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Dell and Baidu Introduce a Smartphone With Forked Version of Android
cortex writes "XDA developers is reporting on the release of a new smart phone which runs a forked version of Google's Android operating system: 'Dell and Baidu, the Chinese search giant with over 80% marketshare in its home-country, unveiled the Streak Pro on Tuesday (via Computerworld). The device has a 4.3 AMOLED screen with 960×540 resolution and packs a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. Most notably, however, is the operating system it runs: a forked Android version dubbed Baidu Yi, which replaces Google's services with those of Baidu.' How will this impact Google's support for Android and open source in general?'
There's already some Android phone out that uses Bing as the search engine. And then of course there is Amazon who essentially is forking Android.
Google had to know this would happen, they simply don't care. If they keep advancing Android it keeps Android devices more desirable than others in theory. Plus at this point what would the strategy really be? Close Android off and watch vendors run to Microsoft?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Google didn't "ignore" the chinese market, they pulled out for ethical reasons (present chinese government wanted them to censor).
This is great for the Android hardware ecosystem. Android hardware can then become the commodity computer of the future. The PC model of real hardware and software choices needs to move into the phone/tablet market as well. Otherwise we will simply be just the iJailed users of these devices.
I agree with you that "China == bad" is not always true. But how do you explain the 80% market share of Baidu? In China, you can't do big business without kowtow to the government. That's a reason for that bullshit to exists. And that's a way to get rid of those bullshit: lift your hands off the people and let them have the freedom. By the way, I am Chinese.
http://www.ieaa.org/~adrian/
I can't tell if you're trolling or really that poorly informed. For all my complaints about how we do things, your suggestion that the situation in the US is worse than China is patently absurd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China
Google had a significant portion of the Chinese market before pulling out - over 35%. And even with the current situation where they have much less marketshare, they're profitable. So basically you're full of shit.
Google had been against censorship all along, but decided to try and change China from the inside. Eventually, they discovered that it wasn't possible, so they stuck up for their principles and took their ball and went home. It's rare that you see a company put principle ahead of profit, and they should be commended for it.
Also, let me know about the secret prisons china has outside its borders in order to torture people and circumvent its own laws.
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You assume they need to be outside the country?
"How will this impact Google's support for Android and open source in general?"
Not at all, or possibly for the better?
If they didn't want people to fork Android (and, as noted above, it's debatable if this is really a fork or just replacing bundled apps / settings), they shouldn't have open sourced it.
If they get pissy and decide to close it off due to forks/mods like this, then we're still left with the previous versions of Android - and we're better off without a developer that wants to take their bat and ball and go home at the first little upset.
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Baidu is absolutely laden with spam. The English searches are a little better, those come from Bing rather than Baidu's own engine, no great but passable.
But when I was in Shanghai I used Baidu almost exclusively, because they keep blocking Google. Sometimes Google works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it works but is so ridiculously slow that it's unusable. I know this is not Google making, but the Chinese tricks. However I still need to find things.
It's not a political thing I think, a lot of it is just corruption. It's not that the guy running the routers is such a communist puritan that he favors Baidu comrades, it's that he's such a corrupt person, ten bucks in his pocket and he'll route you through a Pentium 4 firewall! Baidu just know who to pay off.
But how do you explain the 80% market share of Baidu?
Because its major competitor is suffering from blatant malicious QoS deterioration?
Oh, and I'm a native.
If you try to start riots, then yes you're going to get problems.
If you try and peacefully petition the Government for redress, you're going to get in trouble too. The whole reason there are so many riots in the first place is that China is horribly corrupt, it has a massive income disparity between rural and urban areas, because of the corruption rural dwellers can have their land taken from them at any time with essentially no compensation, and if you try to peacefully complain about any of this you're going to jail.
Please, point me to the last time china killed over 100.000 foreign civilians outside its borders.
Interesting that you apply different morality to who they kill depending on whether or not they are in or outside their borders.
Does Korea count? How about Tibet? Ask the people in Taiwan about their gentle neighbor.
I can understand how people are anxious about the behavior of the US - but just because the US is evil nowadays doesn't mean that China is automatically good.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.