Google Investing in Maxthon Browser?

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews

April 10, 2007, 4:27 PM

The popular alternative IE-based browser Maxthon may now be partially owned by Google, if press reports are correct. Silicon Valley insider Michael Arrington said Tuesday that sources are indicating the search giant has invested around $1 million in the company.
While Maxthon has gained traction in the United States by offering tabbed browsing and other features that only arrived in IE7, most of its users are located in China. Searches sent by the browser could amount to 25% of leading Chinese search Baidu's traffic, Arrington said. The investment would include replacing Baidu and Yahoo with Google as the default search provider. Mozilla signed a similar deal with Google for Firefox.

转载自 [url]http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/10/technology/microsoft_china.reut/index.htm?section=money_email_alerts[/url]
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傲游是我最常用的浏览器之一,居然要被G收购了:(


Microsoft's China sales up 20%

Software giant says China is its fastest-growing consumer market, thanks to a crackdown on software piracy.


TAIPEI (Reuters) -- Software giant Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday it expects its China sales to rise more than 20 percent this year, boosted by new products and a national crackdown on software piracy.
Responding to complaints by Western governments and companies, as well as criticism from a growing number of domestic firms, China has been clamping down on piracy over the last two years to the benefit of software makers such as Microsoft ( Charts).
TECHNOLOGY
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Weak copyright laws in China make it hard to enforce the issue. CNN's John Vause reports. (April 9)
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As part of the campaign, most of the nation's top domestic PC sellers, including Lenovo and Founder, have pushed to boost their number of PCs sold with legal copies of Microsoft's Windows operating systems already installed.
Other major foreign players in the market, including global leaders Hewlett-Packard ( Charts) and Dell ( Charts), are pushing similar policies in China.
Reflecting the trend, only about 30 percent of Lenovo PCs now being sold will ultimately contain pirated Windows systems, down sharply from 90 percent last year, said Timothy Chen, chief executive of Microsoft's Greater China region.
"We've made great progress there," he told Reuters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. He did not say what percentage mainland China accounts for now compared to the firm's global sales.
China is the world's second-largest PC market by unit sales, with more than 20 million units shipped last year, according to data tracking firm IDC.
Following the implementation of China's crackdown starting in late 2005, IDC estimated the number of PCs sold with legal copies of Windows reached about 50 percent in last year's first quarter.
Rampant piracy there previously made the market a difficult one for software makers like Microsoft, with many industry watchers estimating that most computers in the country used pirated copies of Windows.
Chen added that growth was also coming from new product sales, including the company's newly introduced Vista operating system, the next-generation equivalent of Windows - which currently runs on more than 95 percent of the world's computers.
The company plans to launch seven new products in the Greater China region this year, and another six in 2008, as it is currently the world's fastest-growing consumer market, said Microsoft executives.
"It is a great year for the region," said Chen. "Vista is selling very well."
Chen said that Vista, which was launched in January, had a pickup rate double that of what Windows XP had, and corporate clients will also start to ramp up the software later this year.
"We will start to see growth from enterprises about a year later than consumer buyers," said Chen.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates said in February that Vista had been well received and that PC vendors had seen a rise in sales.
Chen said the firm was awaiting government approval for licenses to sell the company's Xbox games console.
Microsoft has around 2,000 employees in China, and Chen said he expects that figure to increase 10 percent this year as the market continues to grow rapidly.
转载自 [url]http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/10/technology/microsoft_china.reut/index.htm?section=money_email_alerts[/url]
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本来是一则好新闻(至少最后一句说明要有不少新的兄弟加入了),但右边居然被CNN配了中国打击盗版力度不够的新闻,为什么西方国家在为中国做正面报道的同时总有不和谐音符?


Google apologizes for China blunder

Internet search giant tells major Chinese Web site it should not have used one of the portal's language technologies.


SHANGHAI (Reuters) -- Google, which is seeking to broaden its presence in China, on Monday apologized to Internet users and Sohu.com, one of the country's major Web portals, for using third-party technology in its latest product rollout.
Sohu.com said an investigation by its technicians found that a method of typing in Chinese characters released by Google ( Charts) in China last week had copied a product by Sohu.
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CNN's Alina Cho reports on what's working for workers at Google. (January 27)
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In response, Google said the product had in its initial R&D stage been built "leveraging some non-Google database resources," but it had since upgraded the system.
"We are willing to face this issue of ours. While we apologize for the inconvenience this may have incurred to users and Sohu, we have also adopted immediate actions," Google said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
China is the world's second-largest Internet user after the United States, with around 137 million Web users.
Last week Google was said to be a contender to acquire Web advertising placement firm DoubleClick after Microsoft ( Charts) was reported to be considering buying the company. ( Full story)
Google competitor Yahoo ( Charts) said Monday it had entered a partnership in which it will provide music services for Sandisk Corp.'s ( Charts) Sansa Connect digital audio player.
转载自 [url]http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/09/technology/google.reut/index.htm?postversion=2007040907[/url]
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纷纷扬扬一阵子的输入法词库事件终于以G道歉收场.不过我从中看到的却是开发管理和市场嗅觉两个问题.
很多中国IT公司开发管理不是特别好:不看Opensource相关协议就直接将非商用code加入到自己产品中,集成做的多自主创新少.
sogou和紫光(我最喜欢用的IME)的市场嗅觉有问题,为什么迟迟不出vista兼容的新版本?为什么不保护好自己革命的财产?

第五位自费太空游客抵达国际空间站(图)
2007年04月10日 12:27:32  来源:新华网
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    4月9日,世界第五位太空游客查尔斯·希莫尼在俄制“联盟TMA-10”载人飞船的舱口张望。搭载两名俄罗斯宇航员和美国太空游客西蒙尼的俄制“联盟TMA-10”载人飞船于莫斯科时间9日23时11分(北京时间10日3时11分)成功与国际空间站对接。 新华社/路透
    新华网莫斯科4月9日电(记者刘洋)世界上第五位自费 太空游客查尔斯·希莫尼搭乘的俄罗斯“联盟TMA-10”载人飞船于莫斯科时间9日23时11分(北京时间10日3时11分)成功与 国际空间站对接。
    俄罗斯地面飞行控制中心一位发言人说,飞船以自动模式与国际空间站“曙光”号工作舱顺利对接。对接时,飞船距地球表面约350公里,并处于俄罗斯地面观测设施的无线电监控范围之内。
    发言人说,希莫尼以及同行的两名俄罗斯宇航员的亲友来到飞行控制中心指挥大厅,等待对接成功的消息。对接成功时,希莫尼的家人热烈鼓掌,以表达他们内心的喜悦。
    希莫尼是美国著名软件工程师,在上世纪80年代倡导可视化图形用户界面,推动了“所见即所得”的软件设计潮流。他曾就职于微软公司,并领导开发Word及Excel等知名办公软件。作为世界上第五位自费前往太空旅游的人,希莫尼向太空游组织者支付了2000多万美元。
    “联盟TMA-10”载人飞船于莫斯科时间7日晚从哈萨克斯坦境内的拜科努尔航天发射场升空。除希莫尼外,搭乘飞船的还有国际空间站第15长期考察组两名俄罗斯宇航员费奥多尔·尤尔奇欣和奥列格·科托夫。他们将接替在那里工作了6个月的俄罗斯人米哈伊尔·秋林和美国人迈克尔·洛佩斯-阿莱格里亚,并将在空间站“轮岗”半年。而希莫尼将在12天太空之旅结束后随俄美两名宇航员返回地球。
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    这张拍摄于4月9日的电视截图显示,世界第五位太空游客查尔斯·希莫尼(前右)、俄罗斯宇航员费奥多尔·尤尔奇欣(前中)和奥列格·科托夫(前左)在抵达国际空间站后与地面工作人员通话。搭载两名俄罗斯宇航员和美国太空游客希莫尼的俄制“联盟TMA-10”载人飞船于莫斯科时间9日23时11分(北京时间10日3时11分)成功与国际空间站对接。 新华社/路透
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    希莫尼现年58岁,拥有计算机学博士学位。他为这次太空旅行专门开设了个人网站,记录每日训练过程。
    希莫尼与俄罗斯航天署和总部设在美国弗吉尼亚州的太空探险公司签订协议。本次太空旅行共耗资2500万美元,历时13天,其中2天用于往返旅途,11天生活在国际空间站内。
    他将在“第15远征队”考察组组长、俄罗斯宇航员费奥多尔·尤尔奇希恩和机械工程奥列格·科托夫陪同下,进入国际空间站,并在旅行结束后跟随现空间站成员米哈伊尔·图林和米格尔·洛佩斯·阿莱格里亚一同返回地球。 >>>点击详细
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查尔斯·希莫尼和他的宇航服。资料图片

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我也想上天!@#$%......................
从这则新闻paste过程中大家可以看到我每天看的新华网页面制作人员的CSS水平比CNN的稍逊一筹,but I like [url]www.xinhua.org[/url]:)