Google blocked in China?

Google has apparently fallen afoul of Chinese authorities, with the site and related services seemingly being blocked in their entirety across China as of today.

Google is, apparently, no longer available in China.

What seems to be happening, somewhat surprisingly, is that Chinese authorities are blocking Google’s search engine and other services, including Gmail, Maps and cloud document storage, bringing to a head a conflict that has been brewing since 2009. The blockage was initially noticed by Google, with its Transparency Report website logging a suspicious drop in web traffic in China earlier today. According to Google, the sudden drop was so significant that it was initially believed that something had perhaps gone wrong technically, but a spokesperson told reporters that “we’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end.”

According to Greatfire.org, a site that tracks Internet activity and access in the region, Google and affiliated sites and services have been blocked by authorities, with attempts to reach Google-related sites being re-routed to different sites located in Korea. A spokeswoman for the Chinese consulate in New York, however, told Bloomberg Businessweek that she had not been informed of any such move, and referred all future inquiries to Beijing, where offices were closed due to time zone differences and all attempts to get confirmation went unanswered.

This isn’t the first time that Google services have been blocked by the Chinese authorities; the company’s YouTube has actually been entirely unavailable since 2009 following conflicts over content, and other services have been taken on- and offline on irregular bases in recent years. Two years ago, Google moved its Chinese search engine facilities to Hong Kong after a disagreement with authorities around cyber-attacks that may have originated in China.

Google actually addressed the problems with occasional outages of service in a blog post on the Official Google Search Blog earlier this year, writing that “over the past couple years, we’ve had a lot of feedback that Google Search from mainland China can be inconsistent and unreliable,” and noting that after investigating the complaints, “we’ve noticed that these interruptions are closely correlated with searches into a particular subset of queries.” The response at the time was to add a new feature that would warn users if a particular search was likely to trigger censorship action by Internet watchdogs, something that undoubtedly did little to please Chinese authorities.

This latest, and seemingly blanket, blockage of Google services happens just as Chinese authorities convene the 18th Chinese Communist Party Congress, a grand meeting that occurs once ever decade and started on Thursday of this week, with more than 2,000 Communist party delegates from across China meeting in Beijing with a mission to appoint a new generation of leaders. Whether or not the timing is a coincidence or some particular attempt to crackdown on what are deemed subversive online behavior during this time remains to be seen.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

iPad mini mockup pictures leak from Vietnam, look almost like the real deal

A new iPad mockup has appeared in Vietnam courtesy of a China-based accessories company, which obviously uses the mockups to create various smart covers and cases.

According to the source, the iPad mini will feature a 7.85″ 4:3 aspect ratio display and two speakers at the bottom. The Lightning connector is naturally featured here too.

iPad mini model

Although we can’t really be sure if the mockups are credible they do give us a placeholder in our minds of what the iPad mini could be.

The display doesn’t seem all that realistic given the super-sized icons but it is just a model and not the real deal.

There’s a home button under the display (in portrait mode), a camera on the back, and a volume control key and volume rocker, all of which make the supposed iPad mini a classic-looking iPad.

iPad mini model

Not long time left until October 23 now. Excited?

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

DT Daily: iPhone 5 sales, Foxconn riot, Megaupload comeback

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September 24, 2012

• DT Daily Syndication

Apple sells 5 million iPhone 5s, a riot breaks out at a Foxconn plant in China, Megaupload prepares for a comeback, Toyota scraps plans for a wide release of electric cars, and Facebook comes under fire over its new advertising network.

Related Links:

• Apple sold a disappointing 5 million iPhone 5 units in three days
• Riot breaks out at Foxconn plant, 40 injured [video]
• Megaupload Readies for Comeback, Code 90% Done
• Toyota drops plan for widespread sales of electric car
• Facebook raises fears with ad tracking

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Riot breaks out at Foxconn plant, 40 injured [video]

A riot involving thousands of workers and police has caused the temporary shutdown of a Foxconn plan in northern China.

A riot broke out late Sunday night at a Foxconn plant in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan. The impromptu protest involved more than 2,000 workers and 5,000 police, according to official Chinese government reports. The clash is said to have lasted about four hours, and around 40 people were injured. Three people were in serious condition.

A report from Chinese website TechWeb said that “at least” 10 people had died as a result of the massive brawl. However, a statement from Foxconn obtained by The Next Web said that “no employee deaths related to the incident” had occurred.

The Foxconn plant, which according to an undercover report produces back covers for Apple’s iPhone 5, among many other components for major electronics companies that include Sony, Nokia, and others, has been temporarily shut down while authorities investigate the cause of the upheaval. Foxconn has refused to officially confirm that Apple components are made at the Taiyuan factory.

Reports from Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, said that the clash began after a fight broke out in a factory dormitory between two workers from different Chinese provinces.

“The cause of this dispute is under investigation by local authorities and we are working closely with them in this process, but it appears not to have been work-related,” said Foxconn in a statement.

The exact cause and other details of the protest are difficult to know, as China retains notoriously tight control of its media and social networks. As Engadget reports, information about the riot posted to Chinese social network Sina Weibo has already been deleted, presumably at the hand of the Chinese government.

Video and photos posted to Sina showed broken windows and other destruction. One highly cited video, posted to Chinese video sharing site YouKu, has been removed.

Foxconn employs about 1 million people in China. The Taiyuan alone has 79,000 workers, according to Foxconn.

Foxconn has repeatedly made headlines for poor working conditions and brutal treatment of its employees. In 2010, at least 13 people committed suicide at Foxconn plants. The company later installed “suicide nets” in employee dormitories in an attempt to prevent further deaths.

“Foxconn is known to have a very authoritarian management style and discipline is very strict,” said Geoffrey Crothall, a spokesman for the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, in a statement to AFP. “When you have a working environment like Foxconn where workers are treated simply as units of production, essentially robots, not human beings… then sometimes violence is the only way out [and] you see minor disputes escalating into violence.”

Similar incidents of worker outrage broke out in January and June of this year at other Foxconn plants.

Watch a video of the Taiyuan incident below:

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Saab’s “Phoenix platform” rises from the ashes

The bankrupt Swedish car company's last new design could form the basis of a partnership between former owner Spyker and China's Youngman.

The story of Saab, enigmatic Swedish carmaker and bane of Kurt Vonnegut, is starting to sound like a soap opera, mixed with a zombie movie. After the company went bankrupt in 2011, its remains were purchased by an Asian conglomerate, which plans to produce electric cars under the National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) brand. Now, Saab’s former owner, Dutch boutique carmaker Spyker, and a Chinese firm are making their own bid for some of Saab’s remains.

That Chinese firm is none other than Youngman, the same company that tried to buy Saab from Spyker before General Motors nixed the deal. Spyker and Youngman may not have the Saab trademark, but they do have the company’s last design. The appropriately-named “Phoenix” platform could underpin a new Dutch-Chinese car in the near future.

“Since the regretful demise of Saab in 2011, we have been investigating the possibilities to continue our cooperation with Youngman,” Victor Muller, CEO of Spyker and former CEO of Saab, said in a press release. “With this framework agreement, Youngman and Spyker lay the foundation for an intense cooperation whereby we will pursue the objectives we each had in mind when forging our cooperation as partners in Saab.”

Under a joint venture called Spyker Phoenix B.V., the two companies hope to build a range of premium cars based on the Phoenix platform, which was supposed to form the basis for nearly all future Saabs. Spyker will do most of the engineering work and sell the cars under its brand name.

However, Spyker does not own the Phoenix; it lost the rights to all of Saab’s designs after the latter was sold to the NEVS conglomerate. That’s where Youngman comes in. In addition to providing the venture with cash, Youngman still has a non-exclusive license for the Phoenix platform. The Chinese company took the license as collateral when it loaned Saab money in 2011. That loan was obviously never repaid. S

till, NEVS technically owns the Phoenix platform, and it might not like seeing another car with its design driving around. In his statement, Muller said that, whether NEVS pays off Saab’s debts or not, the license granted to Youngman would still be valid. He added that Spyker Phoenix may try to purchase the platform outright if the opportunity arises.

If the deal does fall through, Youngman and Spyker will still have a joint venture. Under Spyker P2P B.V., the two companies will work together to launch Spyker’s ultra-luxury SUV, the D8 Peking-to-Paris, which was supposed to debut in 2009. Youngman will provide the cash needed to get the D8 into production.

Saab may be gone, but its cars may live on under the NEVS and Spyker banners. Like seeing a beloved friend resurrected as a zombie, it might be too much for the Saab faithful to bear.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com