Android is in a tricky spot within China. While the OS is run by practically every smartphone in China that’s not an iPhone, including of course handsets from domestic champions such as Xiaomi, the Chinese government maintains a near state of war against Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Google, with its libertarian ethos, antagonized the Chinese government when it operated in the country by refusing to comply with censorship requests. When Google left China, the Chinese government began traffic shaping its packets before outright blocking Google late last year. Now trying to use Google or things like Gmail or Google Apps is impossible in China without a VPN (and the majority of which no longer work inside the country). The majority of Android platforms used by Chinese vendors are heavily forked. While this presents its own security problems, it’s the best vendors can do to still use Android without relying on Google.

China’s government recognizes the problem and is developing its own indigenous mobile OS as a way to remove the dependence Chinese companies have on Google.

For Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) part, the company says that it will assist China in developing this platform to ensure compatibility with the Intel platform (a must considering the investments Intel is making in Chinese smartphone vendors).

“We have and continue to collaborate on indigenous platforms. We have thousands of software engineers and leadership here in China,” Intel’s Doug Fisher, the company’s Vice President General Manager, Software and Services Group, said at IDF Shenzhen 2015. “We will work with China’s government industries to ensure that we participate in the creation of an indigenous operating environment here in China.”

He said that Intel’s role with the China OS Association, the industry group working with China’s government, will be to “enable” the OS.

It will be interesting to see how close China lets Intel get to the development process of the indigenous OS. On one hand China would need to consult with Intel to ensure compatibility with its platform. On the other hand, China might not want to let Intel get too close to the platform for fear that it would lose face letting a foreign firm in to help with the heavy lifting development work – or worse plant a backdoor.

The post Intel Onboard to Support Indigenous China Mobile OS appeared first on VR World.

“Innovating together, winning together.”

That’s how Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich defined the relationship between Intel and China during the kickoff keynote of IDF Shenzhen 2015.

“Since last year, we’ve made a lot of progress together. It’s been a good year full of innovation and full of partnerships and collaborations together,” Krzanich said on stage.

Though interference from the US government may block Intel from parts of the lucrative high-performance computing market in China, on stage Krzanich said that Intel and China maintain a strong relationship and high levels of cooperation.

“The local and global impact of our 50 years of Moore’s Law innovation and 30 years of strong collaboration and winning together in China is unmatched,” said Krzanich. “Intel remains focused on delivering leadership products and technologies in traditional areas of computing, while also investing in new areas and entrepreneurs – students, makers and developers – to find and fuel future generations of innovation with China.”

Krzanich began the keynote by highlighting the how Intel met or beat its goals from last year.

In terms of Intel’s goal to hit 40 million tablets shipped with Intel silicon inside, that goal was met and exceeded as the company announced in January as Intel says it hit not only the 40 million mark, but exceeded initial estimates by hitting 46 million.

With regards to the Smart Device Innovation Fund established last year, Intel said that so far it has been “very successful” with $37 million of the $100 million fund disbursed so far. Many of the companies highlighted by Intel as recipients of the funds are relatively unknown outside of China. Eyesmart technology, Appscomm, were some of the firms highlighted by Intel.

Updates on collaboration with Rockchip

At last year’s IDF Shenzhen, Krzanich gave a first preview of SoFIA its first SoC solution with an embedded 3G baseband. SoFIA was Intel’s plan to get a foothold into the value-oriented Chinese market.

Later in the year Intel announced that it would be collaborating with China’s Rockchip to further develop SoFIA, with Rockchip taking the lead.

Rockchip CEO Min Li

On stage at IDF Shenzhen, Krzanich and Rockchip’s CEO said that they had scored hardware wins from from 20 companies, with more than 45 tablet, phablet and smartphone designs currently in development based on the Intel Atom x3 processor reference designs.

Krzanich then demonstrated the Intel Atom x3 processor in a smartphone, supporting LTE-TDD connectivity over China Mobile’s network by streaming a song from a popular Chinese music streaming service.

A new fund for makers

Following in the footsteps of the Intel Innovation Fund for smartphone and tablet vendors, Intel announced a program to accelerate the development of maker projects powered by Intel’s Galileo and Edison platforms. It’s not clear how these funds will be disbursed, but Intel said it is investing $20 million (120 million RMB) into the project.

Real Sense gets thinner and an enterprise partner

Intel’s RealSense technology has been a favourite staple of the company during its keynotes at events like IDF and Computex. While Intel has secured a handful of wins for its 3D camera, interest from vendors has otherwise been scant. One of the few wins Intel was able to secure for the technology was the Dell Venue 7000, which had many other selling points other than the inclusion of the camera.

At this year’s IDF Shenzhen Intel announced that it had developed a new version of the camera that’s thinner and lighter than the previous version.

Intel also announced that China online mega retailer JD.com would be using Intel RealSense technology in its wharehouses to organize and sort supplies into boxes.

IDF Shenzhen 2015 continues through Wednesday and Thursday in Shenzhen.

The post IDF Shenzhen 2015: Intel Celebrates 30 Years in China at IDF Shenzhen appeared first on VR World.

Just as Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich opens the regular staff meetings before a dramatically reduced IDF2015 Shenzhen conference, it is a good time to review how government and enterprises don’t see eye to eye when it comes to strategic business.

China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer is world’s fastest supercomputer, at 33 PFLOPS demonstrated and 55 PFLOPS theoretical performance.

Remember the Tianhe-2 machine at Guangzhou Supercomputer Center, the current World’s number one according to Top 500 Supercomputer list? Unlike some other China supercomputers – Tianhe-2 is fully Intel based machine,  the world’s largest assembly of Intel Xeon CPUs and Xeon Phi accelerators.

Even after Intel ‘opened the kimono’ and gave a nearly 70%  discount on its processors and accelerators, it has given Intel, and therefore US technology sector a major foothold in China and Asian region as such. Over the course of past two years, we were involved in a lot of discussions with Intel staff who were not privy to see the financial impact of the deal — and even argued our undoubtedly solid information. We’re not here to report how things should be, or are in marketing and investor presentations to its numerous staff, but how things really are.

During 2015, the Tianhe-2 supercomputer was supposed to be doubled in its size, up to 110 PFLOPs peak, again using the very same Intel processors and accelerators. Since now these are mature products with lower real manufacturing cost for Intel, they could finally make some real money.

Well, it was not to be: our tweety bird from the window chirped to us that Uncle Sam has put this supercomputer centre, together with National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, the system’s creators, and Tianjin centre, among others, on so a so-called “Denial List”, which prevents any high technology from the USA to be sold to these sites. Our sources used even harsher words.

Knowing that these several sites alone are expected to order some 250+ PFLOPS of compute in the next few years (around 500,000 top-end Broadwell-EP Xeon E5v4 processors, or  approximately $1 billion high margin list price) and they were THE Intel friendly ones, this is quite a loss to Intel, thanks to Uncle Sam.

But, what’s worse strategic loss in time is that, based on this decision as an excuse, indigenous China high end processor architectures can now push the government to gradually remove any dependence on US. This means just one thing: an AMD or Intel x86 processor technology is increasingly becoming errata non grata. Should the Chinese government react in force, it will give the Chinese vendors the blank check support to go all the way a developing their Alpha, POWER and MIPS processors for both the government and the mainstream commercial use.

You may think they are not up to the mark, but remember how fast British ARM architecture became the dominant processing architecture in the world. And this group doesn’t need to worry about the antiquated x86 ISA, worry about satisfying the dumbed down shareholder masses, or overpaying their marketing and sales staff, as well as the fat check, golden parachute-protected CxOs.

They have taken the best that the USA has developed (some of key Alpha, GPGPU and MIPS architects left US over the course of past four years, a lot of them due to non-renewed visas) and discarded due to corporate shenanigans, and the continued developing it much farther than anyone expected both on hardware and software side.

Five years ago, ShenWei showed a CPU that performed faster than the fastest GPUs of the time. Now, fifth generation is approaching, slotting between Tesla and FirePro GPGPUs and next-gen Xeon Phi accelerators. However, this is not an accelerator or a GPGPU – this is a CPU.

So, thanks to Uncle Sam, China might not have a 110 PFLOPS Intel based supercomputer but it definitely will launch a 100 PFLOPS system based on upcoming 64-core, TFLOPS-class ShenWei Alpha, with true blue CPUs possibly faster per socket then even the next generation Xeon Phi or Volta/Pascal-based Teslas.  Next, of course 100 PFLOPS Chinese POWER8 or 9 — (thank you IBM) and then possibly even Loongson MIPS – -it may come back into the high end field with renewed government support because of this Uncle Sam move. All are clean, elegant, scalable high end RISC architectures.

So who are the winners and losers from this?

NUDT and Tianhe may be the losers for now, but only short term. They will simply speed up their HPC ARM plan.

Intel comes out the big loser from this and a lot: who will want to do a phased deployment large x86 machine in China now, and worry about future phases? Then comes Uncle Sam himself: they lost even that little bit of influence on the high end China HPC. How is that for “cutting your nose to spite your face?”.

VR WORLD’s  Analysis: US government moves accelerate the Chinese CPU roadmap while curtailing juiciest sales for Intel and other US vendors.

The post Uncle Sam Shocks Intel With a Ban on Xeon Supercomputers in China appeared first on VR World.

Two United States Navy F-18s made an emergency landing in Tainan, a city in south Taiwan, Wednesday afternoon after declaring an in-flight emergency due to a mechanical issue.

The two aircraft transmitted a 7700 “squawk” code which is recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organization as meaning general emergency. The two aircraft landed safely at Tainan Air Force Base shortly after 1:00 pm.

An American diplomatic official is quoted by local media as saying the two aircraft were on a “routine” flight when they encountered a mechanical emergency and required to land. The official thanked Taiwan for its assistance in getting the planes safely to the ground.

As Taiwan’s Air Force does not have F-18s in its fleet, the aircraft and pilots will remain in Taiwan until technicians and spare parts can be sent in from the closest US base in Okinawa, Japan.

A sensitive landing

Landing two US military aircraft in Taiwan has the potential to create further complications due to the island’s unique relationship with China and most of the world.

Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, does not have formal diplomatic relations with most countries. Following the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party retreated from China to Taiwan in 1949. That same year, Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China. Until the late 1970s most of the world considered the Republic of China (Taiwan) to be “China”. In 1979 that recognition shifted to China, with China taking the ROC’s former seat at the UN and the US and most countries of the world opening up full diplomatic relations.

Relations between most countries and Taiwan are conducted through non-official “Trade Institutes” that act as de-facto embassies without the official title.

To this day Taiwan and China see each other as the legitimate “China”, with the other being considered a rogue province. Relations between the two improved in 1992, when both ROC and PRC officials met to sign the 1992 Consensus which states that both sides agree there is “One China” but that definition is subject to interpretation. In 2005 the two sides agreed to have daily cross-strait flights.

While the United States does not have official relations with Taiwan, it provides defensive weapons to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act. The act does state that the US will come to the defense of Taiwan should the PRC attack it, provided that Taiwan does not declare independence first. While the US does not provide top-tier weapons to Taiwan for fear of angering China, it has provided the nation (under protest from China) with F-16s, Black Hawk helicopters, and Apache attack helicopters amongst other kit.

A ‘routine’ flight?

While diplomatic officials in Taiwan maintain that the flight was “routine”, it was likely anything but.

The area the jets flew through is heavily contested, and to get there they no doubt had to traverse through Chinese Air Defense Identification Zones.

In the last few years China has taken an aggressive posturing in the South China Sea, to the protest of neighbouring states. Many states in the area, such as the Philippines, have expressed concern about China’s expansion in the area. China has recently been carrying out military drills in the South China Sea’s Bashi Channel, near Philippines’ territorial waters, which is notable because of the distance from China’s coastlines.

It is likely that the US jets were in the region to shadow or monitor the drill to symbolize to China that the US has interests in the area as well. The emergency landing in Taiwan was no doubt noticed by China — but perhaps that was the point.

The post US F-18s Make Emergency Landing in Taiwan appeared first on VR World.

After recent delays, Sony (NYSE: SNE) has finally pinpointed a finalized release date for the launch of their next-gen console-and-handled combo for the Chinese market.

According to a recent press release from Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia, Sony’s PlayStation 4 and PS Vita comes to China on March 20, 2015 for 2,899 RMB and 1,299 RMB respectively.

SCEJA has revealed two special edition “dragon” variants for each system to commemorate the Chinese launch, and both systems will be accompanied by the following day-one games:

PlayStation 4 Chinese Launch Titles

• DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition
• King of Wushu: Free Early Access Edition
• Knack
• Mr.Pumpkin Adventure
• Rayman Legends
• Trials Fusion

PlayStation Vita Chinese Launch Titles

• DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition
• Farming Simulator 14
• FINAL FANTASY X HD Remaster
• FINAL FANTASY X-2 HD Remaster
• One Tap Hero
• Rayman Legends
• TOUKIDEN-KIWAMI

While that current launch selection might seem lackluster, SCEJA plans to release a “steady stream” of titles to the region with the help of more than 70 third-party software development studios–26 of which are native Chinese developers.

Sony is committed to actively supporting Chinese developers to ensure the platform has a thriving and expansive library of games, so it looks like the PlayStation has a solid future within the region.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) got a head start over Sony by releasing the Xbox One last September following the Chinese government’s decision to lift the 14-year ban on consoles, and it’ll be interesting to see if Sony can assert their dominance to the new frontier that is the Chinese gaming market.

The Xbox One was first to launch in China, but can Sony win over this region as well?

But Sony’s biggest competitor won’t be Microsoft; it’ll be China’s black-market gaming sector that’s thrived over the last decade and a half thanks to the government’s tight gaming restrictions.

Although the red tape has been lifted and the PS4 and Xbox One are now legal, consumers may be hesitant to embrace the consolidated and limited entertainment options that the consoles offer and instead stick to the huge array of games available on the underground market.

Like Microsoft, Sony will also go against the mobile gaming sector, which has proven to be massively popular within the region.

Despite the hurdles, in the next few months we may see China’s gaming presence make a paradigm shift towards console gaming thanks to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as the People’s Republic of China represents a relatively new frontier for the console games market–and a new battleground for Microsoft and Sony.

The post Sony’s PS4 And PS Vita Come To China This Month appeared first on VR World.

A new report says that Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA)  will cut jobs in China.

The highly touted technology company that produces one of the world’s most popular electric cars is about to lose 180 employees in the Middle Kingdom. Tesla currently has 600 employees in China, where the stated number of jobs to be cut is a rather high 30% of the employee numbers posted in China overall.

According to various sources, Tesla Motors aims to restructure and tighten its position in that particular market with this move. The goal is to provide a boost in sales. But overall, the market will be the deciding factor in China for the American company. Tesla Motors makes nice sales in its respective niche overall. We can say that Tesla is the leader when it comes to electric car sales, but this may come to an end in the future years as well. Globally, they saw some other heavier competitors like BMW (ETR: BMW), Cadillac  (NYSE: GM) and others joining in the fight for electric vehicle supremacy. This is naturally providing the car maker with plenty to worry in the forthcoming months as well.

Earlier this year, Tesla China has already seen turnover in its leadership. First, its President Veronica Wu left in December, while its vice president of communications, June Jin, resigned last month. This would be worry some for some bigger companies, let alone a rather small one (by comparison to other big car makers). Tesla Motors is in a rather difficult day in age with sales numbers growing slow on certain markets, specially China as one of the biggest sources of income for several larger car manufacturers.

China is a difficult country for Tesla (and other car makers) overall. The local car production companies are subsidized by the government, there is no clear charging infrastructure set in place, and overall, the cars Tesla Motors imports to China cost more. This is all due to local import taxes, added and set to protect the domestic car industry.

One of the solutions would be to produce the car on site or in the country itself, providing Tesla Motors with the same leveled playing field as the other Chinese manufacturers. While the future seems bleak for Tesla in China for now, there is light at the end of the tunnel for the car maker over there. The overall effort the Chinese government is inputting in making the country pollution free and depending less on gasoline consumption and import, might well be the beacon of light for the car maker going forward in the future.

The post Tesla Motors Will Cut Jobs In China appeared first on VR World.

Recently security consultancy Bluebox Labs reported on some major security flaws found in the latest Xiaomi Mi 4 phone. Xiaomi didn’t take this criticism lying down, and has prepared a lengthy rebuttal to Bluebox’s claims.

While Xiaomi had already called the report “inaccurate” in a statement to VR World, Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s VP International responded to Bluebox Labs by saying the phone purchased by the company in China had been tampered with. It’s important to note that Bluebox had already tested the device to make sure that it was authentic and not a knockoff.

“We are certain the device that Bluebox tested is not using a standard MIUI ROM, as our factory ROM and OTA ROM builds are never rooted and we don’t pre-install services such as YT Service, PhoneGuardService, AppStats etc,” Barra said in his statement. “Bluebox could have purchased a phone that has been tampered with, as they bought it via a physical retailer in China. Xiaomi does not sell phones via third-party retailers in China, only via our official online channels and selected carrier stores.”

If Barra’s claim holds true, this brings up the very worrying issue of supply chain security, as Bluebox points out. If these — authentic — phones are modified by the retailer, or someone else in the supply chain, that’s incredibly concerning for device security and brand reputation.

Barra says that customers should only purchase Xiaomi phones from the official online store to ensure authenticity and “reputable retailers”. But what makes a “reputable retailer”? If the one Bluebox purchased its phone from — and it went to great lengths to ensure authenticity — isn’t reputable than which ones are? After all, China is home to fake Xiaomi stores (and fake Apple as well as Samsung stores too).

If indeed what Barra says is true, this is largely a lesson in supply chain security. All vendors need to ensure that the China side of their supply chain isn’t compromised by a man-in-the-middle attack. Because clearly even local companies aren’t immune.

UPDATE: March 9 2015 11:00 AM China Standard Time

Xiaomi emailed VR World further statements to expand upon what it told Bluebox Labs. Here’s the statement in full.

There are glaring inaccuracies in the Bluebox blog post. Official Xiaomi devices do not come rooted and do not have malware pre-installed. Our investigation based on information received so far indicates that the phone Bluebox obtained is a counterfeit product purchased through an unofficial channel on the streets in China. We’re gathering more information to fully confirm this and should have a final answer in the next 24 hours.

With the large parallel street market for mobile phones in China, not only is it somewhat common for third parties to tamper with the software sold on smartphones, but there are counterfeit products which are almost indistinguishable from the original products on the outside. This happens across all brands, affecting both Chinese and foreign smartphone companies selling in China. 

Furthermore, “entrepreneurial” retailers may add malware and adware to these devices, and even go to the extent of pre-installing modified copies of popular benchmarking software such as CPU-Z and Antutu, which will run “tests” showing the hardware is legitimate — fooling even very discerning buyers.

Xiaomi takes all necessary measures to crack down on the manufacturers of fake devices or anyone who tampers with our software, supported by all levels of law enforcement agencies in China. However, for the safety of our users, Xiaomi and all smartphone brands always recommend buying phones through authorised channels. Xiaomi only sells via Mi.com, and a small number of Xiaomi trusted partners including mobile operators and select authorised retailers, such as Flipkart in India. 

In addition, contrary to what Bluebox has claimed, MIUI is true Android, which means MIUI follows exactly Android CDD, Google’s definition for compatible Android devices, and it passes all Android CTS tests, the process used by the industry to make sure a given device is fully Android compatible. All Xiaomi devices sold in China and international markets are fully Android compatible.

The post Updated: Xiaomi Hits Back Hard at Bluebox Labs’ Claims appeared first on VR World.

In the last few years the Asia-Pacific area has revealed itself to be fertile ground for two-wheeled electric vehicles, with almost 45 million units sold by 2012 and and an expected 50% increase by 2018.

Unlike in the two other world’s biggest markets of Western Europe and North America, where electric vehicles are most seen as an expensive way of life, in Asia electric powered vehicles are seen as a practical and cheap alternative for daily commuting. China alone became has been the world frontrunner since 1995 becoming the largest electric two-wheeler manufacturer and exporter, accounting for 92 % of the global market with four times more e-bikes than cars.

“Chinese people love bicycles and now they’ve become electric‏,” Shenta Tsai, Chief Technology Officer for Mobipus Technology, an electric powertrain company, said to VR World. “A few customers of mine in China, they produce from 1 to 4 million electric scooter per year   99% of electric scooter’s motor are made in China, about 95% of their controllers and ‏ 98% of the frames and plastic are also from there.”

However in neighboring Taiwan, a country with the highest scooter density in the world, adherence to the transition to electric transportation has been far from hasty. Though it has almost 15 million scooters for 23 million inhabitants, only 122,500 scooters are electric.

If there is a good place to check the feasibility of electric scooters that place is Taiwan as two-wheel vehicles are completely omnipresent and an essential part of daily life mostly petrol powered ones.

As with other Eastern Asian metropolis, the city of Taipei is in a basin which traps all the air pollution produced by high levels of petrol motorcycles emissions.  However, this high dependence on scooters can be an advantage and a disadvantage to the inclusion of environment-friendly solutions.

“The traditional gasoline scooter in Taiwan is one of cheapest forms of transportation in the world.” says Azizi Tucker, former region supplier development in Asia for Tesla Motors and currently VP of Engineering at LMD Racing and Owner of Sketch to SKU, an engineering consulting company. “Scooters are typically kept for 10 to 15 years and receive only the most minimal service. They use very little gas. As such electric scooters in many ways are very hard to market in Taiwan since the gas scooters are so cheap to the user”.

As an example, Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) implemented a program to support e-scooters in 1998, providing a subsidy of $1000 for each vehicle purchased. Although this reduced the price to be roughly on par with low-powered gasoline models, it failed to stimulate interest when battery-charging infrastructure and general e-scooter performance capabilities were still in their infancy.

For the duration of that particular program, which concluded in 2002, only about 26,000 e-scooters were purchased. New subsidies are in place, but rather than increasing the amount, they have decreased.

Although it managed to reduce the price of an electric motorcycle to that of a gasoline-powered model it didn’t really stimulate demand as not many people became interested in a product where battery-charging infrastructure and autonomy was still not good enough. For the duration of the EPA program, which concluded in 2002,  and only about 26,000 electric motorcycles were purchased.

Creating a fertile market

While some might believe that the industry would struggle after the cessation of the program, this is not the case with Gogoro, a small Taiwanese startup founded in 2011 by ex-HTC engineers (TPE: 2498) managed to raise $150 million in venture capital (a good portion came from HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang) and launched the Smartscooter, an innovative electric scooter.

“Gogoro’s vision was inspired by one of the greatest challenges of our time: How to distribute energy in a smarter way to have the greatest impact on our lives and the lives of future generations,” said a company spokesperson.

Tucker believes Taiwan can finally be at the forefront of the electric motion vanguard.

“Gogoro is a huge advancement for electric scooters. The quality of the design and the performance are a huge step forward compared to the electric scooters on the market now,” he says. “The battery swap is a smart solution to the charging problem. It is especially useful in cities where people do not own garages.”

In Tucker’s view the benefit of going with electric is not short-term, as it helps moving young riders toward electric vehicles as a transportation solution and it can significantly decrease tailpipe emissions.

He states that the gas scooter industry in Taiwan is very highly developed with amazing value for the money with good gas mileage and speed. Nowadays while $0.03 of gasoline keeps a small scooter going for between 1 and 1.5 km, the same amount in electricity allows an e-scooter to run for almost triple the distance.

“Also due to the long life of scooters there are many scooters on the street with older more polluting emissions,” he says. “The industry has been forced to raise prices to support better emissions but that has led to decreased sales. There is not much development since the vehicles are so refined. In short they are well adapted to their environment, but at the same time destructive of the environment.”

Government can help and hinder

However, while in China government regulations have helped stimulate the electric scooter industry, in Taiwan government intervention is still not sufficient or has been misguided.

“The most obvious step for more widespread adoption is government intervention in the form of tax credits, subsidies, or increased tax on gas scooters. It can and should offer subsidizes for electric scooters to allow new manufacturers to get through at least three generations of products,” he told VR World.

Mobipus’ Tsai has a more cynical view of the government’s intervention in the electric vehicle industry.

“Taiwan’s electric scooter market has been framed by the business leaders and cheated by ex-government officials,” he told VR World.‏ “The government subsidizes wrong products for the market and tries to kill the electric scooter by setting up unreasonable regulations and subsidize underpowered, unusable products that make the public feel that electric scooters are not good enough for everyday usage‏‏.”

So although Tsai thinks Gogoro’s idea for power stations is smart he believes it won’t work without government support for acquisition of land needed for battery exchange stations and better incentives for electric technology development startups.

“The Singapore government offered me five years of income tax break, and 10 years 300% R&D expense exemption, plus three years 1% interest start up loans, and offered to invest in my company if I moved the HQ and R&D to Singapore‏,” he claims. “While Taiwan’s government would rather subsidize electric scooter manufactured in China (like e-moving), but not give any help to local Taiwan manufacturers for high-end components for EV‏.”

In some cases it’s also a matter different government approaches, since the Chinese government executive powers are simply more powerful allowing it to simply ban gas scooters in some cities, while in Taiwan’s red tape can sometimes make the process harder.

“I think Taiwan’s electric scooter won’t take off anytime soon but the tip-over point is getting closer as people realize the advantages of EV‏.”

Photo credit: Daniel Spiller

The post Why Aren’t Electric Scooters Taking Off in Taiwan? appeared first on VR World.

Earlier this month Cheetah Mobile — a China-based mobile app company with a sizable presence in Taipei — announced that its CM Security suite hit the 100 million download mark in a year and a day, beating many well-known apps such as Line and Instagram. Not to be outdone by its rival, Qihoo announced Friday that its 360 Security App had also hit the 100 million milestone — but all from international users.

“We’re thrilled that 100 million users internationally are embracing 360 Security and supporting our mission to secure mobile live worldwide,” said Huang Yan, Head of Product at 360 Security Group, in a press release. “It’s clear that our rejuvenated focus on delivering critical features that quickly and easily keep 360 Security users’ Android smartphones in top shape is satisfying the market’s growing demand for optimization and security apps.”

According to data from App Annie, a mobile app analytics firm, 360 Security is the most downloaded Google Play app in five countries, and the top 10 most downloaded app in 34 countries globally.

However, 360 Security did not say how long it took for its app to reach the 100 million mark. It could be that Cheetah Mobile’s CM Security still has the record for growth.

The post Qihoo’s 360 Security Also Claims 100 Million Record appeared first on VR World.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Taiwan’s economy industrialized rapidly, by the 1990s becoming a high-income mature economy with a purchasing power parity (PPP) comparable to many first world economies.

Taiwan was able to do this partially because it was in the right place at the right time, but also because it built innovative companies. Taiwanese companies, with the advantage of speaking the same language, were the first into China as it opened up to the world, building with the help of Hong Kong capital, now-famous ODM/OEM firms like Foxconn (TPE: 2354) in Shenzhen, China, and at home in Taiwan the modern PC components industry with giants such as Gigabyte (TPE: 2376), Asus (TPE: 2357) and TSMC (TPE: 2330). These companies are the epitome of innovation; their respective markets didn’t really exist in the years before they were founded.

So it’s troubling when an executive from a Chinese company says that Taiwan must be more innovative and import Chinese thinking if it wants to remain competitive. During a recent Cheetah Mobile — a Chinese mobile app company with a significant presence in Taiwan —  press event in Taipei one of the company’s executives mused on stage that while Taiwan was a very important player during the PC era it lost a lot of opportunities during the mobile era because of the failure of its companies to adapt.

The CEO of Cheetah Mobile made similar comments at an event in Taipei in January, admonishing young Taiwanese for their lack of entrepreneurial drive and innovation in the workplace.

“If you go to any cafe in Zhonggguancun in Beijing, or CBD in Shenzhen, you’ll immediately hear people discussing startups and investments and dreams. In a cafe in Taipei, you’ll rarely hear this,” he is quoted as saying on stage. “Taipei lacks this energy and investment environment. So even if Taiwanese youth have dreams, how can they be fearless? There needs to be a base for fearlessness.”

This is slightly ironic, since a large part of Taiwan’s economic advantage is based on defining itself against China: Taiwanese companies are innovative, contract law is generally respected and the legal system is predictable, there’s a large educated work force to draw from.

But it’s also not incorrect, as even ministers from Taiwan’s government admit that the country is losing its edge. During a November speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, Taiwan’s Chang San-cheng, then the Minister of Science and Technology, called on young Taiwanese to become more innovative pointing out that the hyper-popular local message board PTT (analogous to Reddit in popularity) does not have a business model and relies on the support of a non-profit society.

Taiwan needs to revamp its industry to become more innovative and competitive. This begins at the top with changing the managerial culture to reward productivity, not working the longest, while figuring out how to give the bottom a fighting spirit to make it less complacent. At its best, Taiwan is more than capable of this. While the US Military Industrial Complex is prone to inefficiencies and delays, Taiwanese industry developed a domestic fighter aircraft for a reasonable cost that’s comparable to an F-16.

If Taiwan doesn’t regain its fighting competitive edge the results would be disastrous, pushing the island to economic irrelevance in fields it once dominated it. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to this.

The post When China Lectures Taiwan on Innovation, Something is Wrong appeared first on VR World.

Cheetah Mobile’s (NYSE: CMCM) suite of mobile utility apps — anchored by the CM Security Suite — is not a household name for many outside of China but it should be considering the popularity of its app suite. China’s Cheetah Mobile had an impressive period of growth during the last year, opening an office in Taipei and launching the CM Security Suite — which has beaten better known apps to the 100 million mark in record time.

While Line — a popular instant messaging app in Japan, Taiwan and Southeast Asia — took a year-and-a-half to hit the 100 million mark, and Instagram took just over a year, Cheetah Mobile’s CM Suite his that critical mark in only 357 days and maintains a rating of 4.7 on Google Play. The growth in user data backs this up: according to Fu the company’s user base has grown by 900% since 2013. As of Q3 2014, the company has 340 million active users with 70% from outside China (and a big presence in the US and EU). On Google Play, the CM Security Suite is holding steady at number 3, behind Facebook. Revenue, says Fu, has grown by 140% per year, three years in a row.

At a press event in Taipei, Cheetah Mobile CEO Sheng Fu credited the success of CM Suite to the company’s policy of being hyper-reactive to the needs of customers. He pointed to the frequent updates his company pushes out for CM Security — three per-week — as proof.

While Cheetah Mobile has had success with impressive growth in its user base and revenue, like many Internet companies with a mobile focus sustaining profitability continues to be a concern. Its Q3 2014 earnings came in flat, and analysts were bearish about continued growth prospects in light of increased competition from the likes of Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) and Qihoo (NYSE: QIHU). That being said, the stock has been on something of a rally throughout February.

Cheetah Mobile and its CM Security Suite is an impressive achievement in the up and coming market for mobile security apps, as well as cross-strait cooperation in software development. Getting to 100 million downloads so quickly is a testament to the quality of its products. However, China’s internet industry is not immune to the bubbles that have frequently popped in the US meaning that Cheetah Mobile will have to work hard to sustain such impressive growth in the future.

Photo caption: Executives from Cheetah Mobile’s Beijing and Taipei offices at a press event in Taipei’s Beitou suburb. 

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Qualcomm’s (NASDAQ: QCOM) legal battle with China’s National Development and Reform Commission came to an end Monday with the US semiconductor giant being hit with a $975 million fine and having new patent licensing rules imposed upon it.

In addition to a $975 million fine, Qualcomm agreed to offer new terms for standards essential patents related to its 3G and 4G technology. Qualcomm also agreed to change its royalty schedule to only receive 65% of the net selling price rather than the full selling price. Qualcomm also agreed to remove elements in its licensing contracts that Chinese authorities

Chinese authorities began investigating Qualcomm over allegations that the company was using its library of patents in China in a monopolistic fashion, and refusing to come to fair licensing agreements with local companies. The investigation began in late November 2013 and heated up late 2014.

While Qualcomm executives said they were “disappointed” with the sheer size of the fine, they also said that they were glad to have put any uncertainties behind them with regards to the company’s ability to conduct business in China. Analysts quoted in media reports say this agreement opens doors for further and new cooperation between Qualcomm and major handset players in China.

All-in-all this move by Chinese authorities was merely a play to extract money from Qualcomm in order to make its position in the market slightly less competitive when compared to local companies in the same business. This has become a common tactic in China in order to give local firms an edge (read more about that here). But Qualcomm paid the price, and it appears to be smooth sailing for the company now.

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AMD’s (NASDAQ: AMD) future lies within China for many reasons, but not just as a growing market for its products. However, it is not the country that a company keen to outright takeover AMD hails from but rather it will be the source of strategic investments into AMD throughout 2015-2016.

VR World has learned China’s Loongson Technology, a microprocessor manufacturer that’s a joint venture between Beijing-based chip designer BLX IC Design Corp, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Computing Technology, is set to make key investments into AMD’s technologies and product lines. Loongson is best known for its Godson line of chips that use the MIPS architecture.

Earlier reports indicated that China’s BLX intended to initiate an outright takeover of AMD, but this course of action is unlikely due legal concerns from Intel and regulatory issues that might arise from US authorities.

These investments are set to begin immediately. Loongson’s targeted investments will be funded by a $19 billion war chest (120 billion RMB) that the company has set aside for such ventures.

Loongson and AMD have worked together before in the past. AMD’s HyperTransport and PCI South as well as North bridges were in previous Godson silicon, so for Loongson AMD is not entirely foreign territory. The two opened an R&D center in December 2003 in order to develop what the two hoped would be something to counter the goliath of Intel.

Investing in AMD’s various technologies and product lines would be a much easier transaction for Loongson. It would not have to deal with the regulatory burden the US government might impose, nor would it need to negotiate an x86 license from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC). It is not yet clear what the end result of such investments might look like, but it could be that Loongson markets future Godson systems with more AMD inside — such as GCN GPU architecture.

Key AMD staff were in Beijing in late January and early February likely in meetings related to this deal.

There’s plenty that needs to happen to make this official, but such a deal is much more likely than an outright takeover. More details will be posted as they are available. A response from AMD will be posted when available.

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Inventec Corp (TPE: 2356), a mobile device maker and the major supplier for China’s Xiaomi, said that it will begin mass production at a new factory in India during the second half of 2015 as part of its overseas expansion.

Huang Kuo-chun (黃國鈞), Inventec’s general manager, said that the company’s new plant is located in Chennai, a southern city of India. The plan has been approved by the company’s board of directors on Jan. 26. Initial production is expected to start in the late second quarter or early third quarter before entering mass production in the second half of the year, Huang said.

Huang said that the new plant in India, where is the world’s third-biggest smartphone market, will be used to assemble smartphones as well as other electronic devices, while components will be purchased from local Indian suppliers.

“In addition to China, India will mark our first step toward expanding capacity,” Huang said.

In the meantime, Huang also said that it remains unclear how much the Indian factory will account for Inventec’s total capacity in the next two years.

“Inventec’s major customers are ‘optimistic’ about its investment in the Indian plant but noted that there are still some challenges for the company to enter the Indian market, including the diverse Indian languages and cultural differences,” Huang said.

For now, he said, Inventec has a smartphone assembly factory in Nanjing, China, where monthly production capacity has increased from six million units last year to eight million units currently and is estimated to reach 10 million by the end of this year.

During a press conference last month, Inventec Chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said that the company’s shipments of mobile devices were estimated to increase from 30 million units in 2014 to 50 million in 2015, helped largely by the increasing orders from major customers like Xiaomi and growth in tablet computers.

Xiaomi, the leading Chinese smartphone maker, sold a total of 61.1 million smartphones in 2014, tripled from 18.7 million units in 2013. The “Chinese Apple” aimed to ship 100 million smartphones this year, of which Inventec is expected to receive 50% of the orders.

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The latest Hurun Global Rich List 2015 said that Want Want Group Chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) is the richest man in Taiwan.

Hurun said that Tsai owns a total asset of at least US$10 billion.

The ranking, which was made for billionaires around the world, was compiled and organized by Chinese magazine Hurun Report and sponsored by Star River Property, a Chinese luxury home builder. The annual ranking listed a total of 48 Taiwanese people on this year’s rich man chart. Among them, former Taiwanese vice president Lien Chan (連戰) is the only listed man who is not a businessman but owns a total asset of US$6.1 billion. In addition, Lien is also the first Taiwanese politician to be listed on the Hurun Report.

For those listed Chinese billionaires, the richest man is Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), chairman of Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Group (HKG: 0001), who has a fortune of US$32 billion.

 Hong Kong real estate tycoon Lee Shau-kee (李兆基) followed Li’s ranking as the second richest Chinese man with US$26.5 billion.

The richest man in China is Hanergy Holdings Chairman Li Hejun (李河君) with total assets of US$26 billion, followed by Dalian Wanda Group (HKG: 3699) Chairman Wang Jianlin (王健林) with US$25 billion and Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) Chairman Jack Ma (馬雲) with his assets of US$24.5 billion.

Bill Gates, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder, remains on the top of the chart with a fortune of US$85 billion. Carlos Slim Helu, Mexican telecommunications mogul, checks in the second place on the chart with his assets of US$83 billion, followed by American investor Warren Buffett with US$76 billion, Hurun said.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder for Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), is on the 7^th place with US$44 billion.

Hurun said that there are 2,089 people with a fortune of at least US$1 billion, including 537 Americans and 430 Chinese billionaires.

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