More than half of government-subsidized student business companies were scored as “mediocre” or even “bad-performing” after years of operation, according to an report released recently at the Shanghai Entrepreneurship Week. Read More…

At Serious Play 2008, astrophysicist George Smoot shows stunning new images from deep-space surveys, and prods us to ponder how the cosmos — with its giant webs of dark matter and mysterious gaping voids — got built this way. Read More…

We’ve already seen MIT researcher Pranav Mistry’s SixthSense projector-based augmented-reality system in some cool demos, but he just gave a TED talk and his latest ideas are the wildest yet. At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data — including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper “laptop.” In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he’ll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all. Read More…

Output of China’s medicine industry would increase by 20 percent in 2009, a senior legislator has said recently. Read More…

Mae Jemison is an astronaut, a doctor, an art collector, a dancer … Telling stories from her own education and from her time in space, she calls on educators to teach both the arts and sciences, both intuition and logic, as one — to create bold thinker Read More…

This demo — from Pattie Maes‘ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine Minority Report and then some. Read More…

Internet 50 or 100 times faster than current speeds will be available in Shanghai in 2009 and cover 10 million families nationwide by 2010, government officials said recently.

The technology, called 3TNET, will be available in the Yangtze River Delta region soon. Previously, thousands of families tested it in Shanghai’s Changning District and Pudong New Area, said the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the local government.

Using the high-performance broadband network, people can access interactive services including high-quality Internet-protocol TV, remote medical and education access, and video-on-demand, according to the developer of the Shanghai Engineering Research Center for Broadband Technologies & Application (B-STAR).

At present, broadband speeds in China are around 1 or 2 megabytes per second (Mbps), 3TNET’s speed is 100Mbps or higher. 3TNET delivers information through fiber optics and requires huge investment on network upgrades, therefore it will be available in new communities first.

The Ministry of Science and Technology and the city government expressed satisfaction with the achievements of a ministry-and-city cooperation program, in place since 2004, and signed off a new round of cooperative projects at yesterday’s meeting.

“Many high-end technologies will be introduced to the city by 2010 to help promote the Expo,” said Shen Xiaoming, vice mayor of Shanghai. “Solar-energy powered buildings, environmentally friendly vehicles and ticketing systems in the Expo zone as well as projects on anti-terrorism, food safety and public safety issues such as epidemic disease prevention and control will all be showcased at the Expo.”

Shanghai will also be the location for key national projects such as the construction of a base for deep-sea technology research.

Caijing Magazine shares some startling statistics on cancer in China, where smoking, poor diet, water pollution and environmental problems have caused the nation’s cancer death rate to rise 80 percent in the past 30 years. The statistics come from an exhaustive survey conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science and Technology. According to the survey, cancer is now accountable for 25 percent of all urban deaths and 21 percent of all rural deaths. Read More…

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.

It goes to recommend that:

Those innovative “islands” have to be linked together for a start, and the gates of thousands of science and technology parks opened up through the promotion of networks for sharing human and capital resources. A greater national and regional concordance would avoid wasteful research duplication, such as by issuing guidelines or creating an independent co-ordinating agency. The authorities could inspire themselves from OECD-style “competence centres” for long-term co-ordination between public research organisations, businesses and universities.

Link: “Chinese innovation”

Shanghai has ranked first in the national annual report on regional innovation ability for the third-straight year while Beijing and Guangdong finished second and third respectively, said the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai recently.

Indexes on knowledge creativity, industry structure and hardware for scientific and technological innovation earned Shanghai higher marks compared to previous years.

Indexes on patents, scientific and technological thesis and input-output ratio are among the major impetuses to promote the city’s knowledge creativity.

The amount of patents totaled 1,678 from 880 a year earlier. The input-output ratio seized first place from third in the previous year.

The output value of new and high technology industry accounted for 57.32 percent of gross domestic product, up 4.96 percentage points from a year ago, the report said. The electronics industry and added value of the manufacturing industry accounted for 9.61 percent of GDP, 4.96 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

The National Team of Strategy of Science and Technology Development issued the annual report after assessing 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.