Vigo is a wearable device in the form of a Bluetooth headset that uses infrared to look at your eyes in order to determine signs of drowsiness, and nudges you when you are dozing off. It does so in one of three ways: a flashing light, a pulsing vibration in the ear, or a sound/alarm […]
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Huawei Shipped 50 million Smartphones in 2013
More than 50 million Huawei smartphones have been shipped in 2013, according to the year-end internal mail by the company’s Consumer Business Group (source in Chinese). That’s about 56% increase from last year. But there’s “a big room for improvement in profitability compared with industry leaders, Apple and Samsung”, the mail reads, and in brand, […]
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Tech in China 2013: WeChat Still Rules Chinese IM Industry, Rivals Mull to Catch Up
WeChat still holds a leading position in Chinese IM industry this year, but several emerging rivals are poised to attract users and snap up market share. Alibaba promotes Laiwang aggressively both internally and externally with a wild wish of 30% of the market. NetEase and China Telecom partnered up to launch EasyChat, which supports calls with both landline and mobile lines, a feature missed […]
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Dianrong, P2P Funding Service Founded by Lending Club Co-founder, Books Tens of Million Dollars from Northern Light
Dianrong, a peer-to-peer funding service, secured tens of millions of dollars in Series A financing from Northern Light Venture Capital (source in Chinese). The company is cofounded by Soul Htite, co-founder of Lending Club, and Guo Yuhang, an experienced lawyer in intellectual property and venture capital sector. Launched in March this year, the turnover of […]
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What Do The First Chinese Mobile Virtual Network Operators Plan to Offer?
Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) finally announced the first mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) last week, half a year after licenses were open for application. Of the eleven Chinese private companies that now owns licenses, there are four mobile phone distributors, four Internet infrastructure/solution providers, one carrier billing service, one bus/mobile media […]
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ETS backed Israeli English Learning Mobile App SpeakingPal to Launch A Full Content Chinese Translation in January 2014
‘SpeakingPal English Tutor’ is a mobile app that lets users interact with a virtual video tutor using short dialogues and get instant pronunciation feedback on words and sentences spoken. It aims to provide a natural speaking experience powered by Speech Recognition technology and use of scoring logic that lets users learn naturally, similar to interacting […]
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Tech in China 2013: VCs Are Chasing Online Education, Finance, Mobile…
After social, e-commerce, group-buying and the like, venture capitalists have new categories of tech startups to chase in China in 2013. The new are online education, online finance, travel, among others. Mobile, of course, counts. The venture-backed mobile businesses, however, are similar to those proven ones on desktop; for instance, gaming, advertising, solutions for developers or […]
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Bitcoin Trading Platform Okcoin Launches Poll for Commission Rate
Bitcoin trading platform Okcoin launched today a poll asking clients to determine the commission rate for their future services. Xu Mingxing, CEO of the company, claimed in an announcement that it is the ubiquitous decision of the whole industry to charge fixed commissions in a bid to fend against profiteering. However, another bitcoin trading platform […]
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Tech in China 2013: Acquisition Spree in Mobile Game Industry
The user base of Chinese gaming industry soared 20.6% year-on-year to 490 million this year, while the total revenue hiked 38% from a year earlier to 8.32 billion yuan ($1.37 billion), according to report released by China Game Industry Annual Conference (via Tech Sina). With the rise of smartphone and other mobile devices, mobile gaming […]
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Baidu to Acquire Online Publisher PW Literature for RMB191.5 million
Perfect World Co., Ltd., a Chinese online game developer and operator, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell Beijing Huanxiang Zongheng Chinese Literature Website Co., Ltd, or PW Literature (Zongheng.com), the entity that operates Perfect World’s Chinese online reading business, to Baidu for a total consideration of approximately RMB191.5 million($32 mn). […]