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Electric Bicycle From Xiaomi Could Decongest China’s Streets

The new foldable electric bicycle from Xiaomi could ease up traffic in crowded Chinese cities.

Xiaomi’s latest product in the works has turned out to be an electric bicycle. The Mi QiCYCLE Electric Folding Bike will be available for 3,000 RMB. The price roughly translates to $455.

The Mi QiCYCLE Electric Folding Bike is powered by a 250W, 36V motor. It also has a driving motor with a 3-speed transmission. Xiaomi guarantees up to 28 miles (45 kilometers) with a single battery charge. The battery charging system is Xiaomi’s own trademarked management system. The battery itself is a 20-pack of Panasonic lithium-ion cells. This is the same type of battery that Tesla is currently using as well.

The bicycle has a minimalistic aesthetic design, and most of its parts and casing are carbon fiber. As its namesake states, the bike does neatly fold. It weighs less than 32 pounds (14.5 kilograms). The battery does account for a third of its weight.

Like all other Xiaomi products, the electric bicycle is a smart device. It comes with a companion app that displays some well-organized information.The companion app can display speed, distance traveled, calories burned, GPS location, as well as the overall status to the bike.

Apart from the companion app, Xiaomi said that the electric bicycle comes with a system called IDbike Torque Measurement Method. The system uses several sensors installed within the bike to optimize pedaling effort and allow riders to get to their desired speed faster.

The Mi QiCYCLE Electric Folding Bike is currently being crowdfunded inside Xiaomi’s Mi Home app. Xiaomi will only begin mass production and release of the product if enough people use Mi Home to sign up and buy the product first. This tactic has been employed by Xiaomi in the past and has proven to be very effective.

Like all other Xiaomi products, if the electric bicycle does become available, it will be exclusive to China for its first months-to-a-year of release.

The electric bicycle could prove a very convenient way to let riders do their urban commute. It does have an uptime of over 25 miles, and more than enough time to recharge at the workplace. For most urban Chinese employees the 3,000 CNY price-tag should be accessible.

If Xiaomi also meets its pre-set thresholds in sales, work on electric bicycles models with higher uptimes could be on the way.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia.

China Develops a Mind-Controlled Vehicle

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Chinese scientists have devised a vehicle capable of interpreting EEG signals.

Remember those good sci-fi movies where the main characters used all sort of wacky gadgets in order to prevail in the battle against some villain? Well in the last decades, many of those wacky crossed that science fiction border and became everyday facts. China develops a mind-controlled vehicle as part of their endeavor to take over the autonomous vehicle market.

Mind-control and driverless cars; one would think that these things would not go well together. But is would seem that the two get along just fine and the results are simply amazing. The project is being conducted by a team of computer scientists from the Nankai University, who aim at developing a whole driverless car concept.

Basically, the vehicle uses the driver’s brain waves in order to perform several actions. Professor Zhang, the lead scientist of this project, had the courtesy of explaining the process step by step. It would seem that the car can’t actually read your mind.

The driver, upon entering the vehicle, must wear a specially designed helmet, which is used to assign actions to the car’s onboard computer. The helmet is outfitted with 16 sensors which are capable of picking up the brain’s EEG signals. Basically, the whole helmet is one big EEG machine. After the sensors pick up the corresponding brain signals, it basically transforms them in binary signs, which can be easily interpreted by the onboard computer.

Then, the computer takes over the information and transforms them into actions and motions. For instance, if you want the car to move forward, all you have to do is raise your head and the car will start moving forward. The same principle applies to the back motion. According to the research team, the driver could perform many more actions. For instance, the user can use the computer in order to lock or to unlock the car. And all actions would be performed without the driver ever touching the vehicle.

And, according to its makers, the car could actually hold the key to developing more reliable eco-friendly vehicles. Most of the projects feature cars which run solely on electrical energy.

It would seem that is the dream car we have been waiting for all along. It’s fast, it’s eco-friendly, but it packs a lot of power. Moreover, you are capable of controlling your vehicle with just a single thought. Simply by giving it some thought, the vehicle in able to perform some extraordinary feats.

Photo credits:www.wikipedia.org

Microsoft Launches Xbox One in China, Finally

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Last week we learnt that Microsoft cut the price of Xbox One in UK just in time for the holidays. We don’t know if the company is going to do the same for North America, but as soon as it announces a price change, you’ll hear it from us first. In other news, Microsoft has finally launched Xbox One in China, after a long ban of 14 on all video gaming consoles.

China finally has access to Microsoft’s Xbox One video game console

The original Xbox was released in November 2001 and China didn’t want anything to do with the console. It placed a ban on any video game console in 2000 and the ban has been valid up to this point, making the Xbox One the first video gaming console to be available in the communist country.

The ban was supposed to be lifted last week, but Microsoft delayed the sales until today. Microsoft launches Xbox One in China today, after debuting in the U.S. in the fall of 2013. No less than 37 cities in China and 4,000 retailers are going to have the Xbox One on sale. At first glance, this is a good spread, but you need to keep in mind that 160 cities in China have more than 1 million inhabitants.

Most likely, the Xbox One will sellout in China in a couple of weeks, if not days. Microsoft announced that people who used the preordering method are going to get an added bonus, one which Microsoft is keeping mum about.

What are your thoughts on the fact that Microsoft finally launched the Xbox One in China? Are you impacted by this decision in any way? Will you be buying the Xbox One in China? Drop us a line in the comment section below and share your thoughts with us.

IBM Teams Inspur to Provide Services for Growing Chinese Companies

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The Chinese server market faces increasing challenges, as IBM teams Inspur and change their market approach. IBM was affected by China’s latest policy addressed to U.S. companies. The Chinese Government wants to achieve informational independence. To gain it, the government wants to only rely on Chinese information administration firms.

The policy affected IMB, while Chinese server producing companies such as Lenovo, Huawei increased their market share. Dell remains the leader of the category of x86 servers with 20 percent market share. Lenovo owns 13 percent, while Huawei holds 14 percent of the Chinese server market.

The Chinese government announced concerns over server security recently. IBM managed to find a solution to continue doing businesses in China. IBM and Inspur, aka I2I, will offer a new product. Inspur produces the TS K1 systems and IBM will contribute with software packages, DB2 and WebSphere Application Server. Moreover, IBM will provide POWER8 processors to Inspur and other technical assistance to Inspur to help the company grow.

IBM teams Inspur because of the latest political decisions

Chinese companies are growing and need improved technology to analyze big data, this is the reason backing the new I2I allegiance declared on Friday. IBM sold the low-end server division to Lenovo at the beginning of 2014, although the take-over is not yet finished. By selling the low-end server business, Lenovo dropped its Chinese market share to just 12 percent, equaling Inspur’s market share. The Jinan-based Chinese company increased its market share from just 5 percent a year before.

Servers are now an important political technology. Russia demanded recently that all data belonging to Russian citizens must be stored on servers placed on Russian soil. China accused Apple of producing hardware that is easy to use for spying. As well, some Chinese produced smartphones that were allegedly storing private data of U.S. users and sending it back to China. Undeniably, the latest events can be properly understood through a political economic lens.

However, neither IBM, nor Inspur, made any reference to cyber-politics and security in their announcement on Friday, according to Reuters. The Snowden affair complicated politics, as well as businesses. The reasons behind the new alliance are undeniably linked to the political environment. However, even if IBM teams Inspur, most companies prefer to avoid political discourse, at it is usually seen as a drawback in efficiency, because of future implied stability risks.

Symantec, Kasperski Banned by the Chinese Government

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China is very suspicious on foreign made software and got Symantec, Kasperski banned from central government use. The software can be used, however, on local Chinese governments or in corporations, so the ban was a lighter punishment. The main concern for China’ tough policy is that the Russian antivirus Kasperski and its American counterpart, Symantec are not safe to use among Chinese sensitive data.

The high-tech Chinese market is right now dominated by local brand Xiaomi, after Samsung dominated the sales tops for a few years.

China is not very supportive with the three tech giants, Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Each of them has faced various interdiction or accusations of leaking data produced by the Chinese government.

Instead, Chinese software companies Qihoo 360, Venustech, CAJinchen, Beijing Jiangmin and Rising are preferred by the country’s government.

Symantec, Kasperski banned by Chinese Government for potential security flaws

Kasperski said only that “We are investigating and engaging in conversations with Chinese authorities on the matter,” the company said, adding that it’s “too premature” to give more details.

Kasperski’s spokeswoman expressed regret and said that “However, this restriction only applies to national-level institutions whose funding comes from the central government procurement budget, and does not include regional governments or large enterprises.”

Symantec’s Data Loss Prevention software include loopholes. Symantec has been accused of creating back-door policy mandates. Symantec reacts by saying “Symantec does not put hidden functionality or back doors into any of its technologies -– not for the NSA or any other government entities,” the company announced today through an email, Bloomberg reports. Symantec is in China for 15 years now.

Microsoft Windows XP was very popular in China. Once Microsoft stopped offering support for the 13 years old SO, the Chinese security agency realized it needs to take any measure to support the computers still running. Windows 8 is banned from usage as well.

The Snowden documentsleak changed a lot in how privacy is conceived of and data is handled. Since then, Cisco Systems, IBM and Microsoft have all been under pressure in China. Symantec, Kasperski banned from China is a new opportunity for Chinese antivirus companies to develop.

The Russian government is stressed as well about privacy issues and asked Apple and SAP to give their source codes to the government. The Russian government believed that the of these 2 source code software producers might hide backdoors for NSA spy. The international relations and politics get tenser with every day.

Chinese Smartphone Producer Xiaomi Tops China Smartphone Industry

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China is one of the biggest market, so it is only natural that sales at a national level should reach impressive figures compared to most other markets. There are more mobile phone users in China than in any other country and with 37 percent of the global phone market, it’s the largest.

Samsung used to be the number one smartphone producers in China by looking at the sales numbers. But for the last quarter, the Chinese smartphone producer Xiaomi takes its place. The Chinese company sold 15 million phones in the last quarter. Samsung, the second phone seller by volume, sold 13.2 phones. The last time Samsung’s sales dropped in China was in 2011.

“Undoubtedly, this was helped by an anticipated, temporarily under-strength Samsung performance during the quarter,” Canalys research analyst Jingwen Wang wrote in a statement. “But that is only half the story — Xiaomi has also executed on its strategy to grow volume shipments. It has delivered compelling products at aggressive price points … backed by effectively targeted marketing. But it does now need to deliver LTE products in China to address growing demand for 4G services if it is to retain its momentum.”

Chinese smartphone producer Xiaomi offers low-cost premium quality devices

Xiaomi had a remarkable growth. In the last year, the company grew worldwide, but its major market was its home one, China. Just one year ago, Xiaomi was selling 4.4 million devices. Samsung sold 15.5 million phones in the same period one year ago. Xiaomi Mi-3 first 100.000 units have been sold at a rate of 1000 per second.

So what is Xiaomi’s secret recipe? They produce Android smartphones, but they provide the Xiaomi take on the open-source OS. Miui is very much oriented on customer feed-back. The feed-back is collected and Miui is updated every Friday according to the user’s wishes. Their flagship smartphone, the Mi line, offers premium materials and workmanship, along with aggressive specs. Because the smartphones are sold for almost no profit, Xiaomi makes money out of their online services like apps, games and other Internet features, New York Times writes.

Chinese smartphone producer Xiaomi shares some of Apple’s traits, with its CEO being called the Steve Jobs of China. Hugo Barra from Google’s Android works there since last year, a great addition. Now Xiaomi plans on expanding in 10 other countries like India, the Philippines and Brazil.

Microsoft Xbox One Sold in China by China Telecom

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The Chinese Government banned gaming consoles in 2000. They probably realized that the ban was not as beneficial as expected. The reason was that games have effects on mental health, but what other things do not?

Now the Chinese Government decided to lift the ban. The first gaming console to enter the market is Microsoft’s Xbox One. Microsoft reached an exclusive deal with the country’s third largest mobile carrier, China Telecom, to exclusively sell Microsoft Xbox One. The statement of Microsoft China’s spokesperson is slightly confusing, as he points to an exclusive partnership with China Telecom, but mentions the console’s availability through other channels too.

Microsoft Xbox One sales doubled in June compared to May. Kinect stopped being bundled with the gaming console since June 9. The price dropped by $100, so it may have been possible for Microsoft to achieve some impressive sales.

Microsoft Xbox One will come after Microsoft teamed last year with China’s BesTV

Last year, Microsoft teamed up with the Chinese company BesTV to produce the Xbox One in the newly established Shanghai Free Trade Zone. This April, Microsoft set September as the release month for the Chinese market.

The price for Microsoft Xbox One on the Chinese market has not been released yet. Sony plans to sell its PlayStation 4 in China as well, but no dates have been set so far. Gamespot says that according to a study, there are more than half a billion gamers in China, a very attractive number for all the gaming console producers. Venturebeat says that according to market researcher Newzoo, China will become the biggest game market by 2016. A total of $25 billion in revenues are expected.

The important lay-offs announced recently by Microsoft mean that the company goes through an important transition. The company will focus more on the mobile world, betting on cloud computing and cheap Windows powered smartphones. Nevertheless, Microsoft is expected to be more open-source friendly. With Microsoft Xbox One present in China, the company can surely benefit some fresh breath of air offered by the access to one of the largest markets in the world, a market currently going up. BesTV New Media CEO, Tao Mingcheng, believer the console will be a success among mid and high end market family users. In September Microsoft will launch the gaming console in 26 other markets too.

M100 Smart Glasses, Chinese Release by Lenovo, Vuzix

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Lenovo plans to enter the eye wear market. The tech producer teamed up with Vuzix, a supplier of video eyeware to release M100 smart glasses on the Chinese market. Lenovo’s New Business Development will be figured as the brand to distribute the gadget. Lenovo and Vuzix plan to sale the smart glasses in China, but they will assess further expansion to other markets. So for now, the M100 smart glasses will support Chinese language and voice recognition, among other.

The Lenovo M100 smart glasses will sell for a price similar with that of Google Glasses. Samsung is expected to launch Galaxy Glasses soon, thus competition gets tougher for Google Glasses. Slightly surprising, it took a while for contenders to show up in the smart glasses market. Google Glasses met initial excitement, after which critique occurred, but not so much related to the technological capacities. Smart glasses are thought to be privacy invaders, so the companies will have to work hard to promote uses which carry less controversy.

M100 Smart Glasses will feature Android 4.0.4

M100 Smart Glasses will be sold for around 800 Yuan beginning with September. For now, the specs include a 1 Ghz dual-core processor and Android 4.0.4. Some will laugh at the prospect of launching a product with such an old OS in the same time that Google will launch Android L, but we still have a long way before exhausting all of the OS’ functions.

“China is a significant milestone for us and for the wearable industry. Lenovo is world renowned for its high quality products and exceptional engineering, making them the most ideal partner with which to bring our M100 Smart Glasses to China,” Paul Travers, Chief Executive Officer of Vuzix, said. “As Lenovo is number one worldwide in supplying computers to business and the public sector and the number 3 supplier of smart-connected devices (smartphones and tablets), we see strong market opportunities for our M100 as it was specifically designed for those markets.”

Both companies did their homework. China is one of the fastest growing market for wearable devices. According to The Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center, the wearable device market will go up to US$20.6 billion in 2018. In 2015 alone, 40 million devices are expected to be sold in China for a total of $1.9 billion, the M100 Smart Glasses press release states.

The Number of New Chinese Internet Users Drops

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China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) published a report on the state of internet penetration and usage by the Chinese population. Out of a total of more than 1350 million Chinese, 632 million use the Internet. In the first half of 2014, only 14.4 million new users have been recorded. For any other country, maybe except for India, this number would be very impressive, but for China it is a sign that the Internet adoption rate is slowing down. Right now, the rate of Internet penetration is 46.9 percent, while for the U.S. the rate goes up to 87 percent. The Chinese Government is preoccupied with the citizens’ online safety; it accused Apple of handling the private data of Chinese citizens in an unreliable way.

We have all seen the photos of the new Chinese cities expanding at extreme speeds. Most of China, however, is still rural. Even though the urban population doubled in the last 25 years, from 26 to 52 percent, the rural population has a low level of education and does not access the internet. CNNIC thinks that the government should introduce basic Internet skills for rural pupils. Overall, going from 94 million Internet users to 632 million in just a decade is an impressive performance.

Chinese Internet users prefer the smartphone as Internet accessing device

It seems that for most of the Chinese Internet users, smartphones are the usual devices used to access the net. Out of the 632 million Chinese Internet users, 527 million went online from their smartphones. The trend indicated that the notebook and PC are no longer the preferred devices to do the job. Or maybe now, that smartphones are getting cheaper and cheaper, while having increased performance, the Chinese Internet users who do not own laptops or desktop, use the smartphone as the only Internet access device.

The CNNIC reports that during the first half of 2014 meant a reduction in the usage of social networking websites. So 257 million people accessed social networking sites, significantly fewer than the 278 million figure from last December. The Great Firewall of China, erected by the government, restrains the Chinese Internet users from accessing the classical social networking pages such as Facebook and Twitter. In 2018, a total of 1.8 billion smartphones are expected to ship worldwide. Out of them, a third is believed that will go the Chinese customers, according to Reuters.

China Accuses Apple of Storing Private Chinese Data

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Last week the Russian Parliament passed a bill which theoretically forbids companies from storing Russian citizens’ digital data on servers outside Russian territory from 2016. Even if the demand is highly unfeasible and overall backwards, it touches a sensitive topic. The vast majority of online data is stored on servers based in U.S. territory and comply American regulation. We continue to argue that a global coalition to establish a framework fostering digital privacy is highly necessary. A neutral body such as a UN institution might help clarify better how data should be handled in a way that produces a fairer international balance of digital power.

China Accuses Apple of potentially having access to state secrets

China’s public TV, CCTV, openly accused Apple on Friday of storing Chinese users’ sensitive data. This week, according to Financial Times, the U.S. and China ended with insignificant progress talks on high-tech trade. The $2 trillion annual trade relies on an 18 years old agreement which needs to be updated. As we previously reported, iPhone dominates the high-end Chinese smartphone market. China provides 20 percent of Apple’s total smartphone revenues, meaning that CCTV’s accusations will be important on the long term for the producer.

China accuses Apple through CCTV of storing ‘extremely sensitive data’ which can uncover the entire country’s economic situation, along with state secrets. More precisely, the ‘frequent location’ option is pointed at. The allegation is that even if it is turned off, the iOS 7 service still records data. Apple states on the website that “”This data is kept solely on your device and won’t be sent to Apple without your consent. It will be used to provide you with personalised services, such as predictive traffic routing,”. It is not enough for the Chinese Government, who is worried about potential cyberspying because many American companies have Chinese clients.

Apple is not the only American producer hit by China. Google was not able to provide services to Chinese users for a whole month. The Government even decided to stop using Microsoft Windows on the new governmental computers. Other U.S. companies like Cisco and IBM suffered similar actions, Reuters reports. The importance of online privacy became even greater after Edward Snowden leaked the NSA information last year. Last week it appears that Germany found a CIA spy right in its public institutions, thus concerns regarding the U.S. digital interferences grow larger. China accuses Apple in the midst of a rising wave of discontent regarding American digital politics.