chinese

One supposes if one has access to billions, what's tens of millions on a calculated bet? One could say that, but one still gets upset when one loses money in the pop machine. In the case of some Chinese online video sites, it's more like three pop machines. Doh!

It's no wonder the Chinese government doesn't really trust the Internet. It makes it a lot easier to call them out. Darn those democratic institutions! Chinese bloggers and forum members forced a photographer to admit he doctored a photo for the good of the State. It's not that there aren't pregnant chiru antelope in Tibet, it's just that they're usually not pregnant in June. And trains scare them.

You have to love sometimes the rhetoric of freedom fighters. The US had Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale. More recently, China has university professor Guo Quan, who, after being deleted from Google's index at the behest of the government, called Google "a servile Pekinese dog wagging its tail at the heels of the Chinese communists."Ooh. I love it when people get all revolutionary.

On the (sort of) bright side, few people were probably deprived of the information - it's not as if Google and Yahoo are all that popular in China.  The downside is that both companies seem to have suppressed something yet again.  Also, they will soon be sued for doing so.

You knew it had to happen sooner or later: China is cracking down on Internet video. Under the new regulations, Chinese web surfers will only be able to access video from state-controlled companies. It looks like these regulations will effectively kill user-generated and other video sharing sites. However, as the AP reports, there is some uncertainty there:

In America, much of Google’s success is attributed to its brilliant employees.  In China, there’s no reason that the situation would be any different, but as a bonus, the company could gain a competitive edge by hiring locals.

Domains containing the word “search” in China were hijacked yesterday... pointing to search engine Baidu (and partly, another government website).

The Middleman may never be terminated, but he is cruisin' for a bruisin' in the digital age. The latest assault will come, surprisingly, from China, as the government unveils plans to produce a 3D virtual world that allows consumers to order directly from the manufacturer.