Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

China's Tencent Launches Smart Hardware OS To Rival Alibaba

Posted by timothy on from the diversity-in-approach dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Chinese internet and media giant Tencent Holdings has today launched an operating system for mobile devices such as internet-connected phones, TVs, smartwatches and other IoT products. Tencent Operating System (OS) TOS+ is open to all developers and manufacturers free of charge should they agree to share their revenue – a framework similar to Google's popular Android mobile OS. The new Tencent OS offering, which provides voice recognition and mobile payment systems, will rival other home-grown operating systems looking to conquer the smart hardware arena with connected wearables, TVs and smart homeware technology. These competitors include smartphone maker Xiaomi and Asia's largest internet company Alibaba, who hopes to see its recently launched Yun OS eventually installed on tens of millions of smartphones. The Chinese systems for mobile and hardware products provide an alternative to Google's services, which constantly face challenges across the country due to strict censorship and licensing laws.

5 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. i think i'll wait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    for fiddycent OS.

  2. Re:Coming to North America? by bmo · · Score: 2

    Probably very good.

    We don't make anything here anymore. And we have forgotten how.

    --
    BMO

  3. No Thank You by Warhaven · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I mean, if I can avoid it, as "share revenue" really means, "sharing with China your company's trade secrets, code, prototype designs, and inside information via the backdoor passwords, sniffers, loggers, and whatever else is bundled with their new OS".

  4. "Provides and alternative", indeed by kheldan · · Score: 2

    Probably logs everything you do with it and sends it directly to the government for analysis, and probably has censorship hardcoded right into it.

    Someone else asked 'any chance of it being available in North America'; why would you want it? Aren't we surveilled enough here already? You want the Chinese government knowing everything you do with your mobile device? Are you nuts?

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  5. Re:Free? by gstoddart · · Score: 2

    How is it "free of charge" if you have to share revenue?

    No up front costs ... and if you don't develop for that platform and make money from it, you're giving up precisely NOTHING. If you do, you're giving up a cut.

    This summary reads like a press release.

    Of course it's a press release. The byline is "Alice MacGregor, CloserStill Media" -- my guess is CloserStill Media has skin in the game, or has been hired to promote this.

    You aren't honestly expecting investigative journalism, are you?

    These days, the majority of internet news articles are thinly disguised press releases, or syndicated stories which appear verbatim in a bunch of other sites.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.