The VR industry is grappling with a serious chicken or egg question: what will open the market, accessible hardware or killer content? uSens, a Silicon Valley-based VR company, thinks that this question is looking in the wrong direction. “People keep complaining about the lack of content in the VR space. However, the real problem is the HMD […]
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Security vulnerability hinders Alipay’s social networking foray
China’s most popular online payment app Alipay announced Tuesday that it plugged a user authentication security flaw. Alipay got busy patching the flaw after receiving complaints from China’s internet users. Many found they could login into an account with just some personal information and didn’t require a password to make payments. The process of hacking […]
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[Podcast] Analyse Asia 156: Low power wide area networks in Asia Pacific with Charles Anderson
Editor’s note: This originally appeared on Analyse Asia, a weekly podcast hosted by Bernard Leong, dedicated to dissecting the pulse of business, technology, and media in Asia. The podcast features guests from Asia’s vibrant tech community. Charles Anderson from Charles Reed Anderson & Associates joined us in a conversation on lower power wide area networks aka […]
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The animated film industry is taking off in China with help from South Korea and Japan
As China sees more and more overseas animations doing well domestically, the country is vying to create its own profitable animation industry. China’s animation market is still in its early stage and is greatly influenced by companies in neighboring Japan and South Korea. Asian animated films were big hits in 2016. Japanese animation Your Name made […]
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Here’s why Shenzhen will replace Silicon Valley in 2017
Editor’s Note: This post is contributed by Sean Konieczny, a tech entrepreneur and extensive traveler. While in Asia, he settled in Beijing and co-founded a digital health data company to provide precision healthcare services that correspond with user health data. For the past few decades, Silicon Valley has been the global innovation hub. To think that […]
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Mini-apps are here. Here are our first impressions
The day has come: the long-awaited WeChat mini-apps were officially launched today, January 9th, 2017. Now, WeChat users can find the mini-apps inside their own WeChat and download some of them. TechNode has been following the development of the mini-apps, ever since its first announcement in September last year. In our last article, we explored […]
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Baidu shows off their AI on popular mental athletics show, The Brain
Last Friday, Baidu pitted their artificial intelligence against China’s best minds in the Season 4 premiere of Zui Qiang Danao (最强大脑 or The Brain in English), a popular weekly show featuring contestants performing feats of mental agility. Seasons 1-3 all featured international competitions between China and visiting teams, leading sometimes to uncomfortable results. However, after […]
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Mini-apps are WeChat’s strategy to connect to the offline world: HuosuMobi Zhao Jiuzhou
“No mini-app stores, no entry point in WeChat, limited push notifications, no sharing in WeChat Moments.” This description from Zhang Xiaolong, Tencent senior vice president and the “Father of WeChat,” on mini-apps has shaken public predictions about WeChat’s product structure. From what we can tell so far, Tencent has been strikingly restrained in integrating mini-apps into […]
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Report says 71% of China’s self-media accounts make less than national average wage
Editor’s note: A version of this post first appeared on WalktheChat’s website. WalktheChat specializes in helping foreign organizations access the Chinese market through WeChat, the largest social network on the mainland. WeChat analytics company Newrank released data from a survey of 1,032 zimeiti (自媒体 or self-media in English) in China. Some of the interesting findings include: […]
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[Podcast] China Business Cast 54: Getting Started in China with Nick Lenczewski
Editor’s note: A version of this first appeared on the China Business Cast. China Business Cast is a podcast featuring experienced entrepreneurs and business people making things happen in China. If you want to learn from on the ground accounts of how business actually gets done in China, this is the program for you. This episode […]