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U.S., Japan Ask Sony To Not Outsource PS2 To Taiwan
Payp points to this Digitimes story which says: "Japanese and U.S. governments have asked Sony to stop outsourcing Playstation 2 manufacturing to 2 Taiwanese companies, Asustek and Acer, in fear that they would do the manufacturing in factories in China, which would give the Chinese government opportunies to gain access to the DVD techonology. (I thought some DVD players are already manufactured in China.) Sony originally planned to use the Taiwanese companies to manufacture PS2 to prepare for Microsoft XBox's arrival, the manufacturing of which is also outsourced to some Taiwanese companies."
And, yes, before anyone asks, the PRC already does have nukes. What we fear is that China will (1) use this technolgy for designing better launch technologies (read: ICBM's pointed at you and me) and (2) that they'll also sell this processing technology to rogue nations like Iraq or Iran for their own terrorist weapons programs.
"Microsoft demands USA block Sony from Competing against X-BOX"
The problem is not the DVD technology. The problem is that the United States is worried about building up the PRC's capacity for manufacturing chips. Chip foundries intended to produce PS/2 chips could be used to produce other chips in a crisis, and if it were the case that the United States is dependent on the PRC for chip production, this would render any U.S. threats to use military force against the PRC non-credible, in that the PRC could shut down the United States high-tech industry if pushed.
Even at this level I don't think that it will work.
There are tons of articles all over the place on the web DVD technology - I doubt thats what they are trying to protect. What I think they really fear is access to the PS2's emotion chip technology, which the Japanese said is powerful enough to control weapons such as guided missles.
Cheap ruse, try again.
mine is lower... =)
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Your "low" SlashID is for ponces.
(*grin)
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I accept that the emotion engine may have sufficient mflops for scientific application, but it's hardwired into a device that can do nothing but play games and its interface is a custom-built gamepad. How does one turn this into a weapon or weapons research device? Can anyone outline how, in theory, one would use a PS2 to do this?
Hmm.. If China doesn't have DVD hardware and software, how did my Chinese brand (Konka) DVD player get produced?
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
It appears the "DVD Club" has a new member: China.
I'm afraid the Chinese now have the DVD. This means that they can natively produce and watch pr0n, totally bypassing the Japo-American Pr0n Syndicate. Although details are sketchy, it appears China stole this technology via Sony manufacting plants in Taiwan.
China now has access to the world's most potent encrypting scheme: CSS. We have our cryto boys working around the clock to break that cypher, but it could take years.
Our only option is to flood the Chinese market with Barney and Raffy DVDs. With luck, the Chinese consumer will be so disgusted with those shows that they'll abandon DVD altogether.
A world in which China has DVD tech isn't a world I want to live in.
Outsourcing production to Taiwanese companies is definitely a nice way to bring the price of the PS2 boxes down.
Paranoid scenario #1:
Maybe the real reason the US government is doing this is to give Microsoft an advantage competing against Sony.... giving their own corporations a helping hand against foreign companies sure ain't a new thing.
Time to harass your local US embassy/consulate and demand that they subsidise you buying a PS2.
Kill'em! Kill'em all!
Funny.
Not long ago, George W. Bush was showing how much he cares for Taiwan, so much so that he prepared to go to war against China - risking the lives of THOUSANDS of American GIs - just to protect that little island nation.
And now, it seems that George W. Bush isn't that cozy with Taiwan anymore.
C'mon. This is only DVD we're talking about. It ain't some StarWar technology, or stealth, or other super-hi-tech, spy-spy stuffs.
Sometimes I really wonder if those who are working for us, in the States department and the spy agancies, do know what the hell they are doing?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Yeah. Consider that many P4 and Athlon motherboards and chipsets are actually manufactored in Taiwan/China...
Yeah, you have to buy a remote. Also Xbox is a consumer PC bascily with nForce audio and video. PS2 emotion engine is a MP MIPS machine ( Versions of MIPS run everything from toasters to clusters. They're also better suited for military applications for certian reasons... I'm sorry I can't say why the merikan SS is knocking on my door... )
The main points are:
* PS2 is multi processor MIPS ( vector processors )
* It's easy to embed
* It has a small form factor
* Xbox is a consumer uniprocessor PC
* Xbox is well... a huge box
Thank you, drive thru
Jeez, these people are much too late. They want to stop the Chinese from getting DVD technology? I think they already had it long ago. If the PRC can steal U.S. Government nuclear secrets I think getting DVD technology trade secrets would be child's play for their equivalent of the KGB. There has to be some other reason, I think, or else these people in the U.S. and Japanese governments have either completely lost their mind or are under the influence of some controlled substance.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Might there be a chip on the PS2 that has some form of US Defense encryption. ;-)
So they don't mind if people in Russia, China, or where ever else buy the PS2, but they don't wnat them manufacturing it and finding out about this strange chip.
Did anyone ever find out what was really in that blob of epoxy in Furbies?
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
Now, if it was China asking Sony to stop making PS2s in Taiwan, for fear of giving Chinese people access to DVDs... it would almost make sense (but only just)
'sapientia potestas est'
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And like any successful American company, it saves money by producing goods in low-cost countries: The Xbox apparently will be manufactured in Taiwan.
Except that a large part of the Asian market uses VCD. To pirate DVD images to VCD you'd need to rip the content with the encryption keys, right?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Which is not to say that this is or isn't a reasonable concern, but I'd be surprised if Sony hadn't already considered that, being a media giant and all.....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
The new Tomahawk (Tactical Tomahawk) uses a 300MHz PowerPC 603.
FYI and all that.
I'd love to see some Chinese politicians exact revenge and puke all over Dubya!
Mike
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
"China wishes to bring Japan under its economic guidance, while Japan wishes to remain its own independent unit."
Ummm, no, I think you are thinking Taiwan here.
The Chinese could decode ultra-secure CSS encoded video orders to US submarines transmitted via the ELF antennas in Michigan and Wisconsin.
(Now, to see who is smart enough to figure out what is wrong with the above.)
(OT: I wish slashdot would allow the <small> tag)
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But then again, I could be wrong.
Many people seem to forget that anything can be gotten, for a price. If China wants the specs on the PS2, well, there are plenty of free dev sites out there, and it's not terribly hard to get an official PS2 dev kit. If they want a bunch of EE chips, they hire the mafia to steal a truckload of them. And it's not like there already aren't a billion pirated DVDs coming out of China. I took a trip to Mexico about a month ago, and the black market was full of Chinese bootleg DVDs. Not just copies of retail DVDs, but they had reel capture DVDs of current movies. I picked up a few, the quality is just as good as hollywood DVDs, except I paid $5 each and they came in CD jewel cases. My point? If the Chinese want to do it, they will, and if not, they won't. There's not much the US or Japan can do to stop them.
that churns out millions of bootleg DVDs and VCDs? I don't really understand what technology they are missing, it seams like they have pretty much streamlined the process of making fake DVDs. My neighborhood video store has all four Star Wars movies on DVD (not VCD).
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You clearly haven't played xtux, have you ? Those disks can be pretty deadly, you know ! If the MSCPs, bugs, Borgs etc. that crossed my path were still alive, they'd tell you...
The angry man always thinks he can do more than he can. -- Albertano of Brescia
Sweet Christ, two years ago, the US government sold the Chinese MISSILE GUIDANCE SOFTWARE...and we're worried about a fucking game console?
Stop the world. I want to get off.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
One small nit: right-wingers do not have a monopoly on fearing that which they do not understand.
Unfortunately, it's human nature and happens in any country, race, religious group, social group, ethnicity, or caste, you can come up with.
When people don't know how to deal with something, they try not to. They ignore it if they can. If they can't, they try to get rid of it by ridiculing it. If that doesn't work, they attempt to destroy it. Of course, the sensible and responsible thing to do is learn to understand what they fear. Perhaps there is no reason to fear it after all, or perhaps there is a way to fix it without destroying it.
Don't fall into this trap. Before writing your right-wing classmates off as a group about to fuck up the US, try to understand them instead of ridiculing them. As long as you are ridiculing them without understanding them, you are no better than them.
Sweet Christ, two years ago, the US government sold the Chinese MISSILE GUIDANCE SOFTWARE...and we're worried about a fucking game console?
>This kind of thing is just nonsensical with a consumer product. If the Chinese government wants to get them they can simply buy them. What next Sony demand that anywhere selling this console must first expell any Chinese diplomats.
Tracking a target also usually means that you're telling the aircraft 'Here I am, and I'm looking at you' which also means that the target will do some countermeasures.
Worst it can easily mean that you are telling your enemy an awful lot about your radar system. Rather useful for anti-radar missile systems or aircraft with a lower RCS than the one being tracked.
Not meant to be a troll or anything, but it seems to me that this high-tech hysteria is pretty meaningless when they (especially the Arab nations) have millions upon millions of fanatics that would gladly become a martyr in the never-ending battle against Truth, Justice and Freedom (aka The Great Satan)
Much the same applies to missile defence systems.
When a kamikazi bomber can get to a target far more effectivily. The most recent successful attack against a US warship used an infaltable boat...
China already manufactures rockets which are almost carbon copies of American Titan II boosters.
You can't simply buy a Titan II rocket, nor will one fit in a diplomatic bag even if you could.
There is simply no way to control distribution of a consumer product.
If China gets a hold of our DVD technology, they might find even more illeagal uses for it. The nerve of people thinking they have the right to *watch* the movies they buy! Dang commies! God bless America!
Ignoring the absurd idea that they can't already copy dvds in China, what's to keep the evil Chinese pirating triad from flying to the US, buying 5 or 6 PS2 units, and flying them back to China to analyze them. Or even just going to Hong Kong and buying them off the street.
I can just imagine what U.S. customs might say: "Uh no sir, you may not export these video game systems, they are weapons of mass destruction. Here, why don't you take this used Pong machine instead."
...that they are worried that China may gain access to the CSS encryption technology that the MPAA relies on to protect its profits. They probably figure that piracy will run rampant if China gets a hold of this. To address your point about Acer, I guess the DVD-ROM drives themselves don't do the decryption, otherwise DeCSS wouldn't have any significance whatsoever.
Of course, if they think that no one in China has managed to get his/her hands on DeCSS by now, they're kidding themselves.
You're right, of course they already can and do
download software off the net to do that for them.
"divx" copies of asian stuff is already passed around a lot on the internet and is often made into a vcd.
In most cases, you are correct. What I was referring to is the recent obsession with "hit-to-kill" technology. Specifically, Patriot (PAC-3) and THAAD missiles are kinetic-kill rather than explosive. This means that they actually have to slam into the target to make a kill. That is one of the reasons that making THAAD usable is so difficult! Amazing how technology goes backwards, sometimes...
:)
Well, trying to hit a quite small warhead coming from above at mach 10 is probably easier with a kinetic-kill weapon than explosive. I think this is the reason why they try this approach.
You are also right about the doctrine that states "shoot everything down" - the SA-X range even have nuclear options to make sure that you hit the target. (Small nukes, so really not as dramatic as it sounds - but still an impressive hit radius).
The US have actually developed a nuclear air-to-air missile called Genie, and I think it was France who had an nuclear surface-to-air missile (check the "Worst Weapon System"-thread in the sci.military.moderated newsgroup.
(This is probably waaay off-topic :)
You said "Admittedly, part of their success may be attributed to a willingness to detonate an explosive near the target - rather than just trying to hit it, but their systems are very advanced."
In case you didn't know, this is how all air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles work. Hey, even flak from WW2 didn't need a direct hit. Some even had proximity fuses which made the shells go off when an aircraft was nearby instead of using a timer.
But Russia do have some kick-ass long range air defence systems, but the problem such systems is target identification. What's the point in shooting down a target far away if you don't know if it's a friend or foe? Another problems is detection vs tracking. To be able to detect an aircraft at a long range doesn't mean that you can track it, and tracking is needed to be able get a good shot. I'm not sure if the double-digit russian SA-systems (NATO classification) uses active or semi-active radar in the missiles (semi-active requires an illumination radar to paint the target, active means that the missile got a radar of it's own), but in either case you have to get reliable targeting data when you're shooting. Unless the missile got some kind of mid-course update (the missile get updated target info from the radar while flying towards the target (the AMRAAM-missile (by Raytheon) got this), shooting at a long range means that the target has plenty of time doing some countermeasures, like turning in another direction. Tracking a target also usually means that you're telling the aircraft 'Here I am, and I'm looking at you' which also means that the target will do some countermeasures. However, the russian military doctrine may allow shooting down targets which just may be hostile. This may work when defending Mother Russia from bombers coming from all directions, but todays battlefield is much more complex.
There's more to DVDs than layers - most DVDs are single-layered anyway.
At first glance, I read this as "There's more to DVDs than lawyers..."Very Simple answer.....
:)
f
:)
DVD technology is guarded by the US Government therefore its a billion times more secure
net use g: \\nukes.whitehouse.gov\topsecret\newestwarhead.pd
Hehe oh i crack my self up
And why is the govenment only focusing on Sony then? Or is the XBox not going to support DVD anymore, as it was originally spec'ed to do?
The motherboard isn't where most of the technology lies, it's in the processor itself. And those aren't being made in Taiwan, that's for sure.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Perhaps if Sony wanted China/Taiwan to actually fab the chips, then there might be danger of intellectual property being stolen.
To assemble stuff requires far less advanced technology (soldering, etc) than actually making the raw components. So, in order to get any useful technology, the Chinese would have to take the chip apart or use other methods of reverse engineering, and I don't see how not letting China/Taiwan handle the assembly would stop this anyways.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Sure, they can have their little encrypted communications, and develop their misiles with an athlon, but DVD technology will give them access to something even worse: illegal DVD copies!! (wich I'm sure they are alredy producing anyway). We can't allow that.
Remember: When you buy a Play Station 2, you are buying COMUNISM !!!
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Hasn't anyone considered the possibility that this is a hoax? I've read four or five articles saying this exact same thing for the past few weeks, and not one has been more specific than "according to our sources".
"According to our sources"? What, like our government would make a silly request like this and then refuse to talk to the press about it? Which branch of the government or military made the request? Which committee debated doing this? Who was ultimately responsible for the decision? What experts solemnly related their opinions that DVD technology is somehow dangerous? Are DVD-ROM drives banned in China? How about DVD players?
The complete lack of such details in any of these articles makes me very, very suspicious of their veracity. Especially when you consider the fact that a lot of people were actually dumb enough to think that Saddam Hussein was somehow interested in PS2 technology for military use -- haven't we heard this story before?
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Well, perhaps they want that Emotion chip that Saddam was after. Thing is, Iraq is subject to trade restrictions and doesn't really have the industry to make it's own high-end processors. Taiwan, though, has the resources to make it's own processors if it really wanted, and it has access to Pentiums, Athlons etc as freely as most of us do - so what's the point blocking this one chip in the PS2?
There's been plenty of media coverage about these issues, so the government should be aware. So what's the real danger here (other than giving jobs to people in other countries)? I can't see how the PS2 will provide China with any technology that isn't already freely available to them.
This seems utterly rediculous to me. I mean, for every insane human rights violation story on the Chinese there's on the US doing some completely idiotic piece of foriegn policy. When did the idiot at my high school start running the government?
This is almost as retarded as that time the US didn't want to allow someone to ship some supercomputers over to China because they would be able to do hyper accurate predictions of the weather, and make their missile more accurate. If they can make hyper accurate predictions of the weather, how come the weather people here can't tell if it's going to rain or not? That doesn't seem to need a "hyper accurate" level of computing to me.
This all feels like a game of Civ2...where Abraham Lincoln coms knocking on Sony's door backed with the threat of nuclear weapons demanding that Sony doesn't give the Chinese the secret of Pottery or something.
Oh no, they've got DVDs...now they can make those guns from Beverly Hills Cop 3 with the microwaves, stereo systems, and DVD playback.
I think the US Government's idea of what the Chinese tech level at is a bit skewed. Has anyone ever seen some of the recent HK movies out? There's a CG production group over there named Centro that can basically do anything any major Hollywood studio can do, and sometimes better. Check out "Wind & Cloud" and "A Man Called Hero" for some exmaples of their work.
On top of that, if they could take apart the PS2, and rig it up to do military operations, would it stand to reason that they probably ALREADY make chips of similar technical complexity, instead of just stealing everyone else's work? How about giving some non-US nations some credit?
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Well, don't you think China has an effective enough intelligence agency to aquire DVD technology without having to 'capture' it from another nation? - I really feel that the US must be somewhat naievely underestimating China.
;)
Lets face it, China already manufactures rockets which are almost carbon copies of American Titan II boosters.Why doesn't the USA (how come they control this anyway?) just add another 'region' for China and let them make DVD's to their hearts content.
Communist they may be - but these days the Chinese live in the most Capitalistic communist regime ever
Just a thought: Would China invade Taiwan just to aquire DVD technoloy?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Just think what could happen if the Chinese Red Army had training videos with the same image quality as those we might someday use to train our troops. Remember, the main advantage the US armed forces has is technological!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
about the fact that the U.S. is trying to deny China high technology, which seems to be the PRC's only hope for democracy.
I've been in Beijing on an exchange program for four months. Every media source is controlled. When a provincial paper accidentally printed a joke about a high level official, it was shut down, and the editor was driven into hiding.
The only unrestricted method of communication, the only outlet for the REAL political opinions of the Chinese people is, no surprise, the Internet (and piracy...the government has no way to restrict pirated media...Red Alert is prohibited because it portrays Communism as 'bad', but you can get it pirated).
I think the U.S. should be promoting the distribution of high tech throughout the world, not suppressing it. Especially for something has harmless as DVD.
If Uncle Sam wants to keep military tech out of the PRC's hands, then it should worry about more important things, like keeping state-of-the-art spyplanes from falling into China.
This all boils down to economic warfare from the U.S. against China. How difficult would it be fore ANY government to get it's hands on a massive amount of any consumer product? The sooner China (or someone, anyone!) blows the Americans off the face of the earth the better for all of us.
My Mustuk V300 with region-code busting loophole menu :) says "Made in China" plain as day on the back of the unit, so it seems the US and Japanese Govs are up to something that they don't want made public.
Asustek already manufactures GeForce3 video cards, whether it is manufactured in China or not, I do not know... but I've never heard of any similar news of the US government urging nVidia not to liscence or sell their chips to Asustek. I think I can safely say that the GeForce3 is more powerful than Sony's Emotion Engine.
which would give the Chinese government opportunies to gain access to the DVD techonology.
Yes, we sure wouldn't want those Chinese watching our high quality American blockbusters now would we?
What if they were to tell the world how to crack the encryption on DVD's?? That would just be awful!
But seriously, what is the big threat to allowing the Chinese information on DVD technology? What is so special about a DVD player? I thought it was merely an over-glorified CD player that could differentiate the different colours from the different DVD layers. Obviously the CSS encryption isn't the issue either since that's been known for quite some time now. So what is it in the DVD technology that the Chinese can't have access to?
The only issue I could see is China wanting to keep DVD's out of thier country so the people would not exposed to other cultures and ideas (much like how the have moderated net access) but what does this have to do with any other country?
Not to mention which, ELF must be cooler than I thought if it can send signals from Michigan and Wisconsin through 1500 miles of dirt and rock to the oceans for submarines to hear ;-)
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How could they possibly worry about China getting DVD encyption keys? That cat is already out of the bag.
Seriously, since when are DVD's a menace? I'm pretty sure nuclear would do more damage than a DVD. Unless of course there's plans for a Chinese invasion that involves them coming in at night and lumping us in the head with a good solid DVD player.
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I know it was a joke but... there is no Caddyshack 2 disc set is there? I recently bought the 20th anniversary edition and it was only one disc. Sorry I just had to ask, I'm a big fan of that movie.
Damn, are you saying the chineese goverment is not even on par with a $300 US GAME console, they are seriously deprived as far as technology, and a PS2 is no where near the Tech the US has, if China gets DVD technology, what??, how many steps will they STILL be behind the U.S. Its just another case of the U.S. snubbing China. Mabe if china had DVD technology they could show better methods of birth control, so they weren't so fucking over populated
So, um, what technology might they obtain? The DVD cryptosystem? Remind me again why anyone should care?
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In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
On the other hand, it's pretty much the same technology, just implemented with current methods and techniques, and after ~20 years of experience making CDs and CD players. The only remarkable thing about DVD players is the content control, and that's not especially impressive.
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In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
aztek: the ultimate man
No sig for you!!
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C'mon, flame me!
No sig for the moment.
The real reason has been found why they forced the U.S. plane to land on their soil... they had a PS/2. I would think that the technology from the plane is alot better than the PS/2. Not to mention spying that has been going on for years.
I would think that the emotion engine processor would be more of a liability than would the MPEG-2 decoding chip.
They come up, blank look.
Ask dumb question about disk drive.
Told, they will return.
"We were half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold."
-- Hunter S. Tolkien
Politicians just don't understand what is a threat and what is not. If DVD technology is indeed a threat, it is already well known enough in china to not make a difference at all. Besides, taiwan already makes DVD hardware.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
We cannot have DVD out there in China! It would make for a terrible situation for my friends at the MPAA. After all, we are the most powerful nation in the world; if I knew the meaning of "powerful". Anyway, those computer doo-hicky thingamabobs that Dick told me about are dangourous things, after all. They could control MP3 archives, OpenNAP servers, and anime archives!!! We can't have this... we should be able to live in a society where we can be free from piracy, and not let the taint of the reds get to us.
Karma whorin' since 1999
I live in Hong Kong and I have seen plenty of Chinese made DVD players. Players that can play BOTH regional DVD formats - not just one. I can get a PS2 here and ask the store to tweak it so that I can view both DVD formats, too!!!
Slashdot is starting to become more like gossipy old women. Read the articles sometimes before you go nuts.
To everyone that has replied. I'm not saying that the Chinese are going to guide a missle with the PS2. I'm saying that's the goverment's reasoning for not wanting the chinese to have them. I was responding to the knee jerk comments of people who hadn't read the article.
Obviously, if you go purely by the news, you'd expect China and Taiwan to be two armed camps, with China ready destroy Taiwan at a moment's notice. The reality is that there are two worlds at play here: the political realm, and the global capitalism realm.
Tensions are high in the politial world. There are those in Taiwan who wish to assert their political independence, and those in China who wish to quash those self-deterministic yearnings with brute force. This is the world you read about in the US, the Falun Gong crackdown, human rights abuses, Taiwan's request for Aegis cruisers and Patriot missiles, Taiwan's assertion for independence, and all the screaming and yelling between the ROC and the PRC
In the other realm, opposing the forces of identity politics are the forces of corporate capitalism. The practical and business-like Communist officials in China and enterprising business class in Taiwan have billions of US$ at stake to come together economically, all for the benefit of bringing cheap consumer and electronic products to the world. Instead of war, China has an overwhelming interest in attracting billions of $ of investment capital to build high tech industries, and Taiwanese corporations have billions of $ at stake in maintaining their cheap supply chain. Why do you think you can get your >gigahertz K7 and P4 motherboards so cheap? Cheap Chinese labor, outsourced by Taiwanese firms.
The "Truth" is the precarious balance, the razor's edge, in the conflict between these two forces. Currently, the forces of global capitalism is winning. The powers that Be on both sides of the Taiwan Straights seems to feel that it's in their mutual interest to get rich together, than to kill each other. And thank goodness for the current situation, because the lives of my family is at stake.
Businesspeople in Taiwan regularly commute to China the way Silicon Valley businesspeople commute to Austin, TX. New graduates from Taiwan engineering schools seek jobs in China. Average families have uncles and grandparents living in China while sisters and brothers are living in Taiwan. This is the reality for many, many people such as myself, whose families extend from the U.S., China, and Taiwan altogether.
But the truth is that many in Taiwan do have a legitimate wish for independence. Theirs is a valid, though for now a minority voice. Taiwan has a democratic system, so when this minority voice is heard, China, which does not understand such a system, gets overly riled up and starts rattling sabers. Eventually things settle down when the majority in Taiwan, who just wants to go about their business and try to recover from the current high-tech recession, starts to assert itself and try to calm things down.
Back in 1989, San Francisco and the Bay Area suffered a serious earthquake during the World Series. All the major news network found a SINGLE HOUSE on fire and setup their cameras in front of it. So if you watched the TV news from the East Coast, you thought the entire city of SF was on fire. This is the same thing here. We here in the U.S. is focusing on the fire and smoke, while in the background, the real story is how close the daily lives of millions of people are getting intertwined.
Here is a link that I dug up attempting to quantify Taiwanese capital investment in China. It's a bit old but if you google the subject "Taiwanese investment in China" you can quickly see how inmense the economic ties are.
Here is a NY Times article discussing the internal debate in Taiwan on the subject of independence / integration
The Taiwan / China / U.S. story is one of the most important and complicated issues to the world today. It's imperative that you listen to all aspects of this, not just to one single interested party. There are many, many stakeholders, and not all is what it appears to be.
Benbox
Ever heard of Legend Computers, China's largest computer manufacturer?
I'm sure they're building computers with 1,000 MHz or faster Intel or AMD CPU's. In that case why bother with the Emotion Engine CPU found on the PlayStation 2?
I believe they are worried about pirates and generic dvd players. I know this sounds a little illogical but remember Japan and the US are the most corrupt nations in terms ff campaign finiancing on Earth. I bet a few ignorant hollywood executives and shareholders would be afriad that some cheap chinese electronics company could produce a player without giving them royalities! Ohh the horror!
Or that somehow a pirate would reverse engineer the ps2 and make another decss to steal movies. Ohhh bad ( picture an executive at hollywood freaking out at the moment). The taiwanese company would produce them would have the blue prints and specs and a chinese company would go nuts for this. I am sure they are worth gold in the black market. Think about. The dvd constorium makes money for each unit and each disc sold. A chinese one would always have a competitive advantage. Perhaps they may make one without region encoding so hollywood's css would go down the tubes. The military could also produce these and sell them oversea's for funding.
Its all about greed and ignorance. Of course it would be easier for a pirate to find a warez site and take decss and write an extenstion to write discs but perhaps a few lobbyists don't know this or even care. They just want to tell other people what to do with the power of allmightly uncle sam so they can make more money. I love corporate america.
http://saveie6.com/
How the hell can the DVD player app be used for 'military purposes'?
I think there might have been mis-translation somewhere...
The Chinese could decode ultra-secure CSS encoded video orders to US submarines transmitted via the ELF antennas in Michigan and Wisconsin.
(Now, to see who is smart enough to figure out what is wrong with the above.)
Well, since the operating frequency is 76 Hz, video orders are right out. IIRC, the communication rate is so low that transmissions are limited to coded text.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
They are afraid all those 1.2 billion Chinese people will buy all the p0rn from the market, leaving none left for them.
This sig is intentionally left blank
They should send them to China, a few PS2 games might improve their reflexes so they wont accidently crash those pesky MIG's of their's. Of cours assuming it was their fault...
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
Maybe they're actually trying to get them to go ahead and steal the DVD and have them use it in their military because they know that they can already decrypt any CSS messages in real time thanks to the linux community.
Of course for this DVD encryption to matter at all there would have to be no Chinese that read/speak English anyway, and none of them can ever read slashdot.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
What a sorry state the world is in.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
They are just hyping the Playstation, by suggesting its sooooo powerful that should be prevented from obtaining the technology in it.
Sony's PR people did the same thing when they said Iraq were trying to buy up PS2s for use as Supercomputers.
Same hype, different enemy of the day.
Iraq.
Liberty in your lifetime
but at least the US government is keeping advanced video technology out of the hands of those evil Taiwanese companies!!
Tom's Hardware is in for heartbreak.
the DVD application of the console's chip could be used for military purposes
Must be the extremely complex encryption code used in DVD players that the government's so worried about. What's the worst the Chinese military could use the DVD app for, showing training videos?
---
Developers: We can use your help.
..as the Chinese populace finds out how freakin' good a golfer the Dalai Lama is.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Now Bush Jr. is following in Daddy's footsteps, doing everything but racking up the miles on Air Force One, except that he's the MPAA's whore instead of Detroit's. God, this is embarassing.
"You know, the golf course is the only place he isn't handicapped."
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
I'm still trying to figgure out how this matters.... I mean, these are Tiawanese companies right? I wasn't aware that the PRC and the ROC were on speaking terms. Tiawan is the place we were considering selling the new AEGIS cruisers to right? The 7th fleet is parked off their coast right? It is there to defend Tiawan from the PRC? This is confusing.
This has been another useless post from....
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
China was also unimpressed by the British who fought the opium wars against China to keep the opium trade going... The Brits do mention the Opium wars in their schoolbooks, mainly because they won them.
Taiwan is a much more complex situation that the US press gives credit for. Not only does mainland China claim sovereignty over Taiwan, Taiwan claims sovereignty over mainland China! That is why they used to call themselves the Republic of China.
The US is upset about China for the simple reason that at current rates of growth China will be the largest world economy by about 2015.
Stoping them from getting playstations is not going to keep the US in place as world superpower. In fact if the US govt had any brains they would give the Chineese as many playstations as they want. The more time they spend playing games the less time they will have to outbuild the US economy.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Yeah like you can fit the entire history of China in one Slashdot post.
You are also somewhat selective. The US 'Open Door' policy began in the nineteenth century under Teddy Roosevelt. The name is misleading, the policy essentially meant that the US would demand the 'right' to trade on its own terms and back the demand with guns.
Your dates for the Japaneese occupation are misleading. Japan had reduced large areas of china to subordinate status long before. US sources prefer to present the overthrow of the puppet regime as a major event since it co-incides with the rise of the rivalry between the US and Japan.
Looking at the US/China relationship from the China side is very different from that popular amongst right wing kooks in the US.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The funny part of this is that there are several military areas in which Russia - and friends (China, in particular) have always done better than the West. In particular, missile defence, SAM systems and similar. Admittedly, part of their success may be attributed to a willingness to detonate an explosive near the target - rather than just trying to hit it, but their systems are very advanced. The really funny part is that old Macs (68k and some early PowerPC), old PCs (386s, 486s) are readily available in so-called "rogue states" - in fact, the United States has led the way in giving old PCs to Russia! 3/486s may be a little slow, but they are still significantly more advanced than the chips that guided the original MX missile. They are also a well-established, well-understood technology - and therefore attractive to militaries. (What do you think they are using in Internet Cafes in Iran?)
Personally, I always thought that the "Iraq wants PS2s" argument was a subtle ad-campaign for Sony. While the Emotion Engine is powerful, it is focussed pretty heavily on 3D rendering. While I can think of some uses for it, I'd much rather develop systems on readily available PC parts!
Lead developer, http://wisptools.net
China gets military secrets from the clinton administration. These have progressed their arm capabilities leaps and bounds over what would have naturally occured.
However we are worried that they will understand how DVDs work?
Do you ever want to shake your head in cocky superiority?
--Joey
It wouldn't suprise me. If they can make up a movie reviewer why not a news story to.
karma capped
Nor was I trying to, just merely pointing out certain things which may be of interest to others.
Not sure what you mean when referring to the U.S. 'Open Door' Policy. Just about every Western colonial power wanted to carve a piece of China for itself.
You are absolutely right--The Qing ceded Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan in 1895. Japan occupied all of Manchuria in 1931. I was referring to the actual date of all-out hostility, when Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT government finally got their act together and resisted the Japanese militarily.
Which puppet regime? I don't know which sources you're referencing, but this is the first time I've heard anything about this "coincidence." Can you point me to those sources?
And as for this left wing/right wing view, I'm not even going to go there. Peace out.You're oversimplifying many of your facts.
Taiwan, (which still is officially) the Republic of China, renounced sovereignty over Mainland China in the late 80s (can't recall the actual date of the law). It also renounced its provincial status in the late 90s by doing away with the provincial government structure (which always had implied that it was part of China, just like Rhode Island has the same political status as California, but both belong to the United States).
I can't say whether or not the Opium Wars are written on Mainland Chinese textbooks, but the historical experience is written on Chinese history books in Taiwan, and many historians consider it as what brought about China's relative decline to the West. This war and many other wars fought with western nations at the time, lead to the growth of Chinese nationalism as well as anti-West sentiments.
China and Japan have traditionally been rivals with one another. Much of the Chinese resentment began after the Sino-Japanese War in which China under the Qing Dynasty lost decisively and had to cede territory (for instance, Taiwan). However, Japan was also host to thousands of Chinese overseas students during the early part of the 1900s, because intellectuals and revolutionaries who overthrew the Qing Dynasty believed that China could learn from the Japanese on how to modernize.
Chinese resentment against Japan turned into national hatred as the result of the atrocities caused during the Japanese occupation from 1937 to 1945. Japanese troops massacred hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, used Chinese POWs and entire villages for chemical and biological weapons research, enslaved women for use as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers. To this day, the Japanese government never formally apologized for the actions, which furthers much of the Chinese resentment.
I can't recall the U.S. helping Japan with the occupation of China, but U.S. did help the KMT government re-establish control of major Chinese cities after Japan's defeat and withdrawal by airlifting nearly a million Chinese troops from southwestern China. This was done to prevent the Chinese Communists from taking control.
--
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
... you could hear the screams and wails coming from Washington and Tokyo all the way in Berlin, Johannesburg and, of course, in Bejing.
Give X $3 million dollars and X will get you anything and all DVD.. Some of that money will go into bribes, some of it will go into you-dont-really-want-to-know, most of it will be the humble fee X collects but if it's out there X will definitely get it for you. I'm certain X will find someone who has access to the material and will cave in for a figure around $500,000.
The bottom line is, if China really wanted DVD "technology", or anything else for that matter all they have to do is write a check. If they really wanted to have a DVD factory on their turf then they'd just have pay a couple of Japs to set one up for them.
In modern battle field all tanks are sophisticated, expensive widow-makers.
Latest Athlon sold in Hong Kong were overclock at 1.8G.
You need the keys to VIEW the DVD.
My guess is that Sony made this up to get free publicity: Oh yah, so advanced the USA wants to ban it.
Anarchists never rule
asustek already sells dvds - which i can only assume are made in China. who gives a damn? me thinks something else is amiss.
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
I agree completely. The Caddyshack double DVD set is an affront to all civilized people, and should be stopped at all costs.
Reboot macht Frei.
I'd like to see them try this when China joins the WTO. ;-)
Imagine what les chinois could do avec this technology, they would probablement have access to a language they understand (such as Anglais) and steal top secret information!
e.g. Forrest Gump: an in-depth article about the american dream and how american citizens succesfully pursue this + 10 useful hints on how to behave if you ever get invited to meet the president + some historical milestones in american history and the people who made it happen + some pointers on getting chicks.
Naked Gun 2 1/2: 10 useful hints on how to become an outstanding member of american society (a "good" cop) + 10 more useful hints on how to behave if you ever get invited to meet the president + more uses for their nuclear devices.
I'd say you yankies are doomed if you don't act quickly and get you DVD technology back.
That said, this may have bigger implications if the ban is against higher-end computers (P4's, Athlons, G3's) but I've never heard of such a thing. Does anyone know if there are export restrictions/tarrifs against China/Taiwan for strong computers (I guess similar to the restrictions in place for encryption?)
If they are so concerned simply because of the emotion engine, why then are they not worried about PC technology? Comon, Sony's CPU is slower by the day in comparison to PC chips. I don't believe that the Chinese don't run PC chips for one minute. Add on an extra CPU to get SMP and now you have one freagin fast machine with capabilities far beyond the touted Sony hot cpu core.
I simply don't understand the stupidity of some people. And as if people don't share information these days - there's always a black trade somewhere, and I reckon most likely in corrupted governmental bodies
Yah, the chinese government could do a distributed network once people are connected over the net via the PS2 :-) Imagine what would happen...
I'm very talented at le butcherie d'francais.
Japanese and US governments have asked Circuit City, Best Buy, and Sony not to sell any PS2 units or DVD players to Chinese citizens, as this would give the dangerous technology of DVD to China. QUEL HORRUER! The Chinese will now be able to watch the Caddyshack double DVD set! This must be stopped at all expense!
Oh No!!!!!!!!!! the Red Chinese might get their hands on DVD technology?!? We Can't Have That! How can we permit communists to have degraded video playback capabilities? This will destroy our American Way Of Life, the fundimental belief that the latest technology can only exist in America! By Law! ...oh, wait, i'm not in america either. wow. i guess i have to downgrade to WinXP.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Last time I checked, the ~25 year old Tomahawk cruise missile ran on a 512khz microproccessor that would operate its terrain-following radar setup and also fly the missile at treetop level for hundreds of miles to its target.
Not to mention that my dinky little wristwatch has more computing power than the entire Apollo Command Module, but that's a different story altogether.
So why should we care about these stupid little PS2 boxes getting into Chinese, Indian, Pakistani or Iraqi hands, when they could easliy totally wipe us out by loading a briefcase nuke into a child's backpack, and have him just hop off of a boat, wander into the center of one of our big coastal cities and then have it remote detonated via internation cell phone call or something?
We don't need to worry about the Chinese reverse engineering a stupid little playstation to build a delivery device, they already have a billion of 'em.
Not meant to be a troll or anything, but it seems to me that this high-tech hysteria is pretty meaningless when they (especially the Arab nations) have millions upon millions of fanatics that would gladly become a martyr in the never-ending battle against Truth, Justice and Freedom (aka The Great Satan)
Or have I missed the point entirely, and should be shaking my fist at the MPAA and their Fascistic ways. You're wily ones, you MPAA bastards, wily indeed!
Why is it when I hit ^R that ZSH calls me a cocksucker?
"many of the right-wing psychopaths there would like to rant and rail about this type of deal. "
It is better to be double cautious than sorry after the fact. I would rather have bunch of "right-whatever" be "psychopathic" about it than get my ass enslaved because another bunch of "left-whatever" was not willing do to shit about our security.
"Admittedly, part of their success may be attributed to a willingness to detonate an explosive near the target - rather than just trying to hit it, but their systems are very advanced. "
Big fucking deal. That is how 90% of aa weapons work.
...and you can't blame meteors for everything.
OK.. It doesn't exactly explain why they don't want china to have DVDs.. If osmeone could clear this up, i would be most apreciative.
Do you really not see the obvious, or are you just sticking your head in the sand ?
As effiency goes, you can compare the military to largish corporations. When you look at their websites, you will always find that they get their competitiveness not just from advanced technology, but from the superior motivation and *training* of their workforce.
Now, until now, the chinese military had to use pretty dated kit, such as lowly Z80-powered gameboys, to train their soldiers. This effectively restricted them to 2D-warfare. They could amass millions of soldiers in lines, circles and rectangles, and threaten to send them over to taiwan in surface crafts, or chase CIA-agents through labyrinths.
But they had no way to cope with US Submarines, planes or satellites.
As soon as they get access to advanced 3D-consoles for training, be prepared that the dam holding back the red flood will be undermined or overflown in no time.
Didn't you notice that as soon as the PS2 was available in even limited quantity outside countries with strict export laws, such as the US and Japan, a military spy-plane was downed ?
They're doing this to protect the children. If the Chinese get DVD technology, Chinese high school children will watch the Matrix. This will inevitably warp their mind and make them get trenchcoats and guns, and shoot up their schools.
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
And Asus? Huh? They're not worried about the dangers of K7 motherboards, but an MPEG-2 decoder chip is dangerous? But an Athlon can merrily perform all the same functions, if not a bit more!
I think these "sources" sound like a couple teenage kids with a little too much [favorite drug here] on their brains.
Wouldn't it be more dangerous if China got ahold of just one or two well-trained EE's from around here?
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Actually, China wishes to be the big dog in all of Asia, which is why they resent the US presence there so much. My understanding is that they see themselves as the rightful leader of the whole Asian region. Taiwan is just the place China cares the most about right now, since its the closest to home.
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For those of you not up on your Chinese/Taiwanese history, this comes from the fact that Taiwan is where the remaining Chinese government officials fled to when Mao and his army kicked their butts out of Beijing. Technically, the government in Taipei is China. However, technicalities mean squat when you're dealing with things on this kind of level. Might makes right, and the PRC is certainly the mightier of the two, so they're "China."
As far as I know, the Taipei government doesn't claim sovereignty over the PRC. They'd be hideously stupid if they actually said anything to that effect, and you can't afford to be stupid when you're in the position Taiwan is in.
It doesn't say "military purposes" anywhere, just "government." As in the same Chi gov't which won't enforce copyright over there. Seems to me people were bitching about Chi lux developers not honoring the GPL, right here on /. the other day.
More likely the paranoiacs at the MPAA/RIAA are freaking over the possibility of hwood movies getting loose over there.
This article made me chuckle. Living in Beijing for four years now, I've owned a DVD player for two. They've been on the market for as long as they've been in most other countries and became popular before the US market did. Previous to that, I owned a VCD player (be careful the miliatry apps for this device are so dangerous that the Chinese government is making sure it doesn't get produced on American soil, thus many of you American mainlanders may have never seen/heard of this secret Chinese technology)
I have no idea of the potential 'military applications' for the PS2's, but at minimum Sony has other problems to worry about than this. Once they start producing in Southern China, you can bet the black market versions of the PS2 will be spread throughout the major cities on the mainland in short order.
-- rm NOSPAMPLZ from email address to contact me
china already has access to dvd technology... those bastards have been doing illegal machine modifications to allow everything from each zone to be "viewable". (bastards in a good way, because i truely support them). there are also discramblers out there so that you can use for DVD->VHS recordings. .. so wot's the deal?
it's probably the emotional engine that they dont want to share? but that's a propriety thing, not an industrial issue.
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