers, says its platform is used by companies such as Dell, General Electric, Kodak and Pepsico to track what users and customers are

Add to My Stories For scholars of faith and history, it is a treasure trove too precious for price.This ancient collection of 70 tiny books, their lead pages bound with wire, could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of Christianity.Academics are divided as to their authenticity but say that if verified, they could prove as pivotal as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. Lines of inquiry: The metal tablets could change our understanding of the Bible On pages not much bigger than a credit card, are images, symbols and words that appear to refer to the Messiah and, possibly even, to the Crucifixion and Resurrection.Adding to the intrigue, many of the books are sealed, prompting academics to speculate they are actually the lost collection of codices mentioned in the Bibles Book Of Revelation. More... Mind-boggling discovery: Perfectly preserved brain of Iron Age man unearthed in York Why haven't you called? Mars rover fails to phone Earth in over a year and now