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Design Information Technology

Autodesk Announces Incheon, Korea as Second City of its Digital Cities Initiative

Autodesk today announced it is working with the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) and the Incheon Urban Development Corporation (IUDC) to cooperate in the creation of Asia’s first Digital City for Incheon, Korea — the ‘Tomorrow City’ in Song-do City. Autodesk has designated Incheon as the second pilot city of its Digital City initiative, after […]

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Design Information Technology Software

Autodesk to buy Softimage|XSI

Autodesk has signed a definitive agreement with Avid to acquire substantially all of the assets of Avid’s Softimage business unit for around US$35 million. This will mean that Autodesk will own three of the main 3D suites: 3ds Max, Maya and Softimage|XSI. Autodesk plans to acquire and continue developing the core Softimage|XSI suite, the Softimage|Face Robot facial animation software, the Softimage|Cat character animation plug-in for 3ds Max and the Softimage|Crosswalk ‘interoperability solution’ – which will be integrated with Autodesk’s own sharing technology…

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China Trend Watching

Advertising in China: launches amount to 36 billion U.S. dollars in first half/2008

In the first half of 2008, China’s total advertising launch reached 244.9 billion yuan (over 36 billion U.S. dollars) , an increase of 17% compared with the same period last year, according to well-known global media and information group Nielsen latest report of ad information services, Xinhua News reported. Among the three types of major media Nielsen monitored, television continued to lead with 83% of the advertising market share, a total of 204 billion yuan; and print media advertising made progress with an increase of 14 percent. Among them, newspapers and magazine ads amounted to 36 billion and 5 billion yuan […]

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China Economics Trend Watching

e-Commerce in China: dot-com economy grew over 60 percent year on year in the second quarter/2008

China’s dot-com economy grew nearly 63 percent year on year in the second quarter, despite increasing inflation and the effects of the Sichuan earthquake, a Shanghai-based research firm reported recently. Revenue generated by China’s online search, game and travel providers reached 13.32 billion yuan (US$1.94 billion) in the April-to-June period, iResearch said…

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China Consumer Behavior

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: Coca-Cola most recognized Olympic Games sponsor

How time changes: the latest survey from Nielsen during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games shows that among all the sponsors, the Coca-Cola Company had the highest consumer awareness, but only ranked third in advertising costs. According to statistics, the Coca-Cola supplied 25 million bottles of Coca-Cola daily to Beijing’s Olympic venues, exceeding the 20 million bottles in the Athens Games…

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China

Bibles to be available free during Beijing Games

Athletes, officials, spectators and tourists can pick up the Bible or just the New Testament for free during the Olympic Games. Tens of thousands of copies of the Bible, the New Testament and booklets with just the four Gospels (according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) have been printed for the purpose, say officials of China’s Christian society. Rev Xu Xiaohong, an official of the Shanghai-based China Christian Council in charge of publishing, says 50,000 bilingual (Chinese and English) editions of the Gospel booklets had already been printed by June. They are on way to six cities hosting the Olympic events in the mainland…

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China Economics

China Restricting Visas to Foreigners, hurts Tourism

China has begun to restrict visas for foreign visitors. The Washington Post presents several perspectives on why this is happening, including Olympic security concerns and a growing sense of nationalism among Chinese. On paper, the visa rules for China have always been strict. In addition to frustrated potential visitors to China, the economy is also experiencing difficulties due to the new visa restrictions. The Wall Street Journal reports on the vacant hotels in Beijing, built for Olympic visitors and other tourists who are now hampered from entering China….

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China Design Innovation

Design in China: Shanghai to attract animation and cartoon enterprises into Pudong

The Pudong New Area government in Shanghai expects to attract more than 200 animation and cartoon enterprises into Zhangjiang High-tech Park within five to 10 years, the district government said recently. The new facility will also provide a creative hub for animation and comics artists and investors to tap the vast potential of the Chinese domestic market. ‘The combination of animation and online game development can help to form integrated industries that can optimize resources,’ said Yuan Liqiang, general manager of the Shanghai Zhangjiang Creative Industry Development Co Ltd…

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China Consumer Behavior Information Technology Trend Watching

Internet in China: Over 100 Million Youth Seek Fun Online

On April 25th, 2008, China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released the Research Report of China Youth Internet Behaviors. The report studies the online behaviors of 107 million China’s netizens under the age of 25. According to the report, China’s youth netizens are more inclined to entertainment demand. The most used online serves for youth are IM(91.3%), online music(91.1%), online movie/video(82.9%), search engine(73.4%), online games(68.2%), online news(63.4%) and email(58%). If compared with the average usage level of all Internet users, the usage rate of online games, online music and online movie/video among youth are much higher than average rate […]

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China Economics Information Technology

Chinese People and Their Mobile Phones: 6 Telecoms to Merge Their Assets

China has told its six telecommunications companies to merge their assets, allowing fixed-line carriers to expand into wireless services and creating three operators that will offer phone and Internet connections to 1.3 billion people. Under the plan, the parent of China Telecom will buy a mobile phone network from the parent of China Unicom, which in turn will merge with the company that controls the China Netcom Group, the Ministry of Industry and Information said in a statement on Saturday. China will issue three third-generation wireless licenses after the overhaul is completed, it said…