Despite the economic slowdown in exports and domestic demand in the past year, China’s demand for energy remains high [...]

Venice, Italy is sinking. To save it, Rachel Armstrong says we need to outgrow architecture made of inert materials and, well, make architecture that grows itself. She proposes a not-quite-alive material that does its own repairs and sequesters carbon, too [...]

Everything that can be digital will be. Why? Because it’s faster, better, and cheaper. UX in the digital world will be the key definer of value. UX design now means to embrace a whole new set of behaviors and characteristics. Social Business Design is a framework to understand and think about the multi-faceted users and the way they participates inside a business ecosystem in meaningful ways [...]

Feeling tired is the top complaint of local office workers, followed by worries over their jobs and emotional problems, according to an online survey. Covering 405 employees aged between 25 and 40 in Shanghai earning over 5,000 yuan (US$731) a month, the survey is the first in the city to study office workers’ lives and barriers to their satisfaction, said the organizers, consultant Nielsen Company (Shanghai) Ltd and the local branch of Cerebos, producer of BRAND’S health products [...]

The Chinese love affair with the internet will see digital ad spend increase 40% to $5.2bn (£3.07bn) next year, making the booming Asian online economy roughly the same size as the current UK market, according to a report. The study by KPMG, to be unveiled today at the MediaGuardian Create in China conference in central London, estimates that the total ad spend on all media in the Chinese market will grow by 22% this year and 19.5% next year. By the end of next year, the Chinese ad market will be worth $37.85bn, a year-on-year increase of more than $6bn on 2007 [...]

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…

According to the China’s National Bureau of Statistics report — 2007 national economic and social development statistical communique — China’s total number of privately-owned vehicles increased 32.5% to 15.22 million. The communique points out that by the end of 2007, the total number of civilian vehicles reached 56.97 million (including 14.68 million three-wheel motor vehicles and low-speed vehicles): a growth of 14.3% over the previous year. Among them, 35.34 million are private cars: an increase of 20.8%. There are 19.58 million civilian cars, an increase of 26.7%, 15.22 million of which are private cars.

China may produce more than 8.6 million vehicles this year as it narrows the gap with Japan and the United States, the world’s top two auto makers, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. China’s economic growth, averaging about 10 percent over the past five years, is raising demand for automobiles and has boosted production from about 100,000 vehicles a year in the 1980s to 7.28 million last year, making the country the world’s third-biggest vehicle producer [...]