Slashdot Mirror
China Aims To Move Up the Food Chain
krou notes reporting in the Christian Science Monitor that the current economic crisis is helping China's push into higher-end manufacturing by shaking out low-profit companies. The hope is that, instead of just assembling iPods, Chinese companies will be able to invent the next big thing instead. In this move China is following the well-worn path taken by Japan and the Asian tigers before it. "Last month, the National Development and Reform Commission announced revised plans to transform Guangdong and neighboring Hong Kong and Macau into a 'significant innovation center' by 2020. One hundred R&D labs will be set up over the next three years. By 2012, per-capita output in the region should jump 50 percent from 2007, to 80,000 yuan ($11,700). And by 2020, the study predicts, 30 percent of all industrial output should come from high-tech manufacturing."
I'm quite happy with my unbranded Chinesium MP4 player that I bought from Chinavasion.. All I wanted was something that would let me watch TV shows or movies at the gym. I looked at the iPod Touch and Nokia N800 products but they were all over kill (and over priced). This fits the bill perfectly. The software is XP only and just a gui wrapper to mencoder, but the ini let me write a nice shell script to do it on Linux/OS X.
There are quite a few products on that website that seem pretty cool. I'm thinking of getting the toothbrush cam to see if it will make a cheap bore scope for engines, etc. This hard drive enclosure seems pretty cool (Although I'm sticking with my XBMC).
The BEST part about all of these products is that they can't afford a proprietary connector nor can they afford to lose market share to not being able to connect to everything. Everything is Mini-USB or USB.
The biggest problem they have right now is UI and translations. The "MP5 Player Manuals" is quite entertaining to read and full of Engrish.
They have been working at this for decades. My brother travels often to China where he oversees production designed here. He admires their industry (human and machine), relative honesty (not that different from Western companies), and ambition. A company with 100,000 employees has 100,000 people all wanting to own it. The government not only supports business, they have schemes to induce overseas Chinese to return to lucrative positions. And they are not too sympathetic to freeloaders.
In short, he likes them, and considers them a major looming threat. Every design he brings in he knows will be analyzed to enable them to better it. Hey, ho, that's evolution. Competitions wonderful if you can beat it often enough to live. If not, introduce protectionism and live off your capital for a while.
They are not tigers of course. Those are a protected species. Not T. rex cos that's just a bunch of bones. I cannot think of a suitable analogy. An unassuming animal that out-competes us while we are watch video games.
Bullshit, every toy made in the 50s to, what, the 70s had lead in it. Our parents somehow survived.
"The U.S. incurs $43.4 billion annually in the costs of all pediatric environmental disease, with childhood lead poisoning alone accounting for the vast majority of it." http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/lead/pbwhere_found2.html
Lead Seldom Kills, but it often would cause anemia, behavioral problems, Diminished IQ, lethargy. Sure they survived, but how many of them would have had better lives?
Yes. HFCS is only "dangerous" if you over eat it, just like sugar - or for that matter organic raw vegetables. Aspartame, as far as anyone can tell, only hurts certain people who have a reaction to it.
Melamine in baby formula or pet food, on the other hand, will cause kidney failure in a very short period of time. Antifreeze in toothpaste or cough medicine will do the same. Lead in paint on childrens' toys will cause developmental problems.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yes. But their parents were willing to tell them "No, don't do that".
Today's parents aren't into doing that so much.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!