China Restricts Olympic Journalist Web Access. At Least They’re Open About It

China Restricts Olympic Journalist Web Access. At Least They're Open About ItWestern journalists are now complaining that their access to the World Wide Web is being limited.

The Times asserts that the International Olympic Committee has ‘disclosed,’ that “A deal with Beijing has allowed the Chinese authorities to block sensitive Internet sites.

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Beware: Charity Disaster Phishing Scams

Beware: Charity Disaster Phishing ScamsIt’s a sad reflection on today’s society that at times of human suffering there are those who will try to take advantage of the situation for their own gain.

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and other IT security organisations are warning that there are a number of phishing scams that are using donation appeals for the recent major disasters in Burma and China.

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Chengdu Earthquake Photos From Public’s Mobile Phones Beat Newspapers

Chengdu Photos From Public's Mobile Phones Beat NewspapersWe’re all aware of how the news media has been changed by the use of photos and video shot by members of the public and sent in to news desks.

They provide the instant captures of the moment events happen and enables viewers of the news to be in places that news crews just can’t get to. Early examples of this was the London Tube Bombings.

The latest we’ve come across is the shocking earthquake at Chengdu in China.

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China’s Mobile Users Pass The 600 Million Mark

China's Mobile Users Pass The 600 Million MarkThe days of a truly connected globe are drawing nearer with the news that China now has more than 600 million mobile phone users.

The figures, for June this year, mean that every one in five mobile phone users is Chinese with the user base increasing by 40.56 million from the end of last year – a hefty 6.76 million per month, on average.
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Sony PSP A Hit In Beijing

Sony PSP a hit in BeijingWriting about the announcement of the new PSP brought the following little ditty to mind – one we’ve been meaning to write for a while.

You may be thinking that the Sony PSP hasn’t been the hit that it might have been, because in and around Europe you don’t see many on the street.

It’s easy to lull yourself into a false state of knowledge when you’re in a major capital, leading you to think that the behaviours that you see around the street are representative of the world as a whole.

This was clearly show in our recent visit to Beijing, where PSP usage told a distinctly different story. There were tons of the things knocking around, primarily on the Beijing Underground.

Used mostly by the under 30s, but not limited to males, we often saw people playing games on them during the crushed morning rush hour (and it was a serious crush). The other frequent use was using them to catch up on TV or film programming.

Alongside the genuine PSPs, we also spied quite a few copy PSPs having a similar form factor, but a rougher, less-engineered finish.

Fake iPhone From China: Video

Fake iPhone From China: VideoDarn clever those Chinese. Not only have they copied the iPhone, but they went and did it _before_ the iPhone was released – this video dates back to 10 May.

The branding it a little confused, sometimes tPhone, other iPhone, but it looks very similar, even down to the much-publicised ‘green balls’ wallpaper.

Now the actual iPhone is out, we can only imagine the quality of the copies that are being bundled into boxes and making their way over to all corners of the world.

With the change of approach to IPR from the Chinese government – they now see their future as a creative nation, so want to protect ideas – copy products like this will be a thing of the past.

Video after the jump
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China Unblocks English Wikipedia, Mostly

China Unblocks English Wikipedia, MostlyQuick catchup news. China has modified their content blocking – or Great Firewall of China as it’s sometimes called – to allow through the English language version of Wikipedia to be seen in China.

This change only took place at the beginning of this week. My experience the week before (while in Beijing), was that results were show in Google, but when clicking on the Wikipedia links, they would timeout with nothing displayed – classic firewall blocking behaviour.
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