MacBook Pro: the fastest Windows Vista laptop

This is amazing!
I love this sentence the most
"Apple couldn't care less whether you run Windows"
for original article please visit this page.

yup!

We are looking at Leopard now... Don't know what MS is going to learn this time about for their new OS. =p

Cool stuff...

Facebook GUI change: minor

while surfing Facebook, i found this out...
the icon for removing notification has changed. It used to be a small "x".
Now it is a different sign more like "no" something. ha ha...
because it looks like this.



Also there is "received" and "sent by me" on the right panel.

= ) pretty interesting... though I seldom delete the notification, it looks pretty interesting to see the changes. I wonder why there is a need to change that icon?

maybe we can foresee a large roll out of icon changes in a bit. =p

Gmail 2.0

Creating buzz or what?
Google is rolling out Gmail 2.0.

key improvement
1. must faster
2. better contact management
3. small changes here and there

look at these screen shots taken from Google Blogscoped publisher Phillipp Lenssen from his blog post on "Gmail 2.0 Screenshots".

There is also another official blog on Gmail Blog by Dan Pupius.

will this really happen?

This article says that "human race will 'split into two different species' ".

As we all know, we are Homo sapiens - the scientific name for human race. In other words, our 'species' in the biological ecosystem are recognized as Homo sapiens. Or it is the generic name for human race in the ecosystem.

It was said that " the human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist."

What's going on here? What's happening with the globalization in this world right now? Does not that social and societal phenomenon bother that top scientist?

It was also predicted that "the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000".

It really sounded very good. I am 23 this year and there are still 993 years more to reach the next millennium. That really requires guts to make that statement and make it public. I surely respect the evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics. There is hardly any evidence to prove that he's wrong. In the meantime, there is no proof to say he's right either. The only way to prove it is the belief and faith people have in him. It really takes guts to do it. Respect!

On the other hand, I would have to question? Who in the world right now will evolve to the elite species and who would end up as the inferior species? What he's right about is the description of the future in terms of social structure where the elite group with knowledge, wealth and power of generating more knowledge, wealth and power. On the other hand, the inferior group would more likely become the parasite of the society: they do not know how to generate knowledge, wealth and they are powerless, so they have to rely on the elite group or be the bad guys to survive.

How frictional are these! These are the extremes to vividly satirize the huge wealth gap in the existing society. But what most people might neglect is the reliance of the elite group on the inferior group. They simply cannot survive without each other. It is a very strong and weak bond between the two species. Just like the food chain concept in the nature, none seemed more important or more trivial than the other. Even though there is elite group in the food chain, they are faster, stronger and 'smarter', they still have to rely on the inferior group to feed themselves to survive.

Let us look at how elite group would be different from now, from Curry
"Men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises..."
"Women will all have glossy hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert breasts..."

How do these physical appearances make huge difference in knowledge, wealth and power generation? It seemed to me that it is more prone to some sexual matters in human race.
All these things do not seem to fall into the same picture of the future...

I do not really believe the drastic changes in human species. If there were, it meant there would anticipate another messy and bloody time in the next few decades...

We as the human race as a whole, are growing more maturely than what he might have expected.

Leopard Finally

On October 26, 2007 evening, finally the new Mac OS named Leopard has been released to the public. I did watch the preview of the how cool Leopard is before its release.

Finally, it can be purchased in the store and can be ordered online now.

Watch this guided tour! Experience the coolness of it...

It that pure Steve Job's vision? or there are a lot more people behind it.

Bio: does a vegetarian diet really help you get through your life?

A friend shared this article/promotion with us, Sophie Monk went nude to promote vegetarianism. I really respect her move as taking off your clothes for good causes. She's a vegetarian.

In the article, the author mentioned that " Eating a diet of vegetarian foods will give you more energy, help you stay trim, and improve blood flow to all of your body's organs."
I guess the interesting part is the italic "all" there in the sentence. Just like what you read above. There was a hyperlink to another article to illustrate on what's so interesting about blood flow to ALL body's organs...

I was not sure what would you have on your mind the moment they emphasized on 'ALL'. As the matter of fact, they are talking about something universally discussed - impotence. Why that? It is because it claims that "a vegetarian diet can get you through your life".
Was that really true?

How does Viagra and other anti-impotence drugs help you to temporarily solve the problem? With some physiology background, such pills just help to complete a chain reaction taken place . The lack of an importance catalyze prevented the chain reaction such that the blood flow was not stimulated to do its job to the organ. With the help of external intake of such catalyze, it can really help complete the reaction, hence the action.

What's misleading about that statement to me was that a vegetarian diet might substitute the purpose of Viagra or any other anti-impotence drugs. I don't think a vegetarian diet can do that yet, at least not scientifically yet. Was there any publication on such topic? still need to find out.

What agreed on was the healthier and more energetic life style...

To me, I am definitely a carnivore. It seemed to me that meat makes me happy and provides me with more energy because of its high protein content. I do take vegetarian diet once in a while for a change to reorganize my body with more fibers and many nutritions from the vegetables. Still I do crave for meat.

In a traditional Chinese lifestyle, a lot of grains and wheats are the major intake of the meals. Dishes of vegetables, meat and seafood are all called "side dishes" in Chinese; whereas the grains and wheats are composed with primarily carbohydrates (which will be broken down to sugars eventually). The high intake of carbohydrates will call for more usage of insulin to counter-react to the high rise of blood sugar level. The conversion of glucose into glycogen (suppress the blood sugar level) will cause the drastic drop in blood sugar level. Thus, you will feel sleepy after a big meal with high content of carbohydrates.

Therefore, the advice to people as the new lifestyle ( lunch siesta has almost been removed from a typical working day) emerges in China, is that you can choose to reduce the intake of carbohydrates during lunch or even breakfast. The best practice is that take some protein-rich breakfast and non-carbohydrate lunch and then light dinner to end the day. If you really crave for carbohydrates, you might want to take them in the evening. Of course, the intake of too much carbohydrates seems not a wise move in the evening if you have reduced calorie burn-rate. Otherwise, all the sugar will be counted towards the next process - weight gaining.

alright... stay healthy...

Online books about Ruby & Rails

"

Here’s a small list of online/ free books about Ruby/ Rails. This is just to keep the references in one place. Hope this helps someone else – it certainly helps me!

The PickAxe Edition 1 (Programming Ruby)

http://www.rubycentral.com/pickaxe/

Why’s Poignant Guide about Ruby

http://poignantguide.net/ruby/

Mr. Neighborly’s Humble Little Ruby Book

http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/

A Little Ruby, A Lot of Objects

http://www.visibleworkings.com/little-ruby/

"

The article is from this URL.

Meebo: Firefox Add-on

meebo & firefox
christian posted this on October 22, 2007

During the course of the past several weeks, the meebo team has pulled crazy marathon coding sessions to create a fabulous Firefox add-on with visual notifications and sidebar buddylist. As someone on meebo's design team, I felt it fitting to tell the add-on creation story my own way - enjoy! - Christian

This is the true Silicon Vally - leading the technology innovation

Web 2.0 has not fully understood by a lot people in the world yet while Silicon Valley seemed to rap it up and move on to the Web 3.0 age...
What's Web 3.0?
Let us look at what Wikipedia says about it.

Web 3.0 is a term that is used to describe various evolution of Web usage and interaction along several separate paths. These include transforming the Web into a database, a move towards making content accessible by multiple non-browser applications, the leveraging of artificial intelligence technologies, the Semantic web, the Geospatial Web, or the 3D web.

Has the Web 2.0 wave arrived yet? or has it passed already? There are still a lot of questions to ask about the existing Web 2.0 technologies. There are also a lot to ponder about.

But innovation shall not stop its journey. In fact, it never did in the Silicon Valley. Now, following the Web 2.0 naming trend, 3.0 stuff are discussed and people started imagining what the Web 3.0 world is like in 2030. that's 20 years down the road. Will it go really that far? I guess it might come even earlier... Innovators, technologists and geeks are gathered in Silicon Valley and they have enough resources and brain power to work on their dreams. Isn't that cool? Let us really start to think about how the Web will be changed in 20 years.

In this article, Web 3.0 and beyond: the next 20 years of the internet, the author Jonathan Richards talked about what the Web 3.0 feelings are like and what you can sort of expect in the third phase of the evolution of Internet and the World Wild Web - the smarter and more intelligent experience on the Internet.

Here is my view. In the societal evolution, we have already stepped into this information era where you can see knowledge based industries started driving the economy significantly. For example, cars are no longer some simple transportation but equipped with all kinds of technologies. Cars have already become an information carrier for the drivers and for other people.

So you may wonder now, what does the Web 3.0 do with the societal evolution? In my opinion, the Internet, resembling a society, is undergoing its various stages of evolution. The birth of the Internet provided the vast virtual environment just like the birth of the earth-our only living environment. The living organisms on the Internet are the pieces of information. Whereas, the concept of Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 are the various stages of the Internet involved its residents - information.

The success of Web 1.0 can be benchmarked as the success of Amazon and eBay. They successfully built the virtual market place for suppliers, resellers and buyers in the commerce online, where the e-commerce was born. The information on the Internet can be exchanged and traded in an organized manner. The economy was sort of formed on the Internet. Exchange and trade took place helped the Internet grow and expand its users. The users are more like the land on the earth. As more and more users online, the better we know the land on the earth. On the Internet, the more users there, the more the Internet knows its land and then evolution will continue in a faster pace.

With the successful built of the virtual market place on the internet, the first stage also involved the generation of information on the Web. As more and more information available online, the second stage naturally came in to organize and filter the information. Yahoo, Google and many other Internet company participate in this stage of evolution. However, Web 2.0 was not defined as this stage coming to the end of it, with the emerging of the social media, like Digg, Meebo, Facebook and MySpace. These branded Web 2.0 companies are taking the role of completing the second stage with better information distribution and filtration. As one of the social structure was added to the Internet just like the real world. Information is overloading; system is getting more complex; structures are getting more complicated. Seemingly, more importantly, the participation of the users, as the utilization of the land, became more and more significant in contributing to the environment - the Internet. Right now, what we are experiencing everyday is the changes in the late Web 2.0 stage. It seems that everyday the Internet looks different than the day before. Of course, at this time, users started to welcome and get ready to embrace the advent of the next stage - the Web 3.0 era. Before entering the 3.0 world, the information are better organized and good distribution and filtration are created;however, there is one fundamental issue was still causing pain to the users- that is the information overloading. The overloading has also changed in term of order of magnitude. It's in the Tera-byte age. I think that's what the 3.0 is offering. Information started to gain intelligence and understand what the user is looking for, and then feedback to the user with relevant result. In other words, it is the transformation into the semantic time.
More interactions happen between the information and the users (the organisms and the lands), to ultimately form the unbeatable ecosystem.

- David

There are so many news on Facebook this week!

OMG!
I have been swamped with work these few days to prepare a project review.
Just now I had a little time to catch up with the tech news. Then I found out that on TechCrunch alone there are at least five pieces of news on Facebook. They are
1. Facebook Taps Into Hedge Funds for $500 Million More?
2. Perspective: Facebook Is Now 5th Most Valuable U.S. Internet Company
3. Facebook Takes the Microsoft Money And Runs.
4. Facebook Platform Cozies Up To Mobile Phones.
5. Live Blogging The Facebook Press Conference .
(in the order that I found out.)

I'll do some comments later on.
I guess I'll need to add another RSS News reader on the keyword Facebook already.

Facebook Developer Garage

I don't necessarily need to admit that I am an advocate of Facebook, an active user on Facebook and an follower of what's going on with Facebook! Because I AM one...

I have received a lot of invitation from Facebook Developer Garage Singapore. Unfortunately, I was not in Singapore all this while. There is actually a series of Garages, which can be found on Facebook Developer wiki.

I fact I feel that I am so outdated on the developer community on Facebook since I have been dedicated myself in the community as the user... maybe it is time to look at the development community and see if there is any cool and fun stuff there.

In fact, one guy from Facebook participate in the Garage via video conferencing. He is Dave Morin, Senior Platform Manager at Facebook from Palo Alto, California.

Other speakers include
Trey Philips -- Winner of F8 Hackathon in Palo Alto
Leonard Lim -- Developer of Battle Stations
Justin Lee -- Senior Technologist and Head Strategist, Duration Inc
Dr Shaun Martin -- CEO of Mindwasabi

Then after the talk they went on breakout sessions for further discussion on the three topics: technology, business and social topics. You can find more on the inaugural Facebook Developer Garage in Singapore from this live blog post.

Rock on! Facebook is great!

how to link Virtual world with Real world?

A R2VR2 model?
the real-to-virtual-to-real model?

how does the R2V2R work?
I think it is a "thin-slicing" feeling that I learn from this book called Blink, which is a fantastic book in my own view. I did not finish reading it for the first round but I've started reading again.

Alright back to his R2V2R model.

Basically I think the virtual world will play the ultimate medium in linking the real world can really diminishing the concept of location and boundaries. Even though it claims that Internet has not boundaries. It is only partially correct. The Internet itself does not limit boundaries for us. However, it seems that the day-to-day practices are more paramount that what the Internet brings to us. I cannot use Pandora outside U.S.A.. Wordpress and Blogger are blocked by the Chinese Internet firewall. there are many many instances on this matter. So i want to ask here again: does Internet really not have any boundary?
My answer to the question is still no. But I can refine the question a little bit and make it does Internet usage have any boundary? yes, there is... a lot actually... as mentioned above, it is closely related to what the real world is "designed" to operate.

Hence, I saw the possibility that the 3D Internet jump-started by virtual world will eventually make the Internet border-less. Existing practices and norms in the first world are really hard to change... it might take centuries to correct something. What 3D Internet can do is just to accelerate the correction process and make it almost instant. The premise of such possibility is just about the true freedom of the Internet... let everything get born naturally and grow organically. leave the regulations born on its own, too. (principles and values hold) Only then, the free 3D Internet can play the medium to reduce or diminish the physically boundaries in the real world.

For example, a son of a sick mom is located in the other side of the globe. He can make use of the 3D Internet to realize the wish of being accompanying his mom everyday, not only via videos, pictures, voices but also some other true feelings and emotions. The exact possible ways of implementations will not be discussed here because I think the belief of the big picture is more important than questioning how it is realized. Back to the example, the son is at one physical location and the mom is at the other. There is no way that they can physically meet everyday without one's compromising. It is the 3D Internet that plays as the medium to enable such feelings of company.

The example above might just exemplify a very small scenario of the versatile 3D Internet.

Imagine you set up stores everywhere in the world selling your product without having to meet your local representative physically via virtual world. There is definitely Amazon and eBay in the virtual worlds. However, here comes another question: How does Amazon and eBay in the virtual worlds work? or who would be the Amazon and eBay in the virtual world? themselves? or it is the virtual world itself.

I think the hypothetical model proposed is still at its early brainstorming stage... things are not clear enough to sort out a well defined model...
hope looking forward to more cool stuff coming out....

Why is company culture so important?

when we talk about company culture... what are the companies first pop out on your mind within two seconds?
Google?
Meebo?
I think these are the two I most got in touch with.
Sandy posted a blog entry on the Meebo kitchen.
Read it and see whether you understand a little bit more about what company culture really means!
My personal understanding of company culture is that it is not so much about what you tell people but rather what people actually practice and exercise the culture daily... ^^ More importantly, it is the values commonly shared that count!

the kitchen
sandy posted this on October 19, 2007

The first things to go in our kitchen are the bagels. I like to eat a light lunch and sometimes a toasted bagel with some lunch meat sounds pretty tasty. My cravings are rarely met because when the meebo team comes in in the morning, poof! the bagels are all eaten =p.

The meebo kitchen has become a pretty important place at the company: a gathering area, morning hang-out, nap room, and code review central. Since the company has become quite a bit larger than when we first moved in, the dynamics of where people relax has changed as well. Instead of one futon, we've got three. Instead of a few mugs, there are now many more hanging from the hooks on the wall. (Not to mention the morning race for those bagels!)

We've had to re-arrange desks a bit, shuffle people into places where they'll be most productive, and at the same time consider things like increased chatter, background noise, and general activity around a very open office. I wrote an entry a while back when we were moving from Palo Alto, and the office has evolved a lot.

I guess part of "growing up" in a company's life cycle is adapting the environment. Our office is a really fun place, but also a really productive place. Part of that is maintaining the balance between work and goofing off. The kitchen, for example, remains a really important factor in that balance; we can all buckle down and concentrate on the latest and greatest code review... while snacking on a handful of grapes, lounging on the couch, and kicking off our shoes.

cheers,
sandy

check out on how company culture is defined on Wikipedia.org.

cross-country: breaking rules and record

they just make use of all the technology possible to get away from getting caught by the police....
it can never happen in China.. lol
here is the article

Want to start something in Beijing

I met Leilynne, AAMA from US going to Mongolia for business. She transited in Beijing last night. We met for some snacks. It was great to meet some friends in the "new" environment.

We talked a lot about what's happening. Just to share with you, I had this goal in mind before I came to Beijing: to start some small organizations to meet more young entrepreneurs in Beijing. The idea was from inspiration my mentor at Google. Thanks to the motivation booster from Leilynne now I started putting more serious thoughts into it.

I thought a lot last night on the way back to where I temporarily stay in the International Trade Center area, a definitely a great area to live in. (unfortunately, it is only temporary for me as I bunk in at my friend's office/staff residence.) That sounds very entrepreneurial, doesn't it?=p

I have been thinking of what are the objectives of the organization that I am brainstorming. Hope there can be some suggestions and recommendations from some great people.

0. meet great people, make friends and HAVE FUN
1. meet entrepreneurs
2. meet multi-nationals in the organization
3. talk about high-tech (IT, Bio-Tech, CleanTech, Green Energy... latest and most frontier etc)
4. talk about the market (what's happened, what are the changes and what's going on and what would happen)
5. talk about business (whether they can help each other in one way or another)
6. search mentors for local entrepreneurs
7. foster mentorship program
8. help Chinese entrepreneurs with their Oral English

I also have thought of the names... ChinaConnect, CNConnect, Y.E.A (Young Entrepreneurs Association), eConnect (Entrepreneur Connect - Connect Entrepreneurs)
Out of these ideas, I prefer the last two... YEA sounds very cool and happening. eConnect looks more professional.

The next step is to jump start it. Oriented Happy Hour is this coming Thursday. I'll be volunteering for Alex and Steve. They are the founder of Oriented Beijing Chapter. I got to know Oriented through its very own founder Christine Hsu. I really liked the concept and I saw great values for the members.

looking for some feedback. =) please email me your feedback... thanks! d a v i d . d i n g [at] n u s e a . o r g ! Appreciate it!

Another conferece: Metaverse Summit 2007

Yes... another conference on Virtual Worlds and 3D Internet is coming at the end of the year in December, but this time it is in Europe (Germany, to be exact). The conference is Metaverse Summit 2007.
According the featured speakers, it seemed the crowd is more drawn from the European side in the virtual worlds. There are many unfamiliar names listed compared to the one just held in San Jose. It was the Virtual Worlds Conference & Expo, by the way.

What's metaverse? You may ask. I also just came across this word lately, when I started following on Virtual worlds. My guess was it was originated from uni-verse... the nature of the virtual worlds and 3D Internet is the meta data existence. Thus, the universe of the meta-data is then metaverse. That was my personal understanding.

After my own opinion, I checked with Wikipedia on what metaverse is about. The word was invented in 1992, actually. It used to describe the world about virtual reality. Now it is widely used as the vision for the virtual world & 3D Internet.

Looking forward to more speakers participating in this summit and of course great new initiatives on virtual worlds and its applications!

- David

the Web 2.0 Summit Hype

Web 2.0 Summit is being held in San Francisco.
This is an invitation-only conference. Lots of Web 2.0 companies are invited to the conference to talk about the hot topic and what they are doing. The invitation would definitely go to social networks, social media companies, like Facebook, Myspace, Digg, Meebo and many other ones.

I found a live blogging site here and check it out for more updates:
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/10/web_20_summit_l.html

Mark Zuckerburg was the keynote after opening speech by Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle.

Looking forward to more news from his summit!

Are you Skypy enough?

When did you first start using Skype?
I think i first started about less than 2 years... While I was exploring a cheap way online to call my parents in China from Singapore. Skype of course caught my attention. However, I only bought skype-out in Aug 2007 after my purchase of my MacBook Pro... Yahoo Voice does not work on Mac yet... i still have credits with Yahoo! =) so I really started using skype to call phones. it's been a long time. Skype monetized its services differently. This is this connection fee for each call made and it's a fixed amount - ¢3.9.

Alright! Enough about Skype credits and its charges.
There are two pieces of news on Skype from TechCrunch in two days (yesterday and today).

1. MySpace users can make free calls on MySpace IM empowered by Skype. (TechCrunch article)This service is not started yet. In 2 weeks time, myspacers can enjoy free calls among them.
It is said that this was the first time that Skype allowed its technology to be integrated into a third-party application, thereby disassociating the Skype service from the Skype client.
Does this mean Skype is also trying to open up and become a platform-like player in the voice spaces online? I think Skype service looks like a licensing model. It can increase its penetration in the market further to occupy a larger market share. By then, the opening up of its third party thingie will be fantastic... imagine you are on your Skype and you received a message from a friend sent via Facebook messages or other APIs there.. or it can be some kind of alert or notification...

2. Skype hits 10M simultaneous users mark... (wow...)
Congratulations!
What interests me more is when Meebo is hitting the 10M simultaneous users mark... it took a few years for skype to do it.... Meebo does not require a client which somewhat prevent some non-tech-savvy people participating... Meebo is different. Just log in and use it... Isn't that simple? Having mentioned Meebo, there is a good news for Meebo and Firefox users. An add-on to Firefox has been developed and launched ... check this out!

how much do you want to comment?

do you share stuff with your friends on Facebook via "Share on Facebook" browser plug-in?
I do.
I share a lot of stuff with friends on Facebook to post items there so that some of the items can be picked up by my friends who are simply interested.

this is pretty cool... it seemed that it was done by a friend of mine...
At least his photo was part of the demo picture.
alright... what it is? it's CommentAnywhere.

the tool bar is just floating on this page right now. Here is the picture.


There are really more interesting web apps and services linking up with other web services.. =)
cool...
Thanks to the platform!

- David

too late to find out? - reviews on Facebook Apps

Received a message from "Facebook Applications" group on Facebook and then I found out that there is a review site of all the Facebook Apps - FaceReviews.

It archived a lot of things starting from the announcement that Facebook was talking about the opening up of the Facebook as a platform for applications.
there are 6000 over apps on Facebook now and there are some developed by my friends... proud of them...
Kenneth & Kelvin: My Purity Test
Noah: Similar People
Jessica: Serial Killer
Friend's Friend (Singapore): Battle Stations

My most used applications:
1. wall
2. photos
3. twitter
4. posted items

Some other apps that I use often as of now
5. Battle Stations

Facebook has been the in the spotlight for a long time... it will continue to be in the spotlight...
Best of Luck... Mark!

CleanTech opportunities in China

in this article China's Environmental Mess: Investment Opportunity by Carl T. Delfeld,
there is a list of some shocking facts of China and environment...

These are some of the facts mentioned in the article.

• China is the world leader in air and water pollution.
• Sixteen of the most polluted cities in the world are in China.
• According to World Wildlife Fund, China is the largest polluter of the Pacific Ocean.
• 2/3 of China’s largest 660 cities face a water shortage right now.
• The EPA estimates that 25% of the particulates hovering over LA originate in China.
• In converting coal into energy, America is six times more efficient than China, Japan is seven times more efficient and India is three times more efficient.
• About 190 million people in China are sick from contaminated water.
• Netherlands’ Environmental Agency states that China is the world’s largest contributor of CO2.
• A World Bank/China Government joint study estimates that about 750,000 infants a year face premature death due to respiratory disease.
• Chinese experts believe that only about 10% of China’s environmental laws are consistently enforced.

Personally, I don't know how true these 'facts' are. Nonetheless, it is really an alert to the Chinese people... no matter how fast the economy is growing... without a livable environment, you won't enjoy the life as much as you are in a clean and pleasant environment.

Cannot get away from the city crowds and convenient life?
Cannot find big supermarket in the less developed place?
Cannot find a public toilet that is as clean as your own one in your house?
Cannot find a place where you feel secure just like you are at home?

I think the environmental issues are definitely part of the big picture that not only the Chinese government need to pay more attention and get more strict about it, but also the citizen of China need to be aware of the impact of their little inconsiderate actions and to cooperate with the government...

even though the negative 'facts' does reveal a lot of opportunities to the any business people who are making a difference to improve the environment... HOWEVER, the business people cannot only look at the economic benefits alone in the case of China... the people as always play such an important part of the business... they are the beneficiaries... but they can also be the obstacles in your business... it is very tricky...

I am still trying to figure out how to do a global business in China... Windows OS dominates in China does not mean MS had done something brilliant here... it is the people here... the piracy market helped MS to spread like crazy... till today... no software (even big ones) are offering alternate OS solutions to address the market. what you can see online are almost all *.exe applications... How many PCs have installation of a copyrighted version of Windows? You cannot even find many software stores selling legal copies very conveniently... Albeit the piracy, the Windows OS does provide a very large platform for the people to learn and improve... Thanks to the platform!

Google is still struggling to penetrate the Chinese market... all these market here talked about is more prone to meaning the consumer market... you've gotta learn the people... that's important...

Top 5 Highlights from the Virtual Worlds Expo

Top 5 Highlights from the Virtual Worlds Expo
http://gigaom.com/2007/10/14/virtual-worlds-expo-report/
- Big Tech Doubles Down on Virtual Worlds
- Less Hype, More Hard Experience
- HiPiHi Rising
- Third-Party Second Life Viewer Swallows the Web
- The Virtual World Industry Gets a Convergence Culture

a good online English-Chinese dictionary

just to share with you what I normally use for online English-Chinese dictionary...
Iciba.com
The site is a Chinese website. Kingsoft is one of the leading consumer software company in China... Kingsoft Powerword was a terminal client desktop application which many Chinese have installed in their desktops and laptops... I bet it is the single most used desktop application in English-Chinese dictionary. I don't really have any statistics. But all my friends use it. All of them, I can tell you without thinking.

Now it has an online version. Initially it was just a simple dictionary telling you what the most common meaning of an English word as detailed illustrations were still protected online to avoid the destructive impact on the software sales. However, as the web is getting more opened up, Iciba has changed its face to the online users. People spent more and more time on the Internet and they do not bring the dictionary everywhere. Thus, iciba started this kind of Software as a service route to reach to the future users. The move was simply correct... look at the knowledge workers in China now. They have to get online to work where they need the most help from.

It is cool. Looking forward to see more on the Kingsoft online initiatives... =)

Doesn't this mean semantic stuff?

Autonomy
http://www.autonomy.com/content/Autonomy/index.en.html

was reading on TechCrunch and came across this website...
it says that they are working on meaning-based computing...
i wonder if that just means semantic computing...

btw,
Hello World!

from my tech blog