China has achieved a spectacularly high rate of economic growth over a sustained period for more than two decades. Nevertheless, today China faces the challenge of making the transition from sustained to sustainable growth from social, economical, ecological and envionmental points of view. Here’s a list of Chinese companies that are in the forefront of innovation not only in China but also far beyond.
Since 2009, innovation has been identified as a main engine for this new growth model, and the Chinese government has launched a national strategy to build an innovation-driven economy and society by 2020. Will China be able to succeed in making this challenging transition? What will it require in terms of policy and institutional changes? How will China’s emergence as a future innovation economy affect the world economy, as well as the global systems for knowledge production, dissemenation and use? [Source (PDF)]
Intuitively, we all know that big news topics relate to other big news topics–when you read about Google, you’re likely also reading about Microsoft. This new tool from Slate makes those connections a bit more concrete.
News Dots automatically scans all of the articles from major publications, and then tags them using Calais, an automated tagging engine created by Thompson Reuters. When two stories share a tag, it records the results:
The hope, of course, is that as the tool develops, “social networks” will develop in clusters, the same way that Facebook friends tend to cluster around college acquaintance.
The interface is currently hideous. But you wonder if something like this isn’t the future of news browsing. Can you imagine what happens when tagging technology gets truly semantic–when stories can be linked not just with keywords, but ideas? [Source: Flowing Data]
Google’s ever-expanding empire has added another branch: subsidiary Google Energy has been granted an order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to buy and sell energy at market rates. See previous post.
Does this mean Google is set to become your power company? Not yet — instead, Google wants more control over the high energy costs of its many data centers, and also aims to become carbon neutral.
A Google spokesperson told CNET: “Right now, we can’t buy affordable, utility-scale, renewable energy in our markets. We want to buy the highest quality, most affordable renewable energy wherever we can and use the green credits.”
Even in these tough times, surprising and extraordinary efforts are under way in businesses across the globe. From politics to technology, energy, and transportation; from marketing to retail, health care, and design, each company on the Fast Company list illustrates the power and potential of innovative ideas and creative execution.
The top spot is taken by Facebook which has around 200 million active users to date. Most notable in the top five and new on the ranking is Huawei, the Chinese Telecom equipment manufacturer. You can find the complete list here.
How Korea, a onetime digital trendsetter, became a laggard in an era of smartphones—and amazing apps.
Even though Korea is home to the number two and three global handset maker, respectively Samsung and LG it losing ground in setting the pace and guiding the mobile (notably smartphone) industry. As in result, the Korean government had been preparing to shift focus to software from hardware for about a year, but the iPhone sensation provided a wake-up call. Initiatives such as launching a state-funded program to nurture software start-ups. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy is budgeting some $880 million to back software companies over the next three years. It aims to double the number of Korean software engineers to 300,000 in 2013 from 2008 and triple software exports to $15 billion.
Nonetheless, despite the government’s software worries, Korea has had some notable successes. Such as in gaming (online fantasy game Lineage),social networking service Cyworld, which was launched earlier than Facebook, is dominant in Korea. After eight years of offering Korean-language search, Google has just 2% of the market, compared with 64% held by Naver [Source].
The Vancouver Olympics begin this Friday and will welcome some 2,500 athletes.
It’s true, they won’t be quite the design extravaganza that London 2012 will be–but there’s still going to be hundreds of millions of dollars in design on display, everywhere from the uniforms to the buildings to the branding. Fast Company provides a slideshow that gives an impression at the design elements you can expect to see flitting across your screen, in between shots of athletes.
For years Google has stayed on the fringes of the social-networking industry, leaving the field largely to the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Now, however, it is making a determined foray into online friendships. On February 9th the search giant unveiled Buzz, a networking service that will be closely integrated with the firm’s e-mail offering, Gmail. Google no doubt hopes Buzz will help it catch up with the leaders of the networking world—but the chances are slim. Mashable made a comparison here. [Source 1] [Source 2].
Popular photo-sharing social network Flickr was launched back in February 2004 by a Vancouver-based company Ludicorp. It took one year for Yahoo to acquire Flickr, and among the company’s many acquisitions, Flickr definitely stands as one of the most successful.
Being six years old (nearly the same age as Facebook) makes Flickr almost an old guy on the Internet, as many other social networks (Bebo, hi5) have risen and fallen within that timespan. Although its traffic lately isn’t growing as it used to, it’s still doing well, with users sharing billions of photos there. We wish you a very happy birthday, Flickr!
You know Japan’s world is upside down when the fabled Toyota Motor Corp. is a global laughingstock. A name once synonymous with quality has fallen so far that Americans are actually rushing out to buy Detroit’s clunkers.
On Tuesday February 9th Toyota said that it would recall over 400,000 Prius and other hybrid vehicles worldwide to address problems with their brakes. On Tuesday February 9th Toyota said that it would recall over 400,000 Prius and other hybrid vehicles worldwide to address problems with their brakes.
Toyota needs to reverse course, and fast. Too bad the “For Dummies” book publishers have yet to add “PR-crisis” to their stable of how-to titles. Toyota needs all the help it can find. As this costly tale unfolds, it’s worthwhile to take stock of some early lessons for corporate Japan. Here are five.
By standing up to authoritarianism in China, The People’s Republic of Google will set an example for individuals and businesses around the world. If resistance goes viral, the implications for China could be revolutionary.
On Jan. 12, Google announced it will stop censoring search results on its Chinese site, Google.cn, in response to what the company calls “highly sophisticated” hacking of its Web site from China and the infiltration of Gmail accounts of human-rights activists in China and other countries.
The top search engine in China is Baidu, a homegrown product. Let Google leave. It’s Google’s loss. Right? Well, the People’s Republic of Google may have more leverage in this battle than one might think, though. It’s really confronting China as a nongovernmental organization. And this is a time when nongovernmental entities, from moveon.org to the tea parties and al-Qaeda, exert real political power. Read more here.
China has achieved a spectacularly high rate of economic growth over a sustained period for more than two decades. Nevertheless, today China faces the challenge of making the transition from sustained to sustainable growth from social, economical, ecological and envionmental points of view. Here’s a list of Chinese companies that are in the forefront of innovation not only in China but also far beyond.
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