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iTunes Store back online in China after Tibet song leaves front page

The iTunes Store was blocked in China two weeks after an album released by Tibet activists appeared, but after the Olympics Games concluded, it was available once again.

Silicon Hutong has written a concise summary of what happened:

- The album was featured on the front page of the site - a choice I would wager was made by Apple, not by the activist organization that produced the album;

- The album went live in the days leading up to the Olympics;

- Pro-Tibetan activists have been attempting to leverage Beijing's hosting of the Olympics to draw attention to … Read more

Secrets of the mysterious iPhone girl

The iPhone 3G was one of this year's most anticipated products from Apple. With more than a million handsets sold, one in particular shipped with three images of an Asian Foxconn Technology Group worker posing over an iPhone assembly line.

The photos were posted by a British consumer who purchased the iPhone, then posted the photos to Mac Rumors under the username "markm49uk." Since the photos have surfaced, many questions and discussions have taken place as to who she is, and whether she will lose her job.

According to Mac Rumors, a Foxconn representative confirmed that she … Read more

Dell's new low-cost PCs for emerging markets

As promised, Dell unveiled several new computers Wednesday made specifically for emerging PC markets like China and India.

There are four new models in all under the Vostro line--two laptops and two desktops. The notebooks will start at $475, and the desktops at $440, and will be available in more than 20 countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

The notebooks are available in 14.1-inch and 15.6-inch sizes, and come with Intel Celeron or Core2Duo processors, and Ubuntu Linux or Windows Vista. The desktops come with Intel Atom, Celeron, or Pentium processors, and Ubuntu or Vista.

Dell … Read more

GoDaddy blocked in China

GoDaddy, the world's leading domain name registrar, is inaccessible in China, writes Moonlight Blog. Possible reasons? Efforts to prevent people from registering Olympic winners' names, or the hope that Chinese users will register domains in China.

If the goal is to make it less convenient (though by no means impossible) for Chinese to register non-Chinese domain names, this may represent an effort to keep Chinese-published material under home control.

Moonlinght tells us more about the Olympic angle:

The current blocking may be related to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. China's sport authority has banned the issuing of Internet … Read more

Tibet album may have spurred China iTunes block

An album supporting Tibetan freedom may have led China's government to sever access to Apple's iTunes Store.

This week, Chinese users of iTunes have found themselves unable to access the online store, something that Apple acknowledged but would not say whether it was a technical glitch or a move on the part of the censors.

"We are aware of the log-on problems but we have no comment at the moment," the company told the Associated Press.

The incident comes amid the 2008 Olympics, when all eyes are on China--a country well known for its censorship.

Songs … Read more

Contracts even with unlocked phones: Or, why I bought an iPhone

All year, I've been using an HTC Touch as my telephone. But now, having just moved back to the United States, I found it so hard to get a reasonable deal for service with this unlocked GSM smartphone that I decided there was little reason not to get an iPhone.

This was not an easy decision. I'm about to begin life as a graduate student, so money will be tight. I already had a pretty decent smartphone, which I'd bought in China because it was Windows Mobile and could run Pleco, the undisputed master of mobile Chinese-English … Read more

Venture money finds India, China tech

More venture capital is flowing to India and China, in an obvious sign that Silicon Valley is no longer the only go-to spot for tech investing.

In the second quarter of 2008, venture firms invested $238 million in 17 deals in India, a 120 percent jump from the comparable period a year ago and the second-highest quarterly total on record, according to figures released Thursday from Dow Jones VentureSource. That growth was thanks largely to investments in advertising companies, including $70 million put into Laqshya Media of Mumbai, an outdoor ad company that runs digital ad networks. The amount of … Read more

Journalists, residents getting same Net in Beijing

Tests at the main Olympic press center and on other connections around Beijing have shown that both journalists and regular Beijing Internet users are getting less restricted access than usual.

That's according to the OpenNet Initiative's assessment of online censorship after the first week of the Games.

After journalists spent a lot of energy complaining about their inability to reach many Web sites without the use of a proxy, the international and Beijing Olympic committees both seemed to respond, and many restrictions disappeared.

ONI notes that the bulk of the opening occurred for foreign-hosted Chinese-language Web sites, while &… Read more

The 404 161: Where we shock the monkey

On the show today: Justin calls in from bed, the Spanish Olympic basketball team is a bunch of racists, some chicks are using wide contact lenses to achieve "Anime eyes," fake porn inspectors, and putting Lojack in your PS3.

Sorry--today's post just won't be as long as Justin wants. It's just not gonna happen. We don't understand how he finds the time to do it anyway, so we're not gonna try and do it ourselves.

With Justin's trip to the "doctor," it leaves Wilson and I to fend for ourselves … Read more

The 404 160: Where we're Ogg at heart

On the show today: Erica Ogg from CNET's Crave takes time out of her NY vacation to chat with us about the Olympics, hockey, Chinese smile deficiencies, Facebook spam, Barack Obama's twitters, Antivirus XP, and Batman spoilers!>

Even though the Montauk Monster has thrown New York into a typhoon, our buddy Erica Ogg still makes it to the studio to join us for today's show. And what a great change of pace from our normal Monday show, huh? This is just what The 404 needs to brighten up our day. Erica writes for Crave, CNET's … Read more