The red machine

In his fascinating account of the Chinese communist Party, Richard McGregor describes a particular telephone found on the desk of a few and select Chinese: the red machine.

The devices are part of an encrypted, closed system connecting the 300 or so top party officials who run China. They are also given to the CEOs of the 50-or-so largest state-owned enterprises, ensuring that top management does get out of touch with the Party’s leadership.

As a sign of the times, in some large state-owned enterprises another artefact sits next to the antiquitated device: a screen giving the stockprice of the firm’s overseas listed entities!

Of religion and rail

It was a done deal: China Railway Construction (CRC) had been awarded the construction of the metro rail project to transport pilgrims between Mecca and Mina.

As with any major infrastructure projects there tend to be surprises. For instance the monorail project has been transformed into a conventional steel-wheel, steel-rail design. More importantly though, CRC will have to deal with a peculiar challenge: Mecca is off-limits to non-Muslims.

The traditional business model for the Chinese overseas infrastructure projects rests on importing [cheap] Chinese labor. While hiring non-qualified labor shouldn’t pose too much of a problem, the trick will be, according to one of the contractors “to find qualified Muslim railway engineers to supervise the work – at least for the restricted area”.

Since there is no exception to the rule, this maybe the time to set up an engineering school in Xinjiang!

Get ready for .中国

Now that Arabic Internet addresses have become the first non-Latin characters top-level domain names one should soon expect to see Chinese follow suit.

In fact, this makes sense. More than 800 million Internet users use languages with scripts that are not Latin-based. There is also no reason that the content of a website could be in a particular language and not its domain name.

Let’s see if this socio-technical change corrects one of the great imbalance of our time: Arabic accounts for 1% of all web content though its estimated 280 million speakers constitute 5% of the global population.

P.S.: It will be interesting to see whether China applies for both simplified and traditional Chinese characters…

Giant Panda Genome Sequencing

The January 2010 issue of Nature features the results of the giant panda sequencing. More than 120 researchers scattered across the world are credited with the first reported de novo assembly of a large mammalian genome achieved using next-generation sequencing methods.

The research was conducted on Jinging — the female Beijing Olympics mascot. The genome consists of some 2.4 billion DNA base pairs. The high genomic diversity found in the sequence offers encouraging signs for keeping the species from extinction – only 2500 giants panda survive. The research has also uncovered that the panda has all the genes needed for a carnivorous digestive system but lacks digestive cellulase genes. Taste may also be a diet-limiting factor – pandas may not experience the umami taste associated with high-protein foods. In other words, the bamboo diet might be more dependent on its gut microbiome than its own genetic composition.

The researchers hope that, beside having now a better understanding of the Panda, their work will promote the construction of reference sequences for other animal and plant genomes in an efficient and cost-effective way.

Top 10 Internet Phrases in China

1. Money is not a problem
2. What brother is smoking is not a cigarette, but loneliness!
3. Jia Junpeng – your mother wants you to go home to have some food
4. Life is like a tea table – with bitter cups placed all over it
5. Don’t be obsessed with brother – He is only a legend
6. My debts of gratitude have been repaid with my body
7. What makes you unhappy – Tell us to make us happy
8. You are left behind the times
9. Lei Feng does good without seeking recognition, but he records everything in his diary
10. This matter cannot be explained in detail

Explanations for these phrases can be found at: http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20091230_1.htm

Obamao on the Internet

There has been a flury of creativity on the Internet in the wake of Obama’s visit to China. Click here for some of these “revolutionary” images.

Client Internet Censorhsip (CIC)

Internet censorship may reach new levels in China! According to the Wall Street Journal the government plans to require that all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 2009 be shipped with software that blocks access to certain Web sites. The usual argument is put forard: protecting young people from “harmful” content.

It seems that for now some uncertainty remains as whether the software has to be pre-installed or whether it can be shipped by CD afterwards – making enforcement of the plan rather difficult since tracking sales of PCs isn’t that easy.

The software is called “Green Dam Youth Escort” – green means free of pornography and other illegal content.

Chinese Virtual Worlds

An interesting report about online communities in China, Asia and the world has been released by +8* (commissioned by the EU-China Information Society Project).

We learn that Chinese second generation virtual worlds have taken a particular approach:

• connection with social networks
• in-browser 3D chat
• interest from online gaming companies

The report also identifies several technology trends:

• use of web browser rather than softwre client
• integration of social features
• 3D spread
• potential challenge from open-source virtual world platforms
• content interoperability

Chinese viral art

A painting entitled “Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante” by Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi, and Zhang An (2006, oil on canvas) has been spreading across the Internet for quite some time.

By clicking on the image, you can now put a name on all the faces.

100 billion+

The combined revenue from China telecommunication operators passed the USD 100 billion bar in 2008, representing a year-on-year growth of 7%. Revenue from mobile services increased 15.1% (to USD 65 billion) while fixed local and long-distance dropped by 8.5% and 15.8% respectively.

Now that China Telecom acquired a mobile licence, one can expect the switch-or-leapfrog to mobile to happen even faster!