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Google is trying to increase it’s poor market share in China by offering free legal downloads of licensed songs.  According to the Reuters report, Google’s main Chinese competitor, Baidu, is facing lawsuits for allowing copyright infringement through downloading unlicensed songs.

The new service from Google will allow Chinese internet users to search thousands of Chinese artists and songs, which can then be downloaded from Top100.cn. 

Estimates from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (think international RIAA) estimate that pirated files are currently more than 99-percent of all files downloaded in China.  In a country that recently released numbers putting it at the highest number of internet users in the world, that’s pretty big.

It’s cool that Google is trying to raise its market share by offering free music downloads, but it would be cool if they could do it in the U.S. as well.  Sure, we’re not behind the Great Firewall, but doesn’t the rest of the world deserve free music downloads? Of course, as you would expect, Google will also place ads on the service which will have the revenue shared between Top100.cn and its music partners.

Read [Reuters]

Sony has recently began to venture into the Chinese market, and they did this by announcing the new, fancy, and pretty expensive PMX-M80 portable media player.

One of the key features of this PMP is that it comes with preloaded maps, similar to Google Maps, which could be found on the iPhone. These maps also come with POI’s. In addition, it comes with a GPSesque 4.3-inch screen with a 480 x 272 resolution, 16GB hard drive, voice recorder, up to 6 hours of video playback, expandable memory via memory stick, and a lot of format support including SRS 3D audio, MP4, AVI, WMA, MP3, and AAC.

As on now, Sony is retailing the device for 2,260 Yuan, or about $331 US.

Via [PMP Today]

While not confirmed, news has been trickling out from Facebook users in China that they were not able to access their data.

A clear picture has yet to be painted but Facebook is close to confirming the phenomenon. “We are disappointed to learn of reports that users in China are having difficulty getting access to Facebook,”

Representatives from the social network reportedly told CIO News. “We have not made any changes to our site that would create access problems and are looking into the situation.”

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China has moved past the U.S. to become the world’s largest group of Internet users. Over 221 million Chinese currently use the Internet, which is up over 10 million from last year.

“Despite a rapidly increasing Internet population, the proportion of Internet users among the total population was still lower than the global average level.” said the Chinese Information Ministry”

As a whole 16-percent of China’s population are Internet users, compared to an average of 19.1-percent for the world’s total population. All things considers that is a lot of users especially considering the Chinese government heavily censors the net, using a complex system of filters as well as human monitors. Despite that, it is still used as tool by Chinese supporters outraged by the recent rise in anti-Chinese sentiments in the Western world as a result of China’s treatment of Tibet. Just last weekend ago a group of Chinese hackers were able to knock CNN’s website offline in protest of what they called the network’s anti-Chinese propaganda. The upcoming Olympic games in Beijing have also served to bring even more attention to the issue and has led to various protests by pro-Tibet supporters along the route of the Olympic torch relay.

Read [Reuters]

PMP’s coming from Asian countries such as China and Japan are really nice and innovative, it’s a shame that most of these devices never make their way to the States. That is the case with this latest PMP from Ramos Digital, called the V8.

It’s still being worked on, but as of now, we know it supports MP4, AVI, DivX, RMVB, MP3, WMA, and FLAC. Other features include an integrated e-Book reader, and TV-Out functionality. Finally, it comes with a 4.3-inch screen and can automatically detect the way you hold it, meaning it will go from portrait to landscape mode, and vice versa automatically. Sounds a bit like the iPod Touch, eh?

Unfortunately, that’s all we know right now, hopefully it will be on sale sometime in the near future.

Via [Akihabara News]

PCWorld is reporting that chinese hackers appear to be preparing for an attack on CNN scheduled for April 19. The attack is being spurred by the recent pro-Tibet coverage in the media. A Chinese site called Anti-CNN is protesting what it considers anti-Chinese propaganda and is calling for protests in several countries including Germany, France and the UK. The hackers, believed to be members of The Red Hat Alliance, are calling for a DDos (Distributed Denial of Service Attack) against CNN to coincide with the protests. It is not yet known if the group is capable of backing up its attack threats, but security firms and media outlets will be watching closely to find out.

Read [PCWorld]

With its one-of-a-kind circular, metallic-looking keypad, the Cool G108 cellphone seems to be what the Motorola RAZR would look like if it was made into a wristwatch. I don’t know if any normal people really get excited by gadgets like this, but just in case you’re in the mood for a little discreet telephony, I guess this could prove useful for you.

The G108 is part of the Chinese-manufactured Cool Series, and its features include Quadband GSM, Bluetooth, and USB connectivity. It also has a 1.5-inch screen capable of showing up to 256k colors at a 128 x 60 pixel resolution. And make no mistake, it’s not as small as it is. Because impressive as all of the previously mentioned features may be (as far as cellphone watches are concerned) the G108 cellphone watch hides even more tricks up its sleeve.

For the inner spy in you, you can fire up the Bluetooth feature on this baby and wirelessly make phone calls via a Bluetooth headset. You can also check for vital information like battery life, signal strength, and current time from the external display, since this comes in the clamshell form factor. When you’re bored, just groove to your favorite tunes with the built-in media player. And did I mention that it also has a built-in 1.3 megapixel camera? Oh, I guess I just did. Suddenly China doesn’t seem so lacking in originality now, doesn’t it?

Via [Slashphone]

Chinese YouTubers will no longer be able to access the video-sharing site---indefinitely. Access was blocked last Sunday after Tibetan protest videos were posted that may have prompted the Chinese government’s decision.

Similar to what happened in Pakistan, the whole YouTube website was blocked. It would be a lesser bad news if only the videos in question were banned but the government decided to refrain their people from accessing the popular video website.

Doing a simple ‘Tibet protest’ search on YouTube.com, will show more than 400 videos uploaded in the past 7 days alone. As of this writing, the video “Tibet WAS, IS and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of CHINA” already has 273,162 views and counting and the video was only uploaded Sunday, March 16. The video was reported to have irked the Chinese government causing them to shut down YouTube access.

Being the largest country and with the largest population, China also has the largest online community beating the US just last month. So maybe the government was just afraid that the video may cause yet another revolution. No official word yet from the Chinese government has been reported.

Via [TheRegister]

ZTE, the largest telecom equipment manufacturer in China, has officially entered the competitive U.S. mobile phone industry with an entry-level mobile handset, ZTE C88. Its subsidiary ZTE USA Inc. will carry this flip phone in partnership with MetroPCS. Just like any Chinese company entering the market, it is positioned as a “cost effective option for consumers who want a high quality, full featured handset at an affordable price point.”

The cost of ZTE C88 ranges from $129 to $149, depending on the promotions being offered. Unfortunately, it is not available nationwide as MetroPCS only operates in Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Sarasota, Orlando, LA, San Francisco, Tampa, Detroit, and Sacramento. 

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Lenovo sure likes the Olympics, not just to watch some great sporting events, but to sell Olympic themed devices. Previously, they had announced some new Olympic themed laptops. Now, they have decided to manufacture and market another device, a USB jump drive. If you have seen a picture of the laptops that Lenovo has created with the Olympic design and you liked that, then you’ll be happy to know that these new jump drives sport a similar design.

Unfortunately, there is no word on storage, pricing, or availability at this time. However, expect these to be on sale sometime before the Olympics get started this summer.

Via [Engadget]