Apple iCloud: the criticism

Apple's latest product, the iCloud, has - as usual for an Apple launch - met with a storm of media interest. But not everyone's convinced. Here's a look at some of the criticism it's been receiving on the web.

No full streaming
The guys at ReadWriteWeb are unimpressed. "Apple's new offer does not involve music streaming", they say. "True, you can have your music collection synced across devices (up to 10 of them). But you will still have to download the music you want to play on to your iPhone or iPad or iPod Touch or Mac. You won't be able to access your entire collection and randomly shuffle between all the glorious gigabytes." Google and Amazon will "breathe a sigh of relief".

Only your own music
Over at MusicMachinery they make a related criticism: it's only your own music you can listen to. They suggest that over the years, music companies have been pushing the "delusion" that you can buy music, but in fact you're just "renting it until the next format change comes along", and that a music subscription service is the logical extension of that. Paul Lamere says: "Apple (along with Amazon and Google) are going down the wrong path. The music cloud shouldn't be a locker in the sky where I can put all the music I own, it should be the Celestial Jukebox - a place where all music is available for me to listen to."
Evolver.fm concurs: "Apple's music locker is a nice feature for those who like Apple's hardware and software, but it's not the cloud endgame: a Rhapsody- or Spotify-type music subscription service on steroids."

Limited storage space
Most of your music won't require storing: iCloud will recognise it and give you access to its iTunes version, rather than requiring you to store it. But if the music's not on iTunes, you'll have to upload it into the cloud yourself - and with a respectable but hardly voluminous 5Gb storage space in the cloud, you may find yourself short of room, as Rachel King at ZDNet asks: "What about movies and music not purchased via iTunes? Or other large collaborative files such as graphic-heavy presentations? That 5GB could go fast. Then again, it's free so it's hard to complain." She also points out that "Uploading to the cloud could get expensive quickly" for 3G and 4G users, especially "if someone is constantly uploading new versions of documents, music files and apps all the time."

No TV or video
FierceIPTV, the internet TV monitor, says that Apple has "missed the bullseye" by failing to provide streaming video and full syncing. "It does allow users to sync video content", they say, but: "The process may be a drag because users will have to upload and download files in full between devices and iCloud."
File it "in the 'needs more work' queue", they say, although they expect more from Apple soon.

Apple have tried this before, and screwed it up
This isn't Apple's first venture into the cloud. Wired points out that: "iCloud will be Apple's sequel to MobileMe, a paid online service for synchronizing personal information, such as your calendars, address books, e-mail and photos, across multiple devices. Tech observers agree that MobileMe has been one of Apple's most embarrassingly flawed products, thanks to its extremely buggy launch and limited functionality."
Worse still, even Mobile Me wasn't the first: it was "itself a 2008 rebranding of .Mac, which began its life in 2000 as iDisk", they say. Can they manage to get it right fourth time? And if they do, what will happen to the MobileMe users who've paid $99 a year for something they're now giving away for free? "Apple has been known to offer refunds and price adjustments in the past, most notably after the price drop of the first iPhone in 2007, which settled an uproar amongst those who shelled out $599 rather than $399. Thus, Apple might find itself in such a pinch once iCloud launches this fall", says Rachel King of ZDNet.
Steve Jobs takes the stage to discuss the iCloud service at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. (Photo: REUTERS)

It's not safe
In the wake of recent data scares, people are understandably wary of floating all their personal data and documents into the ether. Our own Adrian Hon writes: "Seventy-five million users' passwords and personal data on Sony's Playstation Network were recently accessed by hackers, handily demonstrating that even the biggest companies don't have bulletproof security. If we are going to entrust all our data and work to a single company and a single point of failure, whether it's Apple or Google or Amazon, we need to be confident that we're safe. We also need to be aware that this isn't all for our benefit, either. There are billions to be made from accurately targeting consumers with adverts and recommendations, and with a record of every piece of media we consume and purchase, companies can influence our tastes and behaviour in ever more subtle and powerful ways."
The New Yorker agrees: "But how do you know that these companies are going to keep your e-mail, photographs, dissertation research, financial records, or notes on an article about the next Wikileaks from other corporations or from hackers or from governments? Ultimately, you don't. The future of cloud-based companies depends upon maintaining privacy, but we use their products in the present. Accidents happen, smart people can fall for phishing scams, and thieves find ways of breaking into things, whether it's the Kryptonite bike lock or Gmail."

China's dark horses challenge Ipad

Figures released by market researcher Canalys shows the iPad accounted for more than 74 percent of total global shipments of tablet computers in the first quarter.

Tablet PC makers around the world are stepping up efforts to snap up a larger share in this increasingly profitable market. But is there any tech company out there up to taking on Apple? As Yin Hang's report continues, that dark horse could be a brand you've never heard of.

With the hugely-popular iPad commanding almost 75 percent of the tablet market, it's a plucky company indeed that paints itself as Apple's major competitor.

Fang Liyong, COO Beijing Ereneben, said, "There are only two tablet computer makers that are superior to all others in the world. One is Apple, the other is Ereneben. And the rest of the tablet PC makers are lost in Apple's shadow."

The Chief Operating Officer of Beijing-based Ereneben Information Technology certainly has plenty of confidence. The first generation of the company's "hand-writing touch screen gadgets" were released onto the market long before the world caught iPad fever.

Fang's bullish assessment of his company's position in the market is based on some pretty solid sales figures - at least in China.

Fang Liyong, COO Beijing Ereneben, said, "Our sales last year were the highest among Chinese tablet makers, reaching around 300 million yuan, or around 46 million U.S. dollars. We plan to maximize our sales to 1 billion yuan this year."

But like other Chinese-made tablet computers, such as Hanwang's version and Lenovo's Le-Pad, Ereneben's gadget isn't nearly as high-profile as the iPad. It's hard to spot it on the street, or the subway, or clutched in the arms of a consumer so obsessive, they're willing to camp overnight to get their hands on it.

Xiang Ligang, Vice President, 3G Industry Asso., said, "Besides Apple, other tablet computer makers in the world have three characteristics. They start later. Their function, in terms of apps and processing abilities, are not competitive enough to challenge the iPad. And their prices are not attractive. China-made tablet computers are largely the same."

Analysts say, Steve Jobs has nothing to lose sleep over. At least not until a competitor can bring something bold, innovative and fresh to the market.

Online "microresumes" are a hit for China's job seekers

BEIJING, May 21 (Xinhua) -- One hundred and forty words isn't a lot, but China's job seekers are cramming an entire career's worth of experience into a few sentences in order to help them find the perfect job.
"Microresumes" have become especially popular this May, as prospective university graduates are getting ready to enter the workforce. Graduate students are particularly likely to post their resumes on their microblogs.

"I am from the city of Qingdao city and I am looking for a temporary job to help me get by. I will take my post-graduation examinations next year," wrote a graduate student from Qingdao University in east China's Shandong Province on weibo.com, China's most popular microblogging site.

There were more than 17,000 microresumes posted on weibo.com as of last Friday.

College graduates aren't the only ones taking to their keyboards to find a new job. China's gainfully employed are also using microblogs to seek bigger and better opportunities. Ruan Xin, a senior manager with a company in China's economic hub of Shenzhen, recently posted a microresume in the hopes of finding a better job.

Ruan was quoted in a Thursday article in the China Youth Daily newspaper as saying that microresumes are an efficient way for both job seekers and employees to achieve their goals.

Direct and short introductions can quickly spread over the Internet, which helps employers save time when they're trying to find the right candidates, he said, adding that the speed at which short introductions can spread on the Internet also allows prospective job seekers to make more connections than they would with traditional resumes.

Several companies have begun looking at microblogs as an effective channel for recruitment. A recruiter for Alipay, China's largest third-party online payment service, said that Alipay has been recruiting employees via microblogs since 2009, according to the China Youth Daily article.

The recruiter says that microblogs can "yield twice the result with half the effort" in helping companies to recruit new employees.

New figures show that about 140 million people have signed up for accounts at weibo.com. Chinese media giant Sina, which owns weibo.com, estimates that the site will have 200 million registered users by the end of this year.

However, summing up an entire career in just 140 characters is a challenge for many job hunters. Some of the microresumes posted online seem to be posted just for their humorous content, rather than for the purpose of actually finding a job.

"Some microresumes are more like micronovels, just another instance of online entertainment," says Wang Yan, a college student majoring in journalism at Central China Normal University in Wuhan, the capital city of central China's Hubei Province.

Wang Dong, a human resources director working for an online advertising company, says that he is very cautious when dealing with microresumes. He believes that they aren't long enough to provide a suitable introduction for employers.

"Microresumes aren't necessarily suitable for every industry," Wang says. "Advertisers and media companies are the most suitable targets for this kind of recruitment."

He suggests that good microresumes should be clear and tightly focused, with links to the poster's personal website, if he or she has one. This can allow employers to understand the candidate more easily, he says.

China to promote building of national digital library network

BEIJING, May 31 (Xinhua) -- China will launch a national project to promote the building of a digital library network in the next five years.

The project aims to build a nationwide digital library network with the National Digital Library of China at the center, integrating local libraries, said a statement jointly issued by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday.

The focus of the project will be promoting the construction of an interconnected digital library platform and a group of widely-spread resource libraries that provide multi-media library services for the public, the statement said.

The services will be available in public libraries and through the Internet, mobile phones and mobile televisions.

Over recent years, the construction of digital libraries has made technological advancements, and the promotional project is expected to increase the capability and capacity of the country's digital library services and improve the public culture services, said Zhou Heping, director of the National Library of China.

Zhou called for an emphasis on the planning, human-resource training, expenditure management and the building of an information sharing system during the promotion.

As of September last year, the digital resources maintained by the National Digital Library of China had reached 460 TB, with over 76 percent accessible across the country.

In February of last year, China launched a scheme to promote the building of digital libraries at the county level in a bid to equip the country's over 2,900 county-level libraries with digital services.

Google's groundless accuses hurt global trust on Internet

BEIJING, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Again, Google complained about China undermining its cyberspace service. Just as its previous accusations, the world's largest Internet search engine provided no solid proof to support its statement.

In a blog post updated on Wednesday, Google said a clandestine campaign originating in China targeted some users of Gmail, its e-mail service, aiming at stealing passwords and monitoring e-mail accounts.

It was the second time that Google arbitrarily pointed its finger at China. Last year, Google groundlessly accused the Chinese government of supporting hacker attack against it and pushed China to abandon legal regulations on the Internet by threatening to withdraw from the Chinese market.

The chimerical complaints by Google have become obstacles for enhancing global trust between stakeholders in cyberspace.

Nobody would doubt Google's leading role on the Internet. Founded in 1998, Google runs more than 1 million web servers in data centers around the world, and processes more than 1 billion online search requests.

However, it was too imprudent for the online giant to lash out at others without solid proof to support its accusation.

Last year, Google invited the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), a spy agency, to help with its inquiry into cyberattacks against it, even though the cooperation was considered to be a serious threat to Internet neutrality.

Then unidentified American security investigators said, they traced the attackers to computers at Chinese Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School, according to the New York Times.

The report amused many Chinese at that time since Lanxiang Vocational School enjoys a good fame at training chefs for local restaurants.

But the American investigators suggested that the school had the capacity to stage the cyber attacks and made the world's No. 1 search engine suffer. It is really hard for people with common sense to understand.

Furthermore, it is not appropriate for Google, a profit-first business, to act as an Internet judge.

Google has not always followed business ethics as it says. The American media reported in mid-May that Google had not been vigilant about policing online pharmaceutical advertisements because they are so lucrative. As a result, the Internet search leader distributed online advertisements from illegal pharmacies.

In fact, individual criminals, rather than states, are the major treat to Internet safety, as some U.S. experts say.

China, the United States and many other countries are all victims of hackers. In China, for instance, about 60 percent of the Internet users experienced hacker attacks during the first half of 2010. More than 30 percent of China's netizens had their online accounts or passwords stolen.

Global cooperation is urgently needed to keep the Internet safe.

It is a real pity that Google's baseless complaints have distress mutual trust and the efforts to establish new global governance in cyberspace, letting real online criminals obtain illegal profits without being punished.

Lenovo intends to buy control of Germany's Medion

BEIJING, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Lenovo Group Ltd., China's biggest maker of personal computer, aimed to buy control of Medion AG, a multimedia and consumer electronics maker, to double its market share in Germany, the China Daily reported Thursday.

The purchase will be Lenovo's biggest acquisition since it acquired International Business Machines Corp's PC business in 2004.

Lenovo estimated that after the acquisition, it will be the third-largest PC company in Germany, which is Europe's largest PC market. Lenovo will have more than 14 percent of the German and 7.5 percent of the Western European PC market, the newspaper said.

Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing said the deal will complement both Lenovo's core PC business and new businesses, which are key areas for development.

The Chinese PC maker said it hopes the deal will be completed in August and that it will acquire 50 to 75 percent of the Medion AG's stock, according to the newspaper.

Lenovo was ranked the fourth-largest PC company and held a 9.9 percent market share worldwide in the first quarter of 2011.

Sony unveils next-gen portable device "Vita"

Three weeks after Sony's PR nightmare when its PlayStation network was hacked, the Japanese company is set to woo back consumers at the opening of the E3 video game expo in Los Angeles.After Sony President and CEO, Jack Tretton, offered his apologies to the crowd, he unveiled the newest collection of games.

The most anticipated announcement of the event though, was for the new handheld gaming device, called the PlayStation Vita. The Vita is set to compete Nintendo's DS and handheld gaming on smartphones. It will go on sale for 249 dollars, or 299 for a 3G mobile version.

The new console is set to hit the market during the holiday season, at the end of this year. Sony also plans to integrate Android capable devices into its network to expand its target group.

Two more Taiwan food products recalled

Two more food items from Taiwan have been recalled after similar products being imported by Hong Kong were suspected of being carcinogenic.

Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (FDA) informed Hong Kong Centre for Food Safety (CFS) that Jin Zhuan Lifesciences Enterprise Co Ltd products, which were imported by Cosway Hong Kong Ltd, were suspected of containing carcinogens.

In a press release yesterday, Health Ministry director-general Datuk Dr Hasan Abdul Rahman said Taiwan FDA had informed the ministry on Friday that these items had been exported to Malaysia.

"The ministry has ordered Cosway Malaysia Sdn Bhd to immediately recall the suspected items that are being imported into Malaysia," said Dr Hasan.

The items suspected of being tainted with di-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) include Oriyen Nutri Grow (boy) Orange Drink Premix (330g) and Oriyen Nutri Grow (girl) Cranberry Drink Premix (330g) with an expiry date on Aug 13, 2013.

"The ministry has taken samples to be analysed for DEHP and the products from the batch will be released if the analysis results prove them to be free of DEHP.

"All distributors under Cosway Malaysia Sdn Bhd are advised to cease sales of the products and users that have purchased the products are advised not to consume them," said Dr Hasan.

He said nine other food products from Taiwan suspected of being tainted with DEHP had been analysed and found not to contain the chemical.

The items include apple juice, guava juice, grape juice and carambola juice by Uni-President and Frugurt Assorted Flavors, Fibrous Jelly White Peach Flavour, Fibrous Jelly Mango Flavor, Fibrous Jelly Grape Flavour and Squez'n Bites by New Choice.

The ministry would continue to monitor food products from Taiwan confirmed not to contain DEHP, including Pickled Strip Cucumber by Melovocom, Preserved Chili Bean Curd by Master and Yam Nutritious Cereal by Greenmax.

"The public need not worry about the safety of food imported from Taiwan as safeguards have been put in place to monitor the products," said Dr Hasan.

Sony sees brisk sales of new games device

"If we were able to hit that 70 million mark for PlayStation Portable, we want to exceed that both in terms of numbers and timing to get to that number," Sony's No. 2 executive Kazuo Hirai said in an interview on Tuesday on the sidelines of the E3 games convention in Los Angeles.

Sony's Vita comes as more and more people use smartphones and tablets to play games on the go.

Apple Inc's online gaming network, accessed through its iPhone and other mobile devices, now boasts of 50 million users. But despite the competition, Sony's Hirai said the aim is to make a profit on hardware sales of the new handheld PlayStation Vita in less than three years.

That contrasts with the PlayStation 3 home console, which analysts say initially cost the company hundreds of dollars per unit to sell and took years to make a profit after launching in 2006.

Jay Defibaugh, an analyst at MF Global, said Sony's Vita could outsell the PlayStation Portable. "I think it's definitely possible, although I don't model that right now, given the bigger emphasis on connectivity," he said.

"All things considered, the handheld market has more exposure to the increasing popularity of smartphone-based gaming."

In a separate interview, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment's U.S. division, Jack Tretton, said the Vita would go on sale in Japan by the end of the year, while launches in some regions could be pushed into 2012.

Sony, which revealed the pricing for Vita at a flashy event featuring sports and rock stars, is already facing criticism the gadget is too expensive.

Vita's pricing -- $249, or $299 for a 3G mobile version -- would help Sony reach its goal of making money off the device in less than three years, however.

"That's in line with what they've been saying about not making losses on the scale of the PS3, which was losing them hundreds of dollars per unit at first," Defibaugh said, adding it was unclear how Sony was calculating profitability on the device.