Usually I love living in China, thirstily drinking the kool-aid that this place is changing for the better, improving a little bit every day. Sure it has its warts, but compared to 5 years ago, 15 years ago, 35 years ago… it’s definitely improving — right? Then Youtube gets blocked, Facebook and Twitter follow, as …Read More
Back in 2008 I added a new feature to Lost Laowai called the “China Blog Network”, with the simple premise of creating a Webring for China blogs. Membership consistently grew over the next year and a half, but the script that was handling the CBN was beginning to buckle under the pressure. Wanting a more …Read More
I was randomly browsing the Apple App Store and came across “China Trip Planner“. The app is put out by the state-run China Radio International (CRI), one of China’s oldest media institutions. By its own words, “It is widely acknowledged that the CRI English Service provides the world with one of the most efficient and …Read More
Tom Lasseter, who in 2009 took over the Beijing bureau chief spot for McClatchy Newspapers from long-timer Tim Johnson, has a great post on his blog about the GFW. Due to a computer glitch, Tom lost his VPN the other night and without it decided to traipse around the Internet as viewed from inside China …Read More
A little down recently about my regular VPN’s lackluster speed, I started testing out a new service called ibVPN (Invisible Browsing VPN) and am decently happy with the results/ease of use. The service is strictly PPTP and not SSL, which I suppose is both a pro and a con. From my experience PPTP is faster …Read More
With no official launch announcement yet, fevered reports are popping up across the Applesphere with new photos of the “cloaked in red, and guarded by ninjas” cylindrical glass tower entrance to Apple’s new underground retail megastore in Shanghai. Set to open mid-July, the red curtains are an auspicious signal to the large Apple lovin’ community …Read More
Yesterday Elaine at the Shanghaiist reported a number of sites were miraculously unblocked — Vimeo, Hootsuite, VOA News. Checking now and it appears Hootsuite has re-fallen to the mighty River Crab, but Vimeo is still powering along … for now. Twitter, Youtube and Facebook are all still unaccessible.Read More
Dying for an iPad, but feeling a bit guilty that you’d be supporting a company that drives their employees to suicide? Maybe you just don’t have the better part of a grand to drop on a new toy? Whatever your reasoning, there’s a new shanzhai iPad to the rescue. A Japanese news report announced the …Read More
If you’ve somehow missed the news, Google.cn has officially exited China, sort of. Instead of pulling out of the country completely, they’ve moved the search division of their business to Hong Kong, which is free of the political censorship rules that the Mainland’s internet is subject to. Now when visiting google.cn, visitors are automatically redirected …Read More
If you’ve gotten your paws on an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you’ve likely added lots of useful apps to it. You might, however, have overlooked the fact that there are lots of apps – many by Chinese developers – that you can use daily to help find your way around, speak the language, or …Read More
Here’s a great video recorded at TED2010 earlier this month in which TED curator Chris Anderson talks to Google co-founder Sergey Brin about the company’s recent statements about their China operations. You can read the whole transcript of the talk here. Apologies for the far right-side of the video being cut off. It shouldn’t affect …Read More
This is a bit sinister: the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has been dropping digital certificates into the computers of everyone in China, which could potentially allow them to snoop on your normally secure ‘https’ web-surfing, such as your online banking and email. CNNIC’s digital certificate, which is probably in your computer right now, …Read More
Return to Top ▲
