Monthly Archives: June 2008

Stopbadware.org has released its latest findings on the prevalence of what it refers to as ‘badware,’ and the upward trend is not surprising. What is a bit startling, however, is how much of it flows from just one nation. Using data from Google’s Safe Browsing initiative, StopBadware.org analyzed over 200,000 websites found to engage in badware behavior. The analysis found that over half of the sites were based on Chinese network blocks, with a small number of blocks accounting for most of the infected sites in that country.
Compared to last year, the total number of sites was much higher, likely due both to increased scanning efforts by Google and to increased use of websites as a vector of malware infection [...]

South Korea’s Internet searchers conducted an average of 104 searches in April/2008, nearly twice as many as Malaysians, who clocked in at 54 searches per searcher; according to Comscore’s latest findings; Asia ’s largest number of searches, not surprisingly, came from the 82 million Chinese Internet users doing 6.2 billion searches in April/2008. That is an average of 75 searches per Chinese searcher [...]

OCED Observer is running a good piece this month assessing the state of innovation in China: ‘Part of China’s innovation stodginess reflects history: the Chinese R&D system has evolved from a Soviet-style mission approach, slowing the transition to a more market-led approach. Geography is also a factor, with many pockets of excellence living separate lives–more an archipelago than an interlinked whole. A glance at the map also reveals that the hot spots of innovation lie along the east coast. In bleak contrast stands the number of R&D facilities in the western and central provinces. Again, history comes in to play, since many of these sites were chosen during the Cold War because their remoteness from busy economic hubs was considered as a “third frontier” in defending Chinese intelligence…’

Preview of a groundbreaking documentary, Jesus in China, by Evan Osnos on PBS Frontline/World. Osnos also reports of the explosive growth of evangelical Christianity in the Chicago Tribune, and notes how underground churches in China these days are, well, not so underground anymore. watch the preview (from YouTube).

China has promulgated its own intellectual property strategy, which is aimed at promoting innovation and the use of new technologies by China’s industries. It’s hoped that via the implementation of the strategy, all innovations will be respected and more wealth will be created…

Online Chinese shoppers spent 16.2 billion yuan (2.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 19 major cities in the first half of 2008, China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said on recently. The findings were based on a survey carried out in four municipalities directly under the central government — Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing — and 15 developed cities such as Changchun, Dalian, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Jinan and Guangzhou, among others [...]

Google expects its position as the world’s most popular online search site and sales from fast-growing Asian markets, including China, to help the company weather any United States recession. ‘One of the very good sources for Google is the very rapid growth in Asia,’ said Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, which gets almost all its revenue from advertising next to search results. Historically, people tend to shift their money to the most ‘highly measured’ advertiser when there are ‘economic difficulties,’ he said recent at a briefing in Beijing [...]

China’s consumer price index(CPI) rose 8.5 percent in April, mainly driven by uncurbed food costs, the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS) said recently. The figure, compared with 8.3 percent in March and a nearly 12-year-high of 8.7 percent in February, was broadly in line with most forecasts.
The NBS attributed the figure to a low base of comparison: the CPI rose just 3 percent in April 2007. Another factor was the rapid increase in world grain and commodity prices…

Beijing’s consumer price index (CPI) rose 6.5% in April, according to the latest statistics from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics and the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics Beijing Survey Organization. Food prices rose 21.6%; while non-food prices rose 0.3%. Consumer goods prices rose 8.7% and that of service rose 0.8%. Food prices increased by 21.6% as compared with the same month last year, among which grain prices increased 9.0%; oil prices increased 29.2%; meat and its products prices increased 46.8%; egg prices increased 6.3%; aquatic products increased 19.9%; and vegetables prices increased 11.4%…