Category: Geographic

BeeBird: FM Transmitter

BeeBird: FM TransmitterBeeBird, another FM transmitter reaches us, this time with a pretty decent look about it.

The Chinese manufacturer, netSharp, got in touch with us give us the heads up.

There’s a not-insubstantial 199 channels available for transmitting your fave sounds. The frequency range that can be chosen between, is 88.1 – 107.9MHz.

The chosen frequency is displayed on the LCD display, while the simple up/down shuffle changes the frequency.

It’s got FCC approval, and as long as its output is under 50 nanoWatts, it will be legal in the UK under OfCom rules too.

It looks at light as it is at 30g excluding the one AAA battery it runs on (there’s also a car power adaptor available). As you’d expect, it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, so will play from any sensible music source.

Price? Not clear yet. We hadn’t heard back before going to press.

NetSharp BeeBird

Manhunt 2: BFFC Bans UK Release

Manhunt 2: BFFC Bans UK ReleaseThe British Board of Film Classification (BCCF) have ruled that Manhunt 2, the second version of the game from Rockstar Games, has been banned in its current form from sale or rental in the UK.

Originally scheduled for release during July 2007, the BCCF today made it pretty clear that they really didn’t like it – at all. David Cooke, Director of the BBFC said, “Rejecting a work is a very serious action and one which we do not take lightly. Where possible we try to consider cuts or, in the case of games, modifications which remove the material which contravenes the Board’s published Guidelines. In the case of Manhunt 2 this has not been possible. Manhunt 2 is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone in an overall game context which constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing. There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game.”
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YouTube To Launch European Service?

YouTube To Launch European Service?Speculation is growing that YouTube will be launching local versions of their video sharing service for European countries.

The rumours come in the wake of YouTube owners Google announcing a mass herding of top executives in Paris for an international press conference next week.

Elementary
France 24, a French public TV channel, confirmed on Friday that it’s been sitting on the chatty sofa and getting chummy with Google, leading pundits to predict that the search engine giant could be lining up local content for its video-sharing service.
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Google In China: Must Do Better

Google.cn. Don't Be GreedyGoogle sparked outrage in the blogging world and elsewhere, when in January 2006 it decided to doctor the search results it gave users of its service in mainland China, to appease the government.

It was presented by those against the move as a significant blow against Google’s oft quoted mantra, “Don’t be evil.”
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ChinaCache, Dominant Chinese CDN, Gets $32m Investment

ChinaCache, Dominant Chinese CDN, Gets $32m InvestmentChinaCache, a Beijing-based provider of Content Delivery Network services, has received an additional $31.5m dollar investment, from Western companies, including Intel Capital, reports the China Daily Newspaper.

They’ll be using part of the investment to further expand their current 50-city strong network to cope with the growing demands for audio and video, with the rest of it to purchase competitors to maintain its market position.
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AVS: China’s H.264 Rival In Testing By China Telecom

AVS: China's H.264 Rival In Testing By China Telecom It’s clear that China like to do things their own way.

The latest in the list is a video CoDec’s, the algorithm that is used to compress/decompress video signals. Much of the world currently uses H.264, but China has developed its own equivalent, that they call AVS, standing for Audio Video coding Standard – an acronym that is bound to cause confusions with the Microsoft-backed AVC.
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Beijing Could Go Wireless: Rumour: WBFA

Beijing Could Go Wireless: Rumour: WBFAIt was mentioned at the World Broadband Forum Asia in Beijing that an unnamed Chinese Government Official has said that they hoped that Beijing will become a city bathed in Wireless before the World Fair arrives in China in 2010.

They also hope for Shanghai to benefit from city-wide coverage too.

We’ll dig around to try and find out more over the next few days.

I’m in Beijing for the Broadband World Forum, so thought it would be interesting to pick stories from the local press on their reporting of technology news.