Google's Three-Hour I/O Keynote Boils Down To These Highlights And One Theme: Foundation
Today’s three-hour-long Google I/O keynote came with plenty of announcements, but the company mostly assured us that it is focused on building frameworks that can benefit developers and consumers. We saw a more unified company that needed three hours in one session to get their message across. Breaking today’s keynote up into two days would have disrupted the momentum coming out of a company that closed the day at an all-time high on the stock market. Key areas of the business saw updates, all relaying the important foundation necessary to move Google forward over the next 10 years. From search to maps, everything is getting a new coat of paint, a new polished experience and a focus from every team within the company. The only announcement that didn’t fit into a “category” was its new music subscription service. Some are calling it a Spotify-killer, but to us, it seemed like a necessary and inevitable announcement. Android The day started out with Android, with the news that more ...
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Chinese Gaming Publisher Yodo1 Raises $5M In Round Led By Singapore's SingTel Innov8
Yodo1, a Beijing-based company that works intensively with Western game developers to bring their titles to the Chinese market, raised $5 million from SingTel Innov8, the corporate venture arm of a mobile carrier. An earlier investor, Chinese online game maker Chang You, also participated in the round. Yodo1 has a co-production model where they actually get access to the code base of a Western developers’ game. They modify the graphics, virtual goods and music for local Chinese tastes. An example CEO Henry Fong points to is Ski Safari, a game from Brisbane, Australia’s Defiant Development. In the platformer title, a character races up and down ski slopes (kind of like last year’s indie hit Tiny Wings out of Germany). For the Chinese version, they made the architecture of the houses in the background more Chinese, added a zither to the music and put in terra cotta warrior outfits. “We’re a full blown co-production team,” Fong said in an interview a few weeks ago at San Francisco’s ...
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Lenovo May Produce A Think-Brand Smartphone, Says ThinkPad Business Unit's VP
In an interview today with Sina Tech (link via Google Translate), Dilip Bhatia, vice president and general manager of Lenovo’s ThinkPad Business Unit, said that the Chinese tech company may build a Think-brand smartphone. If Lenovo does come out with a Think-brand smartphone (a ThinkPhone?), it would be inline with the company’s growth strategy. Lenovo is currently the world’s second largest marker of PCs behind HP, but is eager to diversify its core businesses by aggressively growing its mobile unit. Bhatia told Sina Tech that the company wants the Think brand, which includes ThinkPad laptops, to gain higher name recognition and desirability among younger consumers. Lenovo has already fared well with its current suite of smartphones: in Q42012, its smartphone business grew 216 percent year-over-year, shipping 9.5 million units and moving into the top five smartphone vendors in the world for the first time, according to data from Canalys. Much of that growth has been fueled, however, ...
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Apple Appears In Court In China To Defend Against Siri Patent Infringement Claim
Apple is in court again in China, defending another of its products from attack based on pre-existing claims from a Chinese company. This time around it's Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, that has landed it in Chinese legal trouble, after last year another company took issue with the iPad trademark resulting in a $60 million settlement deal.
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Guggenheim Gets Grant to Commission Chinese Art
The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation has provided a $10 million grant to commission works from artists born in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau.
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