Dell is to partner with Baidu to develop tablets and mobile phones aimed at cracking the burgeoning Chinese mobile devices market, according to a report. With a mobile phone subscriber base in excess of 900 million users, and one of the fastest growing tablet markets in the world, the move may be a way of rekindling Dell's flagging mobile devices business.
Baidu, China's largest search provider is opening an online app store. The company hopes to encourage Chinese developers to create new content for Android phones and for phones running its new Baidu Yi OS, which the company can then distribute. The Yi OS, which Baidu officially announced at Baidu World earlier today, is based on Google's platform.
Baidu has finally struck a deal with music labels in a move that should stem criticism that it has fostered illegal file sharing. The deal, signed with One-Stop China, a joint venture of Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music, allows for streaming and even downloading of music from Baidu’s servers. The new deal follows a recent arrangement the Chinese internet search giant made helping to ensure that artists received income for music distributed through its site.
Alibaba, best known for its e-commerce sites, is now working on developing its own cell phone operating system, an anonymous source close to the matter told the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The software will offer cloud-based services, unlike current popular operating systems such as Apple's iOS and Google's Android, which requires users to download apps. This will mean users of the Alibaba software are even more reliant on Internet access and subscriptions.
Chinese Internet search giant Baidu has been sued in the US by a group of free speech advocates for censoring Chinese freedom of speech websites. The group of eight New York residents has also included the Chinese government in its complaint. The group claims that as the Baidu site can be utilized in the US, that it violates the US Constitution by reportedly colluding with the Chinese government to omit search results.
Shanghai Daily reported that the Luwan District People's Court in Shanghai ruled Wednesday that Baidu, China's largest search engine, had infringed upon Qidian's copyrights. The court ordered Baidu pay the popular Chinese literary website 550,000 yuan ($84,600 USD) in compensation. Baidu said it would appeal the ruling.
Apple achieved a symbolic win over Google late Sunday by passing its rival for the top spot in Millward Brown's 2011 BrandZ study. The swap represented the end to a four-year reign by Google, which slipped to second place. Apple won a brand value of $153 billion by managing to up the price of its mobile devices with the iPad but stoking demand the way a luxury brand might.
The Chinese Ministry of Culture on Monday planned to 'punish' Baidu and 13 other websites for offering illegal copies of music. The group had allegedly ignored or failed to properly curb bootleg song downloads. Baidu said it had obeyed previous warnings and would react accordingly to any new requests.
China search engine provider Baidu has made has signed a deal that with the music industry after years of tension over the way its site handles music searches. Baidu’s music search service delivers results for illegal music downloads as well as allows users to stream music through its website. According to the Wall Street Journal [sub. req.], it has now agreed to pay songwriters who belong to the Music Copyright Society of China when users download or stream their songs using Baidu’s search engine.
Leading Chinese search company Baidu plans to develop a lightweight operating system for smartphones and tablet computers, according to CEO Robin Li. The goal is a simple, search-capable interface available within one second of powerup. Li calls the system "box computing." Li said the box interface would not be released until Baidu had developed a wide range of uses for it, such as online video and social media.
Motorola today took the unusual step of opening its own mobile app store just for China. The SHOP4APPS store will give Motorola's Android-based phones in the country, like the XT800, a central place to get apps beyond Android Market. It can be customized by the carrier and will let them offer exclusives or region-specific apps; like Google's own store, it will remember purchases and allow re-downloads if the buyer switches phones.
The most popular search engine in China, Baidu, is mulling sharing its ad revenue from the music search service it offers or otherwise compensating record labels. This comes after competitor Google began offering a licensed music download search earlier this year in the market. For years, Baidu drew flak for copyright infringement and linking websites that offer downloads of pirated songs, but the practice did attract a record number of users.
Google is crafting a deal that would allow free, official music downloads in China, says a report today by the Wall Street Journal. Claiming only to know sources "close to the situation," the paper states that a Chinese online music agency is involved in a joint venture with Google's Chinese branch Guge to offer music from three major international labels as well as a larger collection of independents. How the service will remain free is unknown, although past approaches have often relied on advertising either through a download website or embedded in the tracks themselves to subsidize the song prices.
Google has won a lawsuit in China that could have significantly affected its success in the country, Pacific Epoch reports. The American search engine firm had been sued by Beijing firm Gu Ge Technology for using the words "Gu Ge" to represent itself in China; by registering its name first in late April 2006, GGT had the exclusive rights to use the name for its online retail store, the complaint reads. The presiding judge has stricken own this argument and ruled in favor of Google, noting that actual use of the Gu Ge name by Google started a week earlier -- indicating that Google could not have knowingly infringed on another company's patent, according to the court.
