A world of change

Japan may be famous for its bullet trains, but if China’s plans for a high-speed railway go forward, people could be zipping over from London to Beijing in under two days.

The train would go on from Beijing to Singapore, and also connect to India and Pakistan, opening up the East to non-fliers.

One of the senior consultants on the railway project, and also a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Wang Mengshu, said that they are “aiming for the trains to run almost as fast as aeroplanes,” and that with any luck, the railway should be “completed in a decade.”

In addition to the London to Beijing plan, they’re also hoping to build railways from Beijing to Russia and Germany, connected with the European railway system. A third project that goes south from China, to Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia has already started, with a deal struck between Burma and China that will see the Chinese paying for the Burmese line, with the Chinese able to tap into their lithium reserves—which they can then use in production of batteries. [Telegraph]

Image credit: Occam

This week’s New York Times Magazine looks at China’s human-flesh searches, a widespread practice in which “netizens” systematically track and harass individuals ranging from adulterers to corrupt local officials. But the searches tread a fine line between justice and revenge.

To anyone familiar with 4chan, its hard to imagine internet vigilantes residing anywhere besides the darkest corners of the web. In China, however, human-flesh search engines are a common occurrence, occupying a central role in the nation’s internet culture.

The human-flesh searches are “not just a search by humans but also a search for humans”—humans that have in some way incurred the wrath of the anonymous bulletin board mob. One target, in an act of undeniable cruelty, killed a kitten on video (she was publicly shamed and forced out of her job). Another was singled out after criticizing the government’s response to the Sichuan earthquakes (she was publicly shamed and forced out of her University).

This is where things get sticky. When, if ever, is it OK for the anonymous masses to dole out punishment for wrongdoing? What offense warrants this type of “public harassment, mass intimidation and populist revenge,” as the article suggests it can quickly become. It’s easy to see how a group could feel like they had the right to take retributive action after seeing a kitten killed on video, but it’s much harder to make a case for searching out an anonymous dissident.

As the article points out, the rest of the world tends to fixate on issues of censorship when they consider China’s internet culture. But reading about human-flesh search engines and their prominence, it seems like the internet activity that’s not being censored is just as interesting. [New York Times Magazine]

Image credit Kai Hendry

Hide wires, powerboards, your prized mini-figs—heck, even the droids the stormtroopers are still looking for, all in this tidy flatpacked AT-AT model from China.

The company sends you all the materials needed to construct the AT-AT, but can’t promise protection from the rebel snowspeeders lurking nearby. It costs 55 Yuan, which is only $8, but that doesn’t include postage obviously. [GeekCook via WalYou]

With all the intrigue around China hacking Google and Google hacking back, it’s easy to overlook the real-world consequences of what further escalation might lead to. Specifically: Chinese researchers and scientists could see the plug pulled on their work process.

A full 84% of Chinese scientists said that blocked access to Google would “somewhat or significantly” hamper their research, in a recent survey by Nature News. While there are alternative search engines like Baidu, none are nearly as effective at searching English-language sites or research papers as Google. Google Scholar, in particular, is an invaluable resource for tracking down academic papers.

It’s an apt analogy from the unnamed scientist quoted above: research without Google really is like life without electricity. You can go on without it, but you can’t thrive. You can’t even compete. [Wired]

Joking they were not, when Google vowed to take down China. Ok, that’s not exactly what they said—but after refusing to launch two Android phones there mid-January, they’ve now pulled out of a developers event in Beijing. Updated.

Following developer events at TED and MWC (plus the upcoming GDC), they were scheduled to tour around Asia, visiting Hong Kong, Taiwan and Beijing with armfuls of Nexus Ones to give away. Really driving the point home, they’ve pulled out ahead of the event next week. Not launching Android phones from Motorola and Samsung is one thing, but no Nexus Ones? This could be the end of China’s censorship, for once and for all. [Reuters]

Update: A Google spokesperson contacted All Things D to set the record straight: Google didn’t cancel any event in Beijing, because there was no Beijing stop on the Nexus One tour to start with.

The spokesperson explained: “The reports are incorrect…There was not a Nexus One launch event scheduled in Beijing. Google is hosting 3 Android Developer Labs in Asia over the next couple weeks in Singapore, Taipei, and Hong Kong…We never planned to hold an Android Developer Lab in Beijing, and suggestions that we did plan one are not true.” [All Things D]

Even as US authorities are getting pretty damn sure who’s behind the high-level hacking attempts from the other month, and that they were launched from the Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School, China’s all “Nuh uh, eff you guys.”

I mean, that really is the essence of their rebuttal. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said that “Reports that these attacks came from Chinese schools are totally groundless and the accusation of Chinese government involvement is also irresponsible and driven by ulterior motives.” And that’s that, I’m sure. [The Hill]

Last Friday’s situation at the Mexican Foxconn factory (the company that supplies components and products to Apple) where enraged employees burnt the place down over being forced to work unpaid overtime will be receiving extra pay, according to Foxconn.

Nothing like a bit of exposure on the tech blogs to force the Juarez arm of the Taiwanese company into doing the right thing by its workerbees. Apparently, the “ringleader” was someone who actually left Foxconn last year, and will be the one punished by the heavy arm of the law—not the hundreds of other workers who joined in on the arson.

Thankfully, Foxconn has also confirmed that nothing was severely damaged by the fire, so they can get back to work polishing those nice shiny gadgets we’ve been expecting. [Digitimes]