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- Beijing Tweetup — January 8, 2009Yesterday
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The first-ever Beijing Tweetup for the year 2009 was held January 8, 2009. @ianholton made the first call, and just about everyone came out. Amongst some of the more famed Twitterati included:
• @Richardphx of the Peking Duck;
• @GraniteStudio, who co-hosted a blog dinner sometime back;
• @winserzhao of the China Travel 2.0 blog;
• @rmack (Rebecca MacKinnon no less!);
• @beijingboyce;
• @pdenlinger of the China Vortex;and just too many more to list. (We had well over 25 people — the table was asquish with food and tweets much of the time!) Thanks for coming out.
We’ve started by posting a link to @DavidFeng’s photostream on flickr. There’s quite a lot more coming — follow anything with the hashtag #bjtweetup for more.
- Tech Updates - Jan 5, 2009January 5
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Five days into 2009 — here’s a roundup of the news making — well, news:
• Mobile Number Portability: Both Tianjin and Hainan are getting this beginning Q2 2009. (Tianjin was supposed to be in the act along with Shenzhen.)
• China Mobile: 2009 to be Year of TD + Wifi: Internal docs see China Mobile giving the go-ahead for TD and wifi to become reality big time in China — it’s no longer the case of “only” building wireless cities.
• 3G Coming Before Jan 26: January 26, 2009 is the start of the Chinese New Year — the Year of the Ox — and in the dying days of the present Year of the Rat, 3G licenses are slated to make their “year-end” appearance.
- Anxi County, Quanzhou, Fujian: “Home” of SMS ScamsJanuary 3
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The next time you receive a business-wise/legally/whatever “shady” SMS, you might be getting it from Far Far Away (or if you’re in the region — take care! — Local) Anxi County, Quanzhou, in southeastern China’s Fujian Province.
The Beijing Evening News quotes some stats from Xinhua. In “hit-hard” operations launched by local police, 2,864 scams have been uncovered, and 1,408 criminals are now in police custody. That’s 44 gangs busted.
Scarier still: these gangs made 3,000 fake IDs and bank cards.
Punishment? Pretty big ones. 744 sued by the courts, 368 laogai-ed (reform through labor); 18,082 mobiles and mobile numbers sealed, 1,200 broadband users nixed, 23,000 suspects hunted out.
Still, the figures are still there. Although 2008 figures regarding SMS scam cases in the region are just 12.8% of 2007 stats, scarier still are the 2007 figures — 91.9% of 2006 stats.
How do they “loop you in”? They try with scams involving scratch cards, tax returns on car purchases, stolen bank cards, Internet shopping, and — get this — even charity attempts.
An international incident? A Cross-straits incident nonetheless: fraudsters involved both local Anxi folks and people from Taiwan. Hmm…
- China’s 3G License Issuing To Start Soon; GPRS Set Menus Get Price Cuts, More BandwidthJanuary 2
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As China nears its official 3G launch date, more and more GPRS menu price cuts as well as bandwidth expansions have been announced.
China Mobile Beijing has cut excess GPRS charges from CNY 0.03/KB down to CNY 0.01/KB. Furthermore, a standard CNY 5 menu now comes with 30 MB of bandwidth; the CNY 20 menu is up to 150 MB. A CNY 100 menu now grants you 2 GB — 5 GB if you do CNY 200 menus. (You’ll need to do everything on an iPhone if you want to exhaust these babies.)
Similar price cuts have been announced for Hubei (70% cuts) and Tianjin, which also cut prices for users in Hong Kong down to CNY 0.02/KB.
- Happy New Year from techblog86January 1
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2008 seemed to pass by all too quickly — and with a bit of a whimper at the very end. Still, we guess we got tugged into 2009 anyway — which, actually, is for the better:
• techblog86’s going to be all about the Community this year. WATCH THIS SPACE.
• We’ve manned the tweets! @techblog86 will now be manned by a breathing human.
• Content-wise, we’re hoping to bring along a few guest authors this year.
Probably not the most explosive start to our 2nd year, but then again — much better to underwhelm and over-deliver.