China :: Science & Technology

Add to My Stories No Google, no GPS, no camera... so why such a huge price tag for the sir YB1? sir is a phone, pure and simple. Not only does it not have an internet connection, it doesn't have a camera either. Huge price tag? Yep, watchmakers are involved - the screen is cut from sapphire glass, as found in posh timepieces Rich people don't need iPhones - they've got staff to manage their calendars, send emails and 'like' other aristocrats' Facebook posts. They tend to buy phones that do less than most - hence the sir which, despite its stern Scandinavian design and horrifying price tag, does barely anything at all. This is a phone to be seen with - not to be stuck on a desert island with. The sir - named after the Norse gods - is, according to the company's CEO, 'an anti-smartphone'. It doesn't do anything so plebeian as email or Angry Birds - it just does clear voice calls and text messages. But unlike rivals (ie, nouveau-riche favourite Vert

Weve seen a trifecta of failures and/or screwups over the past couple of weeks, from three of the worlds technology giants: Apple was shown to be keeping a log of the location of millions of iPhone users, Sonys PlayStation platform was hacked and millions of customer accounts were compromised, and Amazons (a amzn) cloud-hosting service EC2 went down for hundreds of companies . The reasons for these screwups were different, but the reaction from the companies involved was remarkably similar: a conspicuous lack of timely response. Like many others, these tech giants dont seem to have realized that crisis response is real-time now too. Apple, of course, is notoriously close-mouthed about this kind of thing, as was seen in the Antennagate affair last year, when Apple stonewalled on the issue of its new iPhone 4 antennas and flaws in the units design . And the initial response from Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs in that case was also classic: he reportedly said Dont hold it that way

You must feel like a Happy Bird in past week in China, right? I asked Peter Verstabacka, the Mighty Eagle of Angry Birds on the stage of GMIC where we were both sitting at the panel The Battle: Marketspace vs. Operating System . He said, I am happy to be here, but for Angry Birds, we would not say so. In U.S, people 100% can recognize us, but in China, only 30% maybe. We need more! Unlike many other foreign companies which are usually shy to expose their Chinese strategy when they first come to China, in past one week, Peter were extremely overwhelmed by interviews talking about their local strategy, meetings with potential partners and taking photos with their exciting fans. Angry birds are flying into China, with an ambitious plan: China Office We have not decided the location yet, but it will be in either Beijing or Shanghai. It will be Rovios first office open in oversea market; Company Positioning We are coming to China not as a mobile gaming company, and we are an entertainment

GroupOn might be darlings of the web right now, but as the launch of Facebook Deals shows, the game is far from over and we have just now taken first steps towards what is real (online) social commerce. I hadbrieflytouched upon what the future of social commerce looks like in my April 19 edition of my e-newsletter, Om Says , So What Comes After Social Commerce . The crux of my argument was that if the first phase of e-commerce was the utilitarian hunt for staples, the next phase of e-commerce is about recreational shopping where the merger ofsocial and interest graphs would drive buying decisions. Paul Adams , the Google engineer who put together a very popular presentation, The Real Life Social Network , is now working for Facebook as a product manager. He recently uploaded his latest presentation, How Your Customers Social Circles Influence What They Buy, What They Do and Where They Go to SlideShare. It articulates some of my thoughts and digs deeper into the future of social commer

Amidst an exodus of city-dwellers during the Labor Day weekend, China online travel sites are fighting to secure a slice of the burgeoning individual travel market. On April 20, online tourism ordering service website, Yeex.cn. launched. Yeex.cn provides a platform for individual tourism and comprehensive route solutions by offering a variety of tourist resort products and promoting high quality group/individual travel routines and packages. That came after the launch of Ctrips subsidiary site Lvping.com in early 2011, 17u.com rebranding in March, Tuniu s Series C funding and LvMama launching a travel strategy section. According to a report on Chinese Travel-related E-commerce from EnTravel Group,the online travel market has reached Rmb 39 billion in 2010, up 42% from 2009. It is expected to double to Rmb 68 billion or over US$10 billion by end 2012.Amongst these sites, which can capture the increasingly savvy and sophisticated Chinese travelers? Tuniu active users 500,000, revenue

Facebook acquired Beluga aiming at mobile group chat. We have not seen anything came out yet, but most likely it is going to integrate group-chat feature into the Facebook mobile app. It seem that Kaixin001, the Chinese social network has done it faster. Feidou , Kaixin001s group chat product, is available on App Store . We questioned about Haibei not being integrated into Kaixin001. Again, Kaixin001 decided to launch this group chat feature as a separate product, instead of integration into its mobile app. On Feidou you can invite and chat with your Kaixin001s and Weibos friends as well as your phone contacts (by sending sms invitations). Right now, Feidou allows max 50 users chatting at the same time. Like other group chat apps, users can also share images easily on Feidou. We talked about Kaixin001s another new product, Haibei , the web-based group focus social networks. Feidou seems a good complement to Haibei on the mobile site, although we could not see any integration so far.