Filed under: Robots
[Via Engadget Chinese]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Filed under: Household, Robots
It might not look too fancy, but China’s first cooking robot, cleverly named “AICookingrobot” or AIC for short, can manage Sichuan, Shandong and Canton cuisines, with a repertory of thousands of dishes. Four years in development, AIC cost 2 million yuan to build — about $253,000 US — and will supposedly help “standardize Chinese fast food.” The bot mimics the actions of those lame-o human chefs that are always asking for “raises,” “bathroom breaks” and “sleep,” and was recently demonstrated on Sunday cooking “beautifully-flavored, attractive-looking shrimp” in five minutes. We’re not quite sure how far the talents of the bot reach, since we know the bot can fry, bake, boil and steam stuff, but there’s no word on chopping or measuring or other minor details like that. Still, the AIC — which will go on sale in 2007 and even should reach the home in the not-so-distant future — is clearly a pre-cursor to the day when we can all sit back with our Nintendo DS-based cooking simulators while all the real work gets done by a Chinese cookbot in the kitchen. What a world that will be.
[Via Robot Gossip]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Somehow, when we weren’t looking, China decided to thumb its nose at the myriad of global digital television standards. On August 18, the Standardization Administration of China approved DMB-T, its new digital television standard for the world’s largest television market. No, it’s not the same format that the South Koreans have chosen to adopt, called T-DMB. According to PC World India, this will become the new standard in China by August 1, 2007. Apparently the Middle Kingdom’s digital television market is worth a staggering $125 billion, ($100 per person), or about $300 for each of the 400 million television set owners. Still no word on whether or not Hu Jintao has booked the Dave Matthews Band to play the launch date of DMB-T, though.
[Via PC World India]
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Filed under: Portable Audio
So, we’re not sure how much bargaining power unions have in a Communist country, but much to our surprise, the Chinese provincial government of Shenzhen has actually demanded that Hon Hai Precision Industry allow its “iPod
[Via Reuters]
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Filed under: Gaming
You know, it strikes us that China, of all countries, doesn’t have a long tradition of therapy and open discussions of feelings. But it does have a growing pattern of kids losing themselves in online video games (as we’ve seen time and time again). And as was predicted in the Engadget comments’ section back in July, China is indeed the next location for a halfway house for Chinese video game addicts in Shanghai. Reuters reports that this house offers therapy, books to read (and even computers!) to help these kids stem their addiction and regain channels of communication with their families. We sense a growth industry of electronics-related therapy coming on — remember the reports just a few months ago of Blackberry detox at the Sheraton Chicago — any VCs paying attention? Just please, nobody start Engadget Anonymous, ok? We think you’re fine just the way you are.
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Filed under: Laptops
What a difference an “E” makes. Chinese owners of Dell’s Inspiron 640m laptop
Read- Chinese lawsuits [Via Ars Technica]
Read- Dell’s response
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Filed under: Portable Audio
While not the most attractive or featured-filled of their kind, there’s really no arguing with the price on these DAPs. The 512MB version of the Ainol V3 retails for a mere $50 (in China, of course), and packs in MP3
[Via Anything But iPod]
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Filed under: GPS
Ryan Caron over at Defense Tech has some hefty analysis on China’s plans for their very own satellite navigation system, named Compass. No one is really clear what China’s intentions for the system are, with rumors ranging from a minor upgrade to their regional Beidou system, to a full-on competitor to USA’s GPS and Europe’s Galileo. So far the most solid step China has taken towards actually building the system is an order of 18-20 rubidium atomic clocks that are necessary for syncing up satellites, but which have many other military uses. Ryan theorizes that China might just be bluffing about building a system of their own, in a bid to regain a piece of the Galileo pie, which they, along with all other non-European countries, have been unceremoniously written out of starting next year. More alarmingly, a global satnav system run by China would have the potential to operate as a jammer of US and European signals, another reason the various groups involved are so guarded with their systems. However it plays out, China currently has 32 satellite slots registered with the International Telecommunications Union for Compass, and bluff or not, there’s a lot of potential there.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
startup Vozin Communications, claims that the Chinese friend he spoke with is part of a team that has successfully reverse-engineered the Skype protocol, possibly paving the way for a series of third-party clients that would delight consumers but provide no small amount of frustration to Skype-owner eBay. Although this unlicensed client is currently only able to perform peer-to-peer calling -- presence, instant messaging, and super node features have not yet been implemented -- it seems to be only a matter of time before the engineers have a more robust demo available for public download (they're supposedly shooting for an August release). And since all of this work is going on in China, eBay has no legal means of shutting down the client's development, but even if they did, it's probably already too late -- now that the cat is out of the bag, it's pretty clear that an open-source Skype client is inevitable, and that eBay's future business plans will have to take that reality into account.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Wireless, Networking
It’s been over a year since we first spotted Metalink’s draft-802.11n components designed for networked home theater gear, and now it seems that the company has finally found a partner willing to include the technology in a slew of next-generation products. Known as WLANPlus, the chipset family is poised for integration into TVs, DVRs, and DVD players from Chinese manufacturing giant Haier — perhaps best know around here for the pen-like P7 cellphone — which will allow consumers to broadcast multiple high definition streams around the house thanks to draft-n transfer speeds in excess of 200Mbps. The two companies revealed their partnership at this year’s SINOCES, where Haier had several WiFi-equipped TVs on display in a multi-room setup meant to simulate simultaneous streaming in a household environment. GigaOM points out, however, that it may be awhile before we see actual products stemming from this deal hit the marketplace — if we ever see them at all — as Metalink doesn’t seem to be in the best financial shape, having already lost $4.1 million in the first quarter of this year alone.
[Via GigaOM]
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Filed under: Culture
It's no secret that China is rockin' some serious server power dedicated to filtering its SMS airwaves of unthinkable topics like Taiwan, democracy, and pornography, but other countries are getting in on the action, too. Belarus and Iran have both been called out in recent months for listening to its citizens' texts, and in Belarus' case, sending them as well. Although the technology for real-time filtering by keyword is largely homegrown (or so we hope), predictive text manufacturers like Tegic (disclaimer: Tegic is owned by Engadget's parent company's parent company, AOL) are receiving pressure from handset manufacturers to double- and triple-check their dictionaries for words that could be considered distasteful in countries with more oppressive governments than our own. Personally, discovering a word missing from T9 has never prevented us from typing it manually, but nonetheless -- between this and M-Track, we're about ready to head down into the Engadget bunker with a year's supply of Spam and just ride this whole thing out.Filed under: Meta
Filed under: Portable Audio
had already investigated and found no problems with the Chinese factory that has come to be known as "iPod City," BusinessWeek is reporting that the probe is still in fact underway, with an Apple representative reiterating that the company takes "allegations of noncompliance very seriously." According to spokesperson Steve Dowling, Apple is in the midst of a "thorough audit" of the Hon Hai-owned plant, which had recently admitted to breaking labor laws concerning overtime, but which continues to deny other allegations contained in the original Daily Mail exposé. Specifically, Dowling says that the auditors are looking into "employee working and living conditions," conducting interviews with workers and their managers (separately, we hope), and generally making sure that the factory lives up to a supplier code of conduct that supposedly "sets the bar higher than accepted industry standards." This is all very good news indeed, but now Apple faces yet another hurdle in the form of a jaded public highly skeptical of corporate-speak, meaning that whether the investigation turns up violations or not, the company may still have a hard time convincing folks to accept the auditors' final verdict.Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Remember a few months ago when the US State Department ordered thousands of Lenovo PCs despite concerns by some that the boxes could be infested with evil Commie spyware? Well, the computers have apparently been delivered, and the government has now decided those concerns should be taken seriously. The 16,000 Lenovo computers will basically be quarantined from other government computers, and won’t be used for any classified work. Which we assume means they’ll be used for games of Solitaire and BitTorrent downloads of patriotic anthems. C’mon guys, let’s get real here. Sure, Lenovo’s computers are made in China. But so are plenty of other computers, including Apple
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Filed under: Desktops, Peripherals
spills with that fancy Batmobile-like armor plating, Lenovo is apparently still looking for ways to keep your 'board safe from dangerous beverages, as they're showing off a waterproof model at their Lenovo Innovation Center in China. Not much is known about the high-tech shenanigans going on inside the keyboard to keep the circuitry running (we suspect nanobots), but it's clear from the pics that you can dump over a cup of water onto it with seemingly no negative effects. So far this doesn't appear to be a technology that the company is commercializing, and frankly it seems like an unnecessary addition to your basic cheap-o plastic keyboard, but we sure wish Logitech et. al would step it up and employ this type of protection in their multi-hundred dollar diNovo Cordless Desktops-like products.Filed under: Robots
We
somehow doubt that Liangliang, the new "personal robot" developed by researchers at the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, working with a team from Xinsong Automation Co., has nearly as much personality as Korea's latest bot, EveR-1 -- though we suspect it
does look a little better than CASIA (pictured above), an earlier CAS attempt at developing a personal bot. However,
with the ability to walk, log onto the internet and receive instructions via SMS, Liangliang could find a place as the
Party's eyes and ears in Chinese homes.Filed under: GPS, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Transportation
solution that they can also throw in a sack and take along on a constitution will soon have a
new option from Chinese manufacturer Shinco. The Voyager GPS 400 is a PDA-size receiver in white with a 4-inch, 480 x
272 color touchscreen, birds-eye view mapping, SD slot for MP3 playback, and preloaded maps covering the two million
hottest destinations on the British Isles. You seem to get a pretty solid accessory pack in the box as well, with a
windshield mount, extension antenna, decent carrying case, and both car and wall chargers standard. E-tailer Firebox is
currently taking pre-orders for the Voyager, which is supposed to arrive on the 11th, for a very reasonable $420.Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
In what has to be the most impressive display of
criminal initiative that we've ever seen, an organized group of conspirators in Japan, China, and Taiwan managed to
convince dozens of factories in the latter two countries that they represented Japan's NEC Corp., and got them to
manufacture pirated products under the NEC brand. According the the International Herald Tribune, not only did the
pirates duplicate versions of real NEC devices -- which, according to NEC, were "of generally good quality"
-- they actually began producing their own line of NEC-branded products, developed with R&D commissioned by NEC
business card-carrying "executives." All-in-all, the pirates had a product lineup of some fifty
different items, ranging from home theater equipment to MP3 players to PC peripherals, and were even thoughtful enough
to include counterfeit manuals and warranty documents with their goods. Apparently the ring has been operating since at
least 2004, although the real NEC only made the details known recently, following a private investigation that led to
the ringleaders' arrest and crackdowns by local authorities on the offending factories.Filed under: Handsets, HTC, LG, Windows Mobile, GSM, EDGE
Mobile goodness in such a small package earning it plenty of kudos as well.
Decisions, decisions.Filed under: Handsets, LG, GSM
Yeah ok, it’s not exactly shipping in the US yet, but it’s still good to know that the LG
“Chocolate” phone has left South Korea and is finally dancing on the international stage with the intent of
kicking it live in the West
sometime after May. Turned-out in a tri-band GSM flavour for China (a CDMA version is also produced), this 0.6-inch
sugary sweet slider brings a 2-inch QVGA display, 512MB of memory
Benjamins. Of course, now that these are in the wild, we fully expect a “
chocolate” knockoff to drop in a few months for about half the price.
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Filed under: Software, RIM, China Unicom, CDMA
In a
surprising turn of events, China has decided to create a cheap domestic rip off of a popular product. With RIM finally
readying the BlackBerry for its Chinese release, after a couple of years of delays, China Unicom has launched a
"RedBerry" service that will offer push email to current subscribers on their existing CDMA handsets. Never
the type to shy away from copyright infringement, China Unicom issued a press release stating: "The RedBerry name
extends the vivid name of BlackBerry that people are already familiar with, and it also combines the new red symbol of
China Unicom." Good to know they're feeling chipper about it. So far there's no word from RIM, but if a lawsuit
doesn't end this there could be some stiff competition in the low-end between the services since the RedBerry offering
sounds to be considerably cheaper than RIM's.Filed under: Virgin Mobile, China Unicom, MVNOs
Interfax
China is reporting that Virgin Mobile is close to signing a partnership with wireless carrier China Unicom that would
make the UK-based company the first foreign MVNO in post-WTO China. Although Virgin would still require approval from
the Chinese government, which carefully scrutinizes all proposed foreign business presences, the company will benefit
from past deals in which Spain's Telefonica and Germany's Vodafone have made invesments in domestic telecom firms.
Virgin already has offices in Shanghai, and CEO Richard Branson recently told reporters to expect a Chinese launch this
fall, so it would seem pretty likely that this venture, which is well over a year in the making, has the necessary
government support to proceed.Filed under: Desktops, Media PCs
Filed under: Handsets, Others, Windows Mobile, GSM, HSDPA
Mobile devices. The specs seem a little pie in the
sky (at best), with most rocking quad band GSM, HSDPA, 2.4 and 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreens, MicroSD, 512MB flash, 512MB
RAM, GPS, USB On-The-Go, 2 megapixel cameras, optional WiFi, and optional MicroDrives (in their larger PDA devices).
We're not saying it can't be done, but they're going to have some convincing to do that they, and their products, are
the real deal, not to mention the uphill battle they're going to have getting these things on the market and taking on
the 800 pound ODM gorilla. Tons more -- and we mean way too many -- shots after the break.