Life can be difficult for broadband internet users in China. Speeds are increasing fast, but they're still well below the international average, and many Chinese users live in residential communities that limit them to only one broadband provider. Now, new regulations announced by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) will mandate that residential communities with fiber-optic broadband cables must allow multiple telecom operators access to give residents a choice in all county-size and ...
Jan 4 2013
Tmall Now Lets US Food Companies Ship Directly to Chinese Consumers
China’s top online store, Tmall, is trying out a special promotion that will see American foods sold directly by US firms to Chinese consumers. This is running through to January 15th, allowing shoppers on Alibaba’s Tmall to buy products like Alaskan flounder fish or fresh salmon, Hawaiian macadamia nuts, and Pepperidge Farm cookies. The promotion is on the pre-orders section of the Tmall site (see it here), where folks in China can put down a deposit ...
Jan 5 2013
This is the Year that China’s Coolest Music Streaming Startup Should Come of Age [REVIEW]
Jing.fm was one of the coolest new startups to emerge in China in 2012, a music-streaming service sort of like Grooveshark. But I was so happy using rival Chinese site Xiami - a broader and more established social music site - that I never got round to trying Jing.fm. But now that this startup finally has an iPhone app, launched last month, it might get more traction after a fairly slow start. So it’s time ...
Jan 4 2013
2
Vietnamese Tech News Sites, Give Us More Vietnam and Less Silicon Valley
In Vietnam, if you want to read information about the technology industry, there are tons of sources. News has been on the frontlines of Vietnam’s Internet boom since the very start. A quick look at Alexa’s rankings for Vietnam will reveal that 11 of the top 20 websites are news sites. Unfortunately, when you drill down to technology news, you immediately see that most of these websites don’t cover technology in Vietnam. They’re all talking ...
Jan 4 2013
Japanese Mobile Social Gaming: 2012 in Review
It has been a pretty busy year in the mobile space in Japan. While the prevailing narrative in most western media has been the demise of Japanese tech companies, it’s important to note that there are some bright spots. Social gaming companies like DeNA (TYO:2432), GREE (TYO:3632), and even NHN Japan with its Line chat platform are all doing really interesting stuff on mobile. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking back at our ...
Jan 4 2013
East Ventures on 3rd Anniversary: 26 Startup Investments, Big Focus on Indonesia [INFOGRAPHIC]
This month marks the third year of life for East Ventures, the early-stage fund that focuses on Singapore and Indonesia. So it’s a good time - as with any birthday or anniversary - for the team to look back on what lessons can be learned from mistakes, and what has been achieved. (Disclosure: East Ventures is an investor in TechinAsia; please see our ethics page for more information). Lots of insights and data have been crammed ...
Jan 5 2013
Google Didn’t Kill off Alibaba’s Smartphone OS, New Phone Hardware Due Soon
China’s Alibaba, the nation’s biggest e-commerce business, might have suffered the indignity and hassle of having its flagship phone launch scuppered by Google in September of last year, but its smartphone OS is not dead. Rumors circulating on Chinese-language tech blogs today suggest that Alibaba’s Aliyun OS will appear on a new flagship handset soon, possibly before Chinese New Year at the start of February. The new phone is thought to be produced by Shenzhen-based manufacturer ...
Jan 4 2013
Survey Says Japan is Now Using Far More Chat Apps
As we pointed out yesterday, 2012 was a pretty big year for NHN Japan’s Line chat app. But if you need further evidence of its popularity, MMD Laboratory has conducted a 2012 smartphone insights survey, and the results tell us a lot about how Japanese users are jumping on board the chat app bandwagon. When 670 participants between the ages of 20 and 59 were asked about which application they use the most, Line was ...
Jan 4 2013
3
The PropertyGuru Story, as Told by Co-Founder Steve Melhuish
Singapore’s leading online property portal, PropertyGuru, was founded in May 2007 with its site officially launched in the following December. The site is still going strong, and recently it raised more than S$60 million (US$49.1 million) from European property portal group, ImmobilienScout24. Co-founder Steve Mulhuish looked back on when he relocated to Singapore, which eventually led to the founding of the PropertyGuru Group empire. Prior to his stint in Singapore, he worked in a digital media ...
Jan 4 2013
2
China’s Biggest Tech Trend of 2013 Will Be ‘The Wall’
It's no secret that I'm pretty pessimistic about 2013. Just a week ago, I said it would be the worst year ever for China tech. But I want to delve deeper into the reason that 2013 is going to be terrible: it's something I call the Wall. Contrary to what you might think, 'the Wall' doesn't refer to just the Great Firewall, although that is a part of it. It is the term I have been ...
Jan 4 2013
Singapore’s Sprooki Hooks Up With YFind on Indoor Positioning Technology
We just received word from a representative of Singapore-based startup Sprooki that it will be partnering with YFind Technologies to offer its indoor positioning technology within its mobile, location-based platform. Readers may recall that Sprooki started out as a consumer facing app, but refocused on a white label solution to help shops and other retailers roll their own mobile campaigns. The partnership with YFind appears to be a logical one. It’s another Singapore based player ...
Jan 5 2013
Mobile App Qender Helps Users to Queue Virtually
Qender (pronounced as Ken-der) allows businesses to offer a virtual queue so users do not have to be physically present at a clinic or restaurant to stay in queue. Rather, it allows users to save queue spots via their smartphone,freeing up time for them to do other stuff. Once the user’s queue number is nearing or up, Qender will prompt him/her to head to the restaurant or clinic. The app also allows you to see the ...
Are Foxconn’s Indonesian Expansion Plans in Doubt?
There’s yet another twist in the Foxconn-Indonesia saga as there’s a rumor flying in that the company’s plans to build a manufacturing plant in the country is in doubt now. WantChinaTimes cited an unnamed source today as saying that the ...
[ Source : WantChinaTimes ]
China’s Biggest Web Company Celebrates New Year with Giant, 3 Ton QR Code Cake [PICS]
Tencent (HKG:0700) takes huge slices of lots of Chinese online markets (social media, online gaming, e-commerce, etc), but earlier this week the company was instead giving out slices of cake. They came from a giant, three-ton cake that looked like ...
[ Source : Shanghaiist ]
3D Printing Photo Studio Pops up in Xi’an, China
The folks over at Shanghaiist point out a very cool 3D photo printing studio which is located in the Chinese city of Xi’an. In total, the process takes 15 minutes to scan the customer’s body, and then two to three ...
[ Source : news.163.com ]
12 Startup Events to Check Out in January in Hong Kong
2013 is starting with a bang and a flurry of startup events in Hong Hong. The newest StartupsHK newsletter details the talks, meetups, and pitching events that local entrepreneurs might like to check out. The full list is linked below, ...
[ Source : StartupsHK Newsletter ]
It’s the End of a Tiny Era as Asus Quits Making Netbooks
Those tiny-screened, under-powered netbooks were supposed to be the next big thing in personal computing. But the short-lived era of slightly shrunken laptops seems to be over, with Taiwan’s Asus (LSE:ASKD; TPE:2357) having stopped production of its range of netbooks ...
[ Source : Guardian ]
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