Apple has found itself unable to sell both ebooks and films over in China, after a government regulator took issue with the iBooks and iTunes movie stores. Right now, it is being reported that China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television is behind the block on two …
Read More »Tencent founder makes $2 billion charity stock pledge
The CEO and co-founder of Tencent, parent company of game developers like Riot, has announced that he will donate 100 million of the company's shares to charity. The move is being hailed as one of the biggest philanthropic gestures in China's history and is estimated to be worth around $2 billion (£1.39 billion). …
Read More »1984 eat your heart out: China has gamified government loyalty
Ah China, such a wonderfully helpful tool in discussing impeaches of privacy and personal liberty. It's like the ball pit at the bottom of the slippery slope. The government there has created a tool that uses data collected from retailers, social networks and messaging applications, to rate a web user's …
Read More »AMD launches low-cost FX-6330 Black Edition CPU
It's been a long time since AMD offered a credibly performing alternative to Intel's high-end CPUs, but it's always had a good range of cost-effective options at the lower end and it's looking to continue that with its latest release. Although it hasn't arrived with much fanfare, AMD has now …
Read More »U.S. and China to run hacking ‘tabletop exercises’ to aid defence
Although the United States and China have been covertly trying to hack each other's digital systems for a long time at this point, it looks like the two cyber-super-powers are now going to be working together; a little. Following weeks of joint meetings, the countries are going to conduct what …
Read More »China to go after global chip market with £30 billion investment
Although China is perhaps most well known for producing low cost goods and emulating designs, it's also shown that with enough investment it can create some impressive products in its own right. Looking to bring that attitude to the processor game, state-owned Tsinghua Holdings is set to invest upwards of 300 …
Read More »Bitcoin pyramid scheme fuels 24 hour boom and bust
Since its peak a couple of years ago, the price of Bitcoin has jumped around within a relatively confined range of values, often settling between two and three hundred dollars. However in the past 48 hours, it's value has exploded, doubling almost overnight before starting to crash down again. This stupendous …
Read More »Genetically engineered ‘double muscle’ dogs born in China
Of all of the ways humans have attempted to alter the muscle mass of themselves and animals over the past hundred or so years, from exercise, to steroids to growth hormones, nothing has quite had the same effect as myostatin inhibitors. Removing that particular protein from an animal increases their …
Read More »Security firm claims China still hacking U.S. after Obama deal
Although the visit was a little tense at times, President Obama's meeting with the Chinese president Xi Jingping in September did achieve one thing: an agreement that neither the United States or China would use their digital assets to hack one another to steal corporate secrets and prop up domestic …
Read More »Pepsi is making a line of smartphones
There are tons of companies out there that have attempted to jump in to the smartphone market, we've had Amazon try it, we've had Facebook try it and now Pepsi is making its own line of Android smartphones. Yes its own line… as in more than one. The Pepsi-made smartphone …
Read More »SanDisk and Toshiba could be bought by government owned Tsinghua Unigroup
It looks like SanDisk and Toshiba could both be targets of a take over by the Chinese state-owned Tsinghua Unigroup, according to industry sources. SanDisk and Toshiba currently jointly create NAND flash technology, though each company currently sits on shaky ground as far as financials are concerned. In addition to …
Read More »China to start charging companies for pollution from 2017
China has revealed new plans designed to push back against pollution, by setting limits on the greenhouse gas emissions of companies and then charging them for going over that limit. The hope is that by discouraging companies from excessively polluting the environment, overall carbon emission levels will halve by 2030. …
Read More »China responds to U.S. intelligence call for more digital security
The topic of China and its continued tug of war with the United States on the digital battleground is a hot one at the moment. With Chinese president Xi Jinping set to meet with President Obama to discuss hacking and digital defences, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper has …
Read More »U.S. considering sanctioning Russia and China over hacking
The United States is said to be considering applying sanctions to both Russia and Chinese individuals and companies for conducting aggressive hacking attempts against U.S. targets, according to several unnamed U.S. officials. While no decision has been made one way or another just yet, they claim that the Obama administration …
Read More »U.S. secretary of state believes China, Russia read his emails
It turns out that we aren't the only ones assuming that every government out there is looking at our private communications; even high-ranking United States politicians don't feel safe from hackers and foreign actors. In a TV interview, current U.S. secretary of state and one-time presidential candidate, John Kerry, admitted …
Read More »Fake iPhone factory in China shut down
A factory in China responsible for producing over 40,000 fake iPhone handsets worth over £12 million in total has been shut down according to Beijing police, who shut down the operation this week. The raid resulted in the arrest of nine people, including a married couple who may have been …
Read More »China announces an end to console sale ban in country
Considering the buzz that's generated in Western countries when a new games console is launched, it seems strange to imagine a country as vast as China not joining in on that hype, but since the turn of the century, China has banned the sale and production of video game consoles …
Read More »US personnel data breach was far worse than we thought
When the White House's Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was cracked wide open by some unknown actors earlier this year, it was thought that as many as 4.2 million people had had their records copied away. That included their medical histories, employment details and potentially confessions made to help them …
Read More »FBI wants encryption backdoor to combat ISIS
Another day, another leading public figure who's calling for the breaking of encryption so that it can effectively track terrorist organisations. This time it's the head of the FBI, James Comey, who said that his policing agency needed a “backdoor” to encryption standards so that the FBI could track the …
Read More »China’s new digital security laws could increase censorship
A new draft law being considered by Chinese parliament could increase the censorship of its internet even more, making information harder for average citizens – without the knowledge of proxies – to access. It's raising concerns among international businesses operating in the region too, as they would need to comply …
Read More »White House Personnel Management hack exposes sordid secrets
Earlier this month, we learned that hackers – possibly from China – had infiltrated the White House Office of Personnel Management and had copied documents on millions of government employees. While there were concerns that financial and employment data, possibly even security clearance information had been compromised, it's also shed …
Read More »Millions of US government workers’ data stolen
In the battleground for the internet, armies lob digital shells at each other almost as often as the masses sling insults, as it looks like millions of US government worker details may have been stolen by a foreign party. While an investigation is ongoing, China is the earliest named potential …
Read More »Apple pushes for new environmental schemes in China
China and Apple are two very different entities, but neither is particularly well known for their environmental practices. One has some of the highest pollution rates in the world and the other has regularly been found using unsafe chemicals and business practices in its production facilities – most often located …
Read More »China beats Korea in League of Legends mid-season face-off
For the past couple of years, Korea has been head of the pack when it comes to professional League of Legends play, with two out of the top three teams last year hailing from the small nation. However that may no longer be the case, as Chinese team Edward Gaming has …
Read More »Uber offices raided again by Chinese authorities
Technology focused taxi-booking service, Uber, is once again under investigation by Chinese authorities, with another team of police sent to the company's local headquarters. It's part of a new investigation, though it's not clear as to what crimes the authorities believe the firm has committed. Previously Uber was investigated for operating …
Read More »Phytium to detail 64-core ARMv8-A processor for HPC in August
The U.S. government recently banned sales of Xeon Phi co-processors for high-performance computing applications to numerous supercomputer sites in China, slowing down development of local research. But perhaps, China will not need any HPC chips from the world’s renowned suppliers in the future as domestic companies are developing a number …
Read More »Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, has a lovely launch trailer
Even though graphics don't make a game, I'm a real sucker for a beautiful art style. So while the aesthetics of the new Assassin's Creed game, Chronicles: China, aren't quite the high definition sandbox of its predecessors, it does have a unique look to it and the trailer, with its …
Read More »Apparently Samsung hired 500 fake fans for Galaxy S6 China launch
It turns out that Samsung might have hired 500 people to act as fans at the Galaxy S6 launch in China. According to reports, the Korean device maker paid around 500 people to attend its event, most of which were actually iPhone users. Samsung didn't go out and find all …
Read More »Github hit by multi-day DDOS attack
The collaborative programming site GitHub has been hit by a sustained denial of service attack over the weekend, with suggestions that China may be behind it. While not entirely clear, it's thought that the reasoning may be to shut down projects designed to circumvent Chinese censorship tools. At last count …
Read More »Microsoft will upgrade pirated copies of Windows for free
Microsoft is making a big push with Windows 10 to re-ingratiate itself with its customer base. It made a big splash earlier this year when it announced that it would be giving everyone with legitimate copies of Windows 7 and 8 free upgrades, but it's now looking like it might extend that offer …
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