Case of Bubonic Plague in China

China’s Global Times reported that health officials in Bayannur said a farmer as sickened and hospitalized but is in a stable condition.

The city also raised its alert level for bubonic plague illness. Additionally, they told residents to not hunt wild animals, to report any sick or dead marmots and to report any person showing possible signs of infection.

At the moment, the health officials are not considering it a high risk. However, they are watching it and monitoring it carefully.

Reuters reported that the alert level was at its second lowest in a four level system.

According to Reuters, the warning follows four suspected cases of plague in Inner Mongolia last November, including two cases of pneumonic plague.

Anyhow, the authorities banned hunting, skinning and transportation of rodents that might carry the bubonic plague bacteria.

Moreover, last year, a Mongolian couple died from the bubonic plague after eating raw marmot meat.

Over the past year, China has reported five cases of the disease associated with some of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

History of the disease and its symptoms

Bubonic plague is one of three forms of the infectious disease caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, bubonic plague is usually contracted after an infected flea bite.

Furthermore, one to seven days after the exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop.

Symptoms of bubonic plague can include fever, headache, chills, weakness and swollen lymph nodes. The bacteria can spread to other parts of the body if untreated.

Swollen and painful lymph nodes occur in the area closest to where the bacteria entered the skin.

Although tied to historic pandemics like the Black Death, plague illnesses do still occur around the world and in the United States every year, though they are rare.

Since the mid-twentieth century, this is under control.

Several modern antibiotics have significantly lowered plagues’ mortality rate. In addition, vaccines seem to not be very useful for the prevention of this plague.

While plague is entirely unrelated to the new coronavirus, the warning from officials in Bayannur comes as China has gone weeks without reporting a new death from the virus.

However, many are wondering if the worst has truly passed and what if China is manipulating the numbers.

China Coronavirus situation is stabilizing on paper

For the last couple of weeks, the China Coronavirus outbreak has been subdued, judging by the numbers.

Allegedly, China has 82,543 cases in total, and more than 76,964 recovered and a death toll of 3,300 in whole China.

As we all know, the outbreak originally started in China’s Hubei province in Wuhan, in early December 2019.

However, the dices have turned and now the whole world s suffering from vicious coronavirus pandemic. So, the things in China are, reportedly, calming down.

Next week China’s government will allow people to leave Wuhan, and open their work possibilities.

Namely, the U.S. intelligence community created a secret report. Which proposes that China has concealed the proportions of China Coronavirus outbreak.

Furthermore, White House is getting the report that is stating that China’s reporting on cases. And, deaths is purposely incomplete and that numbers are fake.

Finally, Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday that if China had been more forthcoming. The global situation could have been much better.

Why things seem fishy

As China imposed a strict lockdown and cut the people from the outside world. There has been significant suspicion directed at China’s way of reporting numbers – both from the outside and inside the country.

Namely, the Chinese government was continually shiting its methodology for counting cases.

In that light, on one occasion entirely excluding people without symptoms. Which is showing another adding more than 1,500 asymptomatic cases to China Coronavirus total.

Nonetheless, thousands of funeral urns made it to Wuhan. Also, majority of them are by the official China Coronavirus death toll.

However, Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of China’s Global Times, state that secret report is here for the purpose of misleading U.S. citizens. Only for the sole purpose of diverting attention from skyrocketing deaths in the U.S.

Furthermore, it would involve various departments and impeccable coordination among them to cover something as big as the coronavirus.

In that light, Hu said that quick response to China Coronavirus and redirecting medical workers from across the country. That was the key to lessening the death toll.

Anyhow, the world is yet to see the forth comings of the coronavirus. And it is in the global best interest to be as transparent as possible.

Suffice to say, China Coronavirus experience can offer great help in battling this cruel threat. But only if there are unconditional transparency and honesty between the nations.

Based on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop OxygenOS has its own file manager, gestures, design and notification system. OnePlus has released this operating system to make an ecosystem around its devices. OnePlus users will get all the apps and services of this mobile OS pre-installed in their devices.

OnePlus faced issues in the development and launch its OxygenOS because Cyanogen, the organization behind CyanogenMod had given right for a custom Android based OS to another vendor in China. But it seems that OnePlus has sorted out the problem.

OxygenOS is another ROM for OnePlus One phone, but it’s good to see that the new addition of ROM is coming straight from the source.

Download Oxygen OS

It is also reported by a number of news sources that the latest attacks on GitHub were launched by Chinese hackers. The hackers are continuing to evolve and improve their techniques, according to GitHub’s official statement. They are using redirection techniques from two of the most visited pages in China from the China’s search engine Baidu. The first page from where the traffic is being redirected is the New York Time’s Chinese news language pages, whereas the other one is Greatfire.org, an information website which tells about the government censorship in China.

The Wall Street Journal quotes some sources which are now claiming that the attacks are directly coming from the high-level official internet infrastructure within China, which points towards the speculation that the hacking attack is done by government-backed Chinese hackers. Baidu, the Chinese search engine has released a statement, denying the notion that its systems are being used in the GitHub DDos attack.

The external hard drives which could be effected are from famous companies like Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung.

Kaspersky lab blog post said that this sophisticated attack targeted countries like Russia, China, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. The report also claimed that the encryption techniques used by the Equation group had a striking similarity with NSA techniques that were leaked in some documents in 2013.

The lethal firmware malware works in two-pronged fashion. As soon as it gets on the hard drive, it creates sectors and partitions in it which can only be accessed by secret API (application programming interface). Once the malware gets hold, any kind of formatting, partitioning, antivirus scans cannot remove it.

The source said that such kind of sophisticated malware is there in the books but this is the first time it has been practically seen with all its meticulous implementation.

Kaspersky says that most hard drive vendors use ATA commands that are publicly available. These commands and firmware architecture was exploited by the Equation group. The malware is named as ‘Equationdrug’ and ‘GrayFish’.

Xiaomi showcased an event in the US today and said that the company will launch an online store in the US later this year. Hugo Barra, the vice president of Xiaomi and the only man because of which the company went up in the software and hardware domain accepted that Xiaomi will have to go through a lot to challenge Apple on its turf.

Barra is the man behind Android. When He left Google and joined Xiaomi, which was almost nothing at that time (2013), experts were skeptical about the sensibility of Barra’s decision. But within 2 years, Barra’s experience, talent and skills made Xiaomi the juggernaut of cellphone sales in Asia. It’s perfect Apple like hardware and Android like software has imbibed millions of users across the world.

Back in China, Xiaomi business has surged with huge success. It sold 150,000 phones in 10 minutes, shipped 940,000 devices each day in the busy season. But Xiaomi is not even close to Apple when it comes to the US market.

Xiaomi said in a statement that it has no plans to launch its phones in the US for now. It is in talks with the US authorities regarding NFC payment regulations. The move is seen as an attempt to enter the US market and increase adaptation and learn business dynamics of the local market. If Xiaomi could deliver quality products in affordable prices, it could give a tough time to Apple.

According to reports, China has ordered its citizens that users of local and international social media services will have to give their real names and identification data in order to be eligible to use the service. The regulatory authorities have said that in the past, many security breaches were surfaced because of fake social media accounts, in which the culprits were impersonating governmental, law enforcing figures to deceive the public.

A statement issued online by the Chinese authorities said that users will have to make their accounts with real name. However, they can use screen names of their choice, provided that they don’t contain any illicit and unreasonable names. Similarly, profile pictures will also be under check from the Chinese regulatory authorities for the social media.

China has always been a staunch and vehement opponent of social media freedom, blogging and US based social media services. A few months ago, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg went to China and conducted a public meeting where he delivered a talk in Chinese language, an apparent effort to soften up the Chinese authorities for smooth operations of Facebook inside the country. But that effort seems to not have worked.

Sources think that latest move from the Chinese government is a threat to freedom of speech for local platforms. QQ, Weibo’ Tieba are some of the pronounced social media outlets in China. The internet users in China grew by 649 million in 2014, and the government is worried about increasing freedom of speech enjoyed by users on blogs, comments and social media platforms.

The registration process for social media users for giving their real names will start from 1^st March 2015. All those users who don’t comply to this rule will be banned from using social media in China.

Recently, people were asked about the one thing that they disliked about their iPhone 5. Many remarked that it was the battery life. It just did not stand up to high performance usage. Well, the good news is that Apple is doing the right thing for those iPhone’s that were purchased between September 12 2012 and January 2013. Apple will replace your defective iPhone 5 battery for free. What they learned was that a significantly high number of those phones were running out of juice. The iPhone users were simply not getting what they deserved in performance. Check your serial number here to see if you are eligible.

Owners of the iPhone 5 are probably very aware that the product has numerous issues that were very apparent to the users. Unfortunately, the early adopters were the one’s that were first exposed to the iPhone 5s flaws. We all know those early adopters. They are usually the one’s that stand in line for days to get the new gadgets that hit the market. The fact is that the iPhone 5 was only on the market for a year. Apple quickly replaced the smartphone with a better edition, the iPhone 5s. At the time, many new owner’s of the iPhone 5 were wondering why Apple jumped the gun and entered a new smart phone. It was probably due to their expectations concerning the smartphone.

More good news. The iPhone 5 battery replacement is sweeping across the nation and globally. The battery replacement officially started on August 22 in China and the United States. Owner’s of the smartphone should take it to their local Apple dealer or retail store for immediate replacement. One word of advice: Remember to back up all the information on the phone to the cloud. Certainly, owners do not want to lose any of their important data, if something should go wrong during the replacement. Owner’s should jump on board now because Apple will replace your defective iPhone 5 battery for free, and time is running out.

Find out if your iPhone is eligible for battery replacement: Visit Apple.

How I Met Your Racism?

The creators of  “How I Met Your Mother” have apologized after they were accused of causing offense by including a “silly and unabashedly immature” homage to kung fu movies in the show.

During an episode that aired on Monday, Jason Segel’s character travels to China to train with three masters in the art of slapping.  His co-starts were dressed in Asian-themed costumes, which seemed to anger viewers on Twitter.  User’s were using the hashtag #HowIMetYourRacism to show their anger towards the scene.

In a series of posts on Twitter, Bays writes, “Hey guys, sorry this took so long. Craig and I want to say a few words about ?#HowIMetYourRacism… With Monday’s episode, we set out to make a silly and unabashedly immature homage to Kung Fu movies, a genre we’ve always loved … But along the way we offended people. We’re deeply sorry, and we’re grateful to everyone who spoke up to make us aware of it … We try to make a show that’s universal, that anyone can watch and enjoy. We fell short of that this week, and feel terrible about it … To everyone we offended, I hope we can regain your friendship, and end this series on a note of goodwill. Thanks.”

I looked for the video on YouTube but couldn’t find it. Here’s CNN’s video about the incident below.  I’m sure they took the video off YouTube and radio stations by now. Any videos up there just show an image and people talk over it so don’t bother trying to look!

The image above is of Cheng Jianping, 46, who was sentenced to hard labor in China for a Twitter message (retweet actually) that she posted.

Question – how do you know you live in a communist regime?

Answer, when you get sentenced to “education through hard labor” for a message you tweet.

That’s exactly what happened to Cheng Jianping, 46, when she retweeted a message that her soon to be husband posted on Twitter which read, “Anti-Japanese demonstrations, smashing Japanese products, that was all done years ago by Guo Quan [an activist and expert on the Nanjing Massacre]”. And also, “t’s no new trick. If you really wanted to kick it up a notch, you’d immediately fly to Shanghai to smash the Japanese expo pavilion.”

And then Cheng Jianping retweeted the message with this:

Charge, angry youth.

So the Chinese government decided to step in and squash this online movement of pro-democratic banter.  And hard labor for Ms. Jianping is the sentence.

Well none of this sat well with Twitter’s CEO because he sent out his own tweet to the Chinese government that reads:

“Dear Chinese Government, year-long detentions for sending a sarcastic tweet are neither the way forward nor the future of your great people,” Costolo posted on Twitter.

via LA Times

Something that hasn’t happened in nearly 30 years in North Korea is supposedly underway. With Kim Jong-il’s health deteriorating, the ruling elite of North Korea have made a call to select new leadership. The meeting of the Workers’ Party (WPK) will be asked to appoint new leadership and likely anoint an heir, most likely Kim’s youngest son, to the ruling dynasty of North Korea.

The meeting is expected to take place sometime between September 1st and the 15th, although no solid date is being reported.

South Korea, China, the United States and Japan will all be watching for clues as to how the transfer of power proceeds in a country with a military-first policy and enough fissile material for at least six to eight nuclear weapons.

via Reuters

In a move that seems more like “controlling the population” than it does about selling cell phones, the Chinese government today ruled that anyone in China purchasing a cell phone will be required to have an ID. Some people may see this as China’s efforts to crack down on spam and other criminal activity with a cell phone. However, most see this as a way to easily track down dissidents, protesters, and anyone else that might oppose the Communist government.

What do you think about China now requiring an ID to purchase a cell phone?

via Gizmodo

It’s quite possible that with the exception of the United States, China holds the most lucrative market for Apple products – especially when that product is the iPad.

On Monday, China’s Caixin Media announced that China Unicom, China’s second largest mobile phone carrier, has won the rights to sell the iPad in the China market, both the Wi-Fi and 3G versions of the iPad.

This follows right on the heels of China Unicom announcing they will be selling the iPhone 4 starting in early September.

China Unicom is wasting no time capitalizing on this new found favor with  Wi-Fi policies and selling Wi-Fi enabled products in the Communist country. Last week, China Unicom started selling the iPhone 3GS Wi-Fi (no 3G) version and was sold out on the very first day.

The Chinese government has previously placed restrictions on mobile Internet access which prevented companies like Apple, and carriers like China Unicom, to enter the high end data device and mobile Internet market. In fact, China restricted the use of any device that was capable of Wi-Fi radio.

These restrictions have been lifted by the Chinese government, and now Apple, China Unicom, and anyone else that can profit from the mobile Internet, are moving quickly to capitalize on this new market freedom.

I think this is also a reflection of how the political landscape is changing in China and how they Chinese government is realizing the benefits of a more open market system. It was announced earlier this week China is now the second largest economy in the world, bumping Japan down to the third position and of course, the United States stands at number one.

via Fortune, Caing

On Monday it was reported that China has passed Japan as the second largest economy in the world, behind the United States. China’s economy is growing so quickly that some experts believe they will actually surpass the United States to become the number one economy globally by the year 2013.

China’s economy is reportedly valued at about $1.33 trillion, and on Monday Tokyo said that Japan’s economy was valued at approximately $1.28 trillion.  The United States gross domestic product was valued at approximately $14 trillion in 2009.

So how has China risen to such an economic powerhouse? Aren’t they a Communist country and isn’t capitalism suppose to be supreme? I don’t really understand this to be completely honest with you.

Just five years ago, China’s gross domestic product was about $2.3 trillion, about half of Japan’s. So in the last 5 years alone, they have caught up with, and surpassed Japan’s gross domestic product.

Again, I don’t get it…

And yet while the United States and European Union are struggling in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, China’s economy rages ahead.

Can someone help me out here with this…

source: New York Times

Tiger Woods’ golf game is spiraling out of control.

Currently, Woods is #78 out of 80 players at Bridgestone, and finds himself looking at the worst PGA performance in his career.

Tiger Woods has been ranked #1 golfer in the world for the past 269 weeks and for a total of 611 in his career.

According to CBS Sports, Tiger Woods will earn one FedEx Cup point this week, as it looks at this point, and he will fall to 114th place in total points.

This position will only allow Woods entrance into the first of the four events in the playoff series.

But don’t rule out Woods’ just yet – he could very easily catch on fire and make a big move into the top 100.

What if he doesn’t?

This might sound shocking to you, but if Tiger Woods doesn’t move into the top 100 then he won’t be eligible to play at the Deutsche Bank Championship, a tournament that benefits and is largely run by his personal charity.

WHAT…. WOW!

What Tiger Woods is looking at realistically is playing as few as three more events on the PGA Tour this year. Next week he’ll be in the PGA at Whistling Straits, of course the FedEx opener, and he has committed to playing in the HSBC Champions event in China in November.

So what is the world is happening to Tiger Woods?

Is his golf game falling apart because of his the drama in his personal life?

OAK BROOK, Ill. (June  4, 2010) McDonald’s USA is recalling an estimated 12 million “Shrek Forever After” promotional drinking glasses after learning the designs on the cups contained cadmium, a known carcinogen.

McDonald’s began selling the 16-ounce glasses May 21. After collaborating with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the fast-food company determined “in an abundance of caution” that a recall was necessary, even though an independent laboratory determined the glasses to be nontoxic and in compliance with all federal and state requirements for levels of cadmium in manufactured products.

“When the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission approached McDonald’s about cadmium in their current movie-themed drinking glasses, the company responded quickly, agreed to cooperate fully and acted on the side of caution,” said Scott Wolfson, the CPSC’s director of the Office of Information and Public Affairs. “The glasses have far less cadmium than the children’s metal jewelry that CPSC has previously recalled.”

In January, CPSC led a recall of children’s jewelry manufactured in China and sold in such American retailers as Walmart and Dollar N More. Those products had replaced typical lead with as much as 91 percent cadmium, which also is found in cigarette smoke and has been linked to certain kidney and lung ailments.

McDonald’s will begin posting instructions June 8 on a special microsite, www.mcdonalds.com/glasses, for how customers can return the Shrek glasses and obtain a refund. Concerned customers also may call (800) 244-6227 for more information.

“McDonald’s has a longstanding, cooperative relationship with the CPSC and continues to follow their lead as testing protocols and new scientific information become available,” the company said in a statement.

No other promotional glassware is involved in the recall, McDonald’s said.

Oak Brook-based McDonald’s operates or franchises more than 14,000 quick-service restaurants in the United States.

Contact Mark Brandau at mbrandau@nrn.com.

Read more: http://www.nrn.com/breakingNews.aspx?id=383576&menu_id=1368#ixzz0q1nW5chq

Up until now, the only Blackberry services that were available in China were through China’s number one mobile carrier, China Mobile Ltd. China Mobile already has teamed up with Research In Motion, the maker of Blackberry, and is delivering models for enterprise users in the China market.

Today, China Telecom Co Ltd, China’s largest fixed-line operator, announced that it will be entering the Blackberry market for enterprise users in 16 Chinese provinces this month, according to a Reuters report.

Sources said earlier that the new BlackBerry for China features a touch-screen and push mail functions and that sales will begin in July.

Source: China Knowledge News

Ever ride around town and see the billboards with the picture of the Cigarette Butt fairie?  The ad states, if you think there’s a cigarette butt fairie that goes around picking up cigarette butts, think again.

I’ve come to traffic lights and while waiting for the light to change, I’ve noticed the tons of cigarette butts lining the side of the road.  I’ve always thought, if I could come up with a use for them, I would be rich.

Well, as usual, I waited too long.

In a paper published in the American Chemical Society’s bi-weekly journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the scientists in China said they identified nine chemicals after immersing cigarette butts in water.

Chemical extracts from cigarette butts — so toxic they kill fish — can be used to protect steel pipes from rusting, the Chinese study has found.  According to the paper, 4.5 trillion cigarette butts find their way into the environment each year. Apart from being an eyesore, they contain toxins that can kill fish.

The scientist applied the extracts from the butts to N80, a type of steel used in oil pipes, and found that they protected the steel from rusting.

“The metal surface can be protected and the iron atom’s further dissolution can be prevented,” they wrote. The chemicals, including nicotine, appear to be responsible for this anti-corrosion effect, they added.

China, which has 300 million smokers, is the world’s largest smoking nation and it consumes a third of the world’s cigarettes. Nearly 60 percent of men in China smoke, puffing an average of 15 cigarettes per day.

NASDAQ:AAPL – Apple Stock Up, China Unicom Subsidizing iPhone 3G

Executives of wireless carrier China Unicom – CHU2.05, +0.08, +0.67 – have outlined plans to subsidize the purchase of iPhones and other 3G handsets. Their comments were made at China Unicom’s annual shareholder meeting, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Prior to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) officially launching the popular iPhone in the China market, there was already a black market for the iPhone that was thriving. The people of China were tired of waiting for the government to tell them when they can purchase the iPhone, so a black market was formed, and the demand was being met.

But Apple officially launched the iPhone in China and experienced explosive sales upon that initial launch. Apple executives had this to say about launching the iPhone in the China market:

If you look at greater China which we define as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the iPhone units were up year-over-year over 9 times. We added another 800 points of distribution in China. The revenue, we have never released this number before but I will do this in this particular case, through the first half of the fiscal year that we just completed for the six month period our revenue from greater China was almost $1.3 billion and this is up over 200% year-over-year. So we are well pleased with how the company is positioned to take advantage of the growth in greater China.

NASDAQ:AAPL – Apple shares up on China Unicom news

Now whether or not we can attribute Apple share prices to the China Unicom announcement of subsidizing iPhone purchases is up for debate because the NASDAQ as a whole is up as well (NASDAQ – up 1.94% – 2,421.41).

But Apple shares are definitely on the upward swing trading currently at 262.15, up +5.63 (2.19%).

What do you think?

Do you think that Apple shares are up because of the news from China Unicom, or are Apple shares simply following the overall NASDAQ index?

Aoi Sola Writes To Fans in China

Japanese adult video star Aoi Sola (苍井空) has been on the minds of Chinese netizens, lately more than ever, because her Twitter account was discovered by Chinese users a few days ago, causing a new wave of interestin Twitter which is blocked in China. Aoi’s “follows” soared by the thousands as she replied via Twitter and thanked her Chinese fans (see earlier Danwei story).

On April 15, Aoi Sola updated her Chinese blog with a piece for her Chinese fans, translated by a “friend from the Internet:”

Here’s the complete blog update translated into English:

To all Aoi fans in China
Hello everyone, I am Aoi Sola. If you don’t mind, you can call me “Xiao Kong” (小空: Sola, そら is written as Kong in Chinese).

First of all I need to thank the fans who have tweeted about me on Twitter, as well as those who visited my blog. Thank you for all your support.

Usually I update my personal blog in Chinese by using a translation tool (often Chinese netizens tell me that the Chinese reads weirdly). So this time I asked a netizen to help me translate this into Chinese, in order to express my thanks to all my Chinese fans in a clearer way.

The “Twitter incident” has caused reverberations in China and Japan. Speaking truthfully, this was a little unexpected, even for me.

Speaking “without modesty,” I know that there are some Aoi fans in Asia. But when I directly faced the figures on Twitter, I could hardly hide my surprise. Thanks everybody for tweeting about me.

Recently, I’ve been learning English on and off, sometimes I would use English when I’m tweeting. But learning a foreign language is so hard. It seems that going to an English Language School might be better for me, what can I do － English is the international language after all.

I also tried to learn some basic Chinese (for example, “What would you like to drink 想喝点什么,” “I know some basic Mandarin 我会说一些简单的普通话,” “Are you Chinese? 你是中国人吗?”). Because I listened to a CD, I can only talk, not read or write. If I have the opportunity to lean Chinese properly I will, because “Xiao Kong” has so many Aoi fans in China.

We can communicate in this way over the mountains and seas － times really have changed. I’m feeling old (laughs). Though I can’t reply to everyone who has tweeted about me, I will continue to pay attention to the people who are posting about it.

I hope that everyone will continue to follow my normal life through Twitter and my blog. I am a little worried about how I am perceived in the eyes of my Chinese fans. I want to announce first that after you have read these portals, your idea of “Xiao Kong” may be damaged, so you need to prepare yourself mentally. (Laughs)

As for “Xiao Kong,” rumors about her don’t end, at any point endless sadness and pain can suddenly arrive. Even if I went to the other side of the sea, this would not change. But, every time I think about Aoi fans abroad and their support, I am comforted. “Comfort,” maybe happiness is the right word. Really, thank you everyone.

It’s been 9 years since I first stepped out, I feel very lucky to have persisted for so long, and to have so many fans. I feel my hard work hasn’t been wasted. Thank you for your support over the years. At the same time, I hope everyone will support me like they always have, and care about me, whether it’s AV actress Aoi Sola, or that ordinary person who exists in real life － “Xiao Kong.”

When will I be able to meet my Chinese fans? To hold a fan club meeting in China? It sounds like a good idea, and worthy of my anticipation! When the time comes, remember to come and show your support!

Thank you. (I wrote this myself, in Japanese)

*Aoi Sola*

iPhone Sales in China Are Booming Despite Black Market

Get live stock price updates on Apple at Google Finance > (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Before the iPhone “officially” hit the China market, there was already a booming iPhone market taking well underway.

The iPhone black market in China has always been booming, practically from day one the iPhone debut. The problem has been, however, that the Chinese government refused entry of the iPhone into the China market place.

No problem with that decision however, because the iPhone black market in China has been exploding.

The legitimate iPhone market is now exploding as well

Apparently there are a lot of people in China that are wanting to live ethically when it comes to doing business. And because of that conviction, the benefactor has clearly been Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).

As was reported in Apple’s earnings yesterday, 8.752 million iPhones Apple sold in Q2 2010 beat Wall Street’s estimates by 25% to 30% — or nearly 2 million phones.

Where did those sales come from? A big chunk of them, it seems, came from China, according to CNN Money.  Listen to this exchange between Barclay’s Ben Reitzes and Apple COO Tim Cook during Tuesday’s earnings call with analysts:

Reitzes:
Did China meet your expectations?
Cook:
China has been interesting. If you look at greater China which we define as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the iPhone units were up year-over-year over 9 times. We added another 800 points of distribution in China. The revenue, we have never released this number before but I will do this in this particular case, through the first half of the fiscal year that we just completed for the six month period our revenue from greater China was almost $1.3 billion and this is up over 200% year-over-year. So we are well pleased with how the company is positioned to take advantage of the growth in greater China. (Transcript: Seeking Alpha)

NASDAQ:GOOG – Google Stock News

Executive at Google China leaves for Baidu

Today,  a Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) executive in China has left the company to take a position at the “China domestic” rival search engine Baidu Inc. (Public,NASDAQ:BIDU), according to the Financial Times website on Friday.

Baidu said Wang Jing had joined the search engine as a vice president in charge of engineering, however, Google is claiming that Wang quit his position as engineering director earlier this month.

It is the first known move by a senior Google employee to Baidu since the U.S.-based company’s March 23 decision to shift Chinese search functions to its Hong Kong Web site, where it isn’t required to self-censor results. Baidu is the No. 1 search provider in China.

Google stock price has been getting hammered since yesterday when Google announced their quarterly earnings. Despite coming in ahead of analyst estimates, Google stock (NASDAQ:GOOG) is down nearly 8% right now in after hours trading.

Tax Day Freebies 2010 – Your Complete Guide

April 15th doesn’t need to be such a stressed filled day!

Yes, we all know that you need to have your taxes in the mail today, but there are a lot reasons to be excited about getting out and around town today as well.

How about all of the tax day freebies you can take advantage of?

Tax Day Freebies 2010 – Your Complete Guide

Here’s a comprehensive list of tax day freebies that you can find in your town:

Starbucks . Here’s a tax day freebie that is also good for the environment. If you bring a reusable mug to any Starbucks on April 15th, they will fill it with a free cup of coffee.

P.F. Chang’s. The China bistro is giving all customers a 15% discount on their entire food order on April 15^th. No coupons needed- just show up or place your order online.

Cinnabon . The Cinnabon chain is offering free “Tax Day Bites”. From 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on April 15th, customers will receive two mini cupcakes. These look good!

Maggie Moo’s. On April 15^th, customers at participating locations of the Maggie Moo’s ice cream chain will receive a free sample of their new “MaggieMia’s Ice Cream Pizza” from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Boston Market. This deal is good from April 15^th to April 18^th. But one plate of food and get one free with this coupon.

Also, April 15^th is the day to check local eateries , pizza shops and stores for tax day deals. Some locations of

McDonald’s , Chick Fil A, Dunkin Donuts and Subway may be offering buy one-get one free deals. Local shops and boutiques may also be offering tax day discounts. It may be worthwhile to call local businesses before you head out today.

Of course, while all this free food sounds good, if you haven’t filed your taxes yet make sure you do that before midnight tonight.

Sources:

Associated Content

When it comes to the mobile phone revolution, I’ve shared my thoughts on how I believe that Google is the company who is leading the way – at least as far as companies are concerned.

But did you realize that China was actually subsidizing 3G mobile phones through the government ran organization called China Unicom?

Who is China Unicom?

From Wikipedia, “China Unicom was founded as a Government-owned corporation, established on July 19, 1994, by the Ministry of Information Industry and approved by the State Council.

Started as a wireless paging and GSM mobile operator, it currently provides a wide range of services including nationwide GSM mobile network, long-distance, local calling, data communication, Internet services and IP telephony in mainland China, and has operated a CDMAnetwork in Macau since 18 October 2006. As of the end of April 2008, the company had 125 million GSM subscribers and 43 million CDMA subscribers.

As of November 2008 the CDMA operations have been moved to China Telecom and UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) has just launched in major cities across China on May 17, 2009.

Compared to other mobile providers China Unicom is ranked as the world’s third-biggest mobile provider. On 7 January, 2009, China Unicom was awarded WCDMA license to expand its business to 3G telecommunication.

China Subsidizing 3G Mobile Phones

From a ChinaBizNow.com report on March 30, 2010, China Unicom will increase its subsidies for 3G mobile phones, and put on sale low-price 3G models in order to carry out its scheduled plan for attracting more 3G users, reporters learned from China Unicom on March 28, 2010.

Substantial subsides became the main means by which China’s three major mobile operators (namely China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom) attracted 3G users in 2009.

With China subsidizing 3G mobile phones, this is another indication that we are in the midst of a mobile phone revolution. China’s government clearly sees the economic benefit of 3G mobile phone access. The more people there are on 3G mobile phones, the easier it is for businesses to advertise to customers. And with more ads reaching people who are mobile, then the more business revenue will be generated.

Will Google eventual subsidize the Nexus One?

I’ve written before about how I thought, when Google was about to announce their Nexus One mobile phone, I said that I wouldn’t be surprised if the phone would be 100% free.

I truly believed that Google was going to subsidize the Nexus One in exchange for putting a faster mobile phone into more people’s hands.

And in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Google begins moving their business model in that direction.

Just remember, when Google does start offering mobile phones for free, remember that you heard it here first!

Is Google leaving China as soon as next month?

There is a rumor spreading on the web that Google will be exiting the China market as soon as April.  The meltdown started with Google’s servers were hacked from people in China, and that incident only fueled more anger over the fact that China would censor Google’s search results.

So because of these two major issues, Google has been speculating leaving the China market altogether.  Basically Google refuses to have a search engine with censored results – and I have to agree with Google, I wouldn’t want that either.

Engadget broke the news and you can read more about it here.

Google Hits Impasse in China

The efforts to find common ground in China over Google censoring their search results seems to be coming to an abrupt end.  China is simply unwilling to allow Google to display search results that are not censored. This decision by China is about to cost the country the use of Google altogether.

From eTaiwanNews.com:

Google, the US-based search giant, is “99.9%” sure to withdraw its service from China over the negotiation impasse concerning website censorship, according to a local report. The China government noted on Mar 12 that there is no concession over the censorship issue in order to retain the internationally-known company.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt noted on Mar 10 that Google’s negotiation with China over news censorship and hack attacks will be soon to come to an end despite lack of clear timetable at a media conference in Abudhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

“We are no longer willing to censor our search results in China, and we are currently reviewing our options,” Google vice president and deputy general counsel Nicole Wong said in her testimony before the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

“If the option is that we’ll shutter our .cn operation and leave the country, we are prepared to do that,” said Wong

The image above shows the beginning phases of construction on the Google China headquarters.

However, construction on the facility has ceased due to Google getting hacked by people in China, and also directly over the issue of China demanding Google to censor their search results.

Google is nearly 99.9% sure they will be existing the China market.

But now China Unicom is working with Apple to finally launch a Wi-Fi version of the iPhone, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Due to a relaxation of rules, devices sold in China can offer Wi-Fi as long as they also include WAPI.

Speaking with reporters at the National People’s Congress, Unicom Chairman Chang Xiaobing said Saturday that the change in regulations has opened the door for a new iPhone with built-in Wi-Fi, the Journal reported.

READ MORE HERE

According to Wired.com, “the giant California-based chip maker was rumored to have been among some 34 companies that were targeted, but said on Tuesday there was no evidence to tie its hack to the attack on Google and others.”

You see, when someone like Google gets hacked in a place like China, it sets off a whole string of diplomatic events – no wait… diplomatic grenades – on issues like data security, and even open trade agreements with China.  These issues of data security, open and free trade, and human rights issues in China are all brought to light when a company like Google gets hacked.  Obviously Google, nor the United States, appreciates events like this.

According to CNET.com,  the U.S. government plans to ask China for a formal explanation regarding the cyberattacks against Google and other U.S. companies, according to a State Department spokesman.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had already hinted at such a move in a statement she released when Google first revealed the attacks. “We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days, probably early this week,” AFP quoted State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley as saying during a briefing Friday.

This will be a very interesting story to follow indeed, with huge implications both for China, Google, and the United States – not to mention all the sub categories under those big three that will be affected, like trade, human rights, technology trading, etc… not to mention the least, the fact that the Chinese people aren’t going to benefit from the Google’s Android mobile OS.

And like I mentioned already, just today Google announced that they are postponing the release of two of their Android phones.  This is going to be really bad for the Chinese market place, and for the government.  Inevitably, the Chinese people will turn to the black market, just like they did and are doing with the iPhone.

A currently trending topic on Twitter is #GoogleCN.  This represents Google China, the search engine’s translation for Chinese speaking users.

Check out Google Chine here.

Here’s a screen shot of Twitter’s #googlecn trending topic right now:

The word on Twitter is that Google is contemplating existing the Chinese market due to recent attacks on the Gmail platform.  Also, Google faces a lot of uphill battles in China regarding “open content sharing”, “data indexing and archiving”, and slew of other political issues.

One person on Twitter said that according to what he understand of the Chinese language, people are tweeting that flowers are right now being brought to Google’s headquarters in Chine.

It’s an interesting story, and we’ll see what happens throughout the day.