Who says that it has to be via text-message? Look at Japan's Felica system- they use features like auto-lock and remote-lock to prevent unauthorized spending, and the system works loads better because you have to HAVE the phone RIGHT THERE to make a transaction-In Japan, you can pay for online purchases at a local convienience store (look at 7-Dream for example-yes, it's run by 7-ELEVEN, who unfortunately doesn't do this in the US) and use any method of payment to do so, be it cash, credit card, or mobile phone.
Well... I would hesitate to call for an end to guanxi before China completely opens up- it helps with little things like full access to Wikipedia, the BBC, and multiple other sources on a fiber connection at school.
Of course, the first step is getting big customers to move to legit systems. My school, for example, pirates software- I know because the teachers are willing to give copies of programs like Adobe Creative Suite(I think that's what it's called) and Macromedia Studio, and even Office to students, keygens and all(not kidding- the teacher had to instruct me on how to use the keygen when I had no clue how to activate Photoshop). They also share places to buy PSPs with the ability to play pirated games and how to download pirated material for the PSP, as well as other game consoles-Nope, not leaving. I hold my school (in Shanghai) as an example of sharing at a community level (well... it also demonstrates that prices for official products must be too inflated to actually purchase them here-if Americans can go so long with purchasing legit products, then they must be reasonably priced, right? Not in China, where prices can be inflated up to 25% of US prices-even though they're manufactured here- and we get quality control failures-my friends always tell me to buy Samsung or iRiver in China because they don't sell their QC failures in China like Apple does- and I'm listening because of first-hand experience). Sorry for being so long-winded, it's late and I am having trouble stringing out my thoughts...
... Not if you live in China. My school regularly pirates software and (get this) actually gives students burned CDs with working serials for expensive programs like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere. One Ghost image is cloned across all school computers on one license. This even extends to recreational areas, where teachers will (on off-time, of course) give students advice on how to get pirated copies of games and modded consoles for cheap and in general, support cutting costs where possible (like with pirated software). Now, I don't say this as a representation of all schools (law enforcement would be all over any school in the US that tried to do this, I know) but this probably represents China.
perhaps it was the fact that it was ext2 partitioned (I personally have never seen a non-linux platform be able to access a disk that is ext2 formatted).
To refute your point about Chinese, all my phones purchased in China, including CDMA handsets, so far have had T9 for the Chinese language based on pinyin. The pinyin is typed in, the T9 then gives a list of characters that might fit in the given sequence of keys.
That's why I use a pre-paid account. No one but me goes over my bill (only on-line, no paper) and I still have no problems. I use my computer privately because I would rather not have someone looking over my shoulder when I work (it's a deer-in-the-headlights effect for me, and I have tried many times to get over it with no success). My parents trust me to not do things that I'll regret later, and I don't. If you trust your children, they'll respect that most of the time. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. Or would you rather have your kids poking around in your stuff? If you want to raise them in an environment of surveillance, then who am I to judge since I'm only 15 and would be biased against such an environment but I do support those who raise their children in an environment of trust and privacy.
That and Japanese labels actually *DON'T* use DRM anymore, saying that people have learned to respect copyright more. So indeed, Japan seems to lead in everything- including common sense. If Sony Music Japan had any control over Sony BMG, the rootkit fiasco would have never happened (but we would have had Sony CDs restricted to ATRAC ripping, and we know how much everyone loves SonicStage.
Far into the suburbs? Subway? I've lived in Nashville (no, don't start on all those hick jokes) and Shanghai. One only has a bus system, and one has a subway. Nashville is less than fun to get around without a car, only having a bus system for public transportation. Especially when schools place themselves far into the suburbs (heck, almost the wilderness) without bus stops. Shanghai has a basic subway system (gets me where I want to go to) but it hardly reaches into the suburbs. It only currently has 2 lines that reach into the Eastern part of Shanghai, and they barely touch it (sure, the part close to the river diving west and east Shanghai is covered by lines 2 and 4, but reach farther and there's only line 2. In western Shanghai, 4 lines cover it well (lines 1,2,3,4) so that I never have to worry about high taxi fares again. In southern Shanghai (the only suburb covered by subway) line 5 covers it fairly well. Buses are too confusing, with over 100 lines and numerous destinations, it's hard to know where to change buses. (I'll end here because I'm getting sleepy, and it's affecting my coherency....zzzzzzzz)
Maybe not. When I first got an iMac, it was a radically different experience to a PC, yet I started using the PC less and less (I had a Sony laptop at the time) and am now a complete switcher. I did this by comparing what I had on the PC and finding Mac alternatives. They usually turned out better (the only exception is emulation, where a 3 hour battery life (on an iBook I later purchased) can be cut down to less than an hour while the same was not true of the PC. I really hated that at the time, but I lived wit hit and I'm now a very satisfied Mac user. I'm even more satisfied by the new Hi-MD player with Mac compatibility- being able to use Hi-MD Music Transfer (heck, anything else) instead of SonicStage on a Mac would be pure joy for many people who love their MD players but hate SonicStage.
I just happen to fall into the imported MD with Mac route because I go to Japan a lot and I happen to have a Powerbook. I don't prefer HD because of my friends' bad luck with HD-based players across Shanghai, and I don't prefer flash because that's not enough capacity for me (the primary capacity sizes sold in China are 128MB-1GB MP3 players that are either cheap and fall apart quickly or expensive if reliable ($100 for a D-snap MP3 player with 256MB). I don't have an iPod because iPods are priced 25% above normal here, and even then, China seems to get everything that was returned from the US (personal experience- bought a Shuffle supposedly new from an official Apple reseller and it came scratched up and with someone else's library already loaded- and they said they had quite a few other cases of this too.) I don't buy flash or HDD players in Japan because MD is still big in Japan. That's why I buy MD- decent players with great feature sets and the ability to move discs between players- so discs can be swapped and still work- can't say the same of an iPod. Also, I LIKE SonicStage because it is more intuitive for me- it's not for everyone, but it works for me.
SonicStage isn't that bad, at least not if you're using the Japanese version. For me, it's as simple as using iTunes (whether this is a difference between Japanese and English versions of SonicStage or personal preference is unknown to me because I import all of my MD players) and maybe you should try importing a Japanese MD player from Japan- Sonicstage may be much better in Japan. Also, the newest Hi-MD player, the MZ-RH1, doesn't use SonicStage if you are on a Mac- another reason to switch to Mac or install Mac OSx86 on your computer if you really hate SonicStage THAT bad. But, you still have to use SonicStage if you're on PC so switch if you like MD but want to avoid SonicStage. I'm buying one because I've always liked MD and I will continue to use it even though I have switched to Mac. (Yes, this post may seem like flamebait, but... I feel really strongly, and I couldn't possibly edit out the Mac fanboyism because I can't see it- seems like normal talking to me.)
Actually, if you want to, you should look for a shop like Tokyo Bikan that will unlock and flash your phone for you if you don't want to go through the hassle of using the SD-Audio tool to load music onto your phone. Also, flashing it to Smartone (Hong Kong) firmware will allow predictive English input, but it doesn't show any kanji that doesn't exist in simplified or traditional Chinese character sets.
Do you know of any places to get a reliable one then? I'm seriously asking because I really miss my Gamecube and want to play games on it again- while playing on my cellphone is fun, I can't get games like Mario Kart on it (and my parents -yes, I'm about 15- looked at the phone's feature set and immediately slashed my hopes of getting a Nintendo DS when they saw that it could play 3D games, just like when they saw that it could play MP3s and said to me "No, you can't have that D-snap MP3 player because this phone already plays MP3s) and I had plenty of fun on it. (I'm dragging this thread way off-topic by now, I bet). Also, soy sauce from burnt hair? I'd at least like to think that quality control in China doesn't suck THAT bad.
Already, in China there are places where people have to wait in line for ATMs, because they are the only representative for a bank for miles (in Suzhou, China there is one ATM within a 10km radius that works- I know because I had to run around one day looking for one when I didn't have money to buy lunch). It wouldn't be that bad to allow things like music downloads and bill paying through ATM (There are already machines specifically for paying bills in Shanghai, and machines that do this and much more in Japan so paying bills by ATM isn't too far of a stretch- convergence and all that) as well as perhaps a music download service (If buying MP3s was as easy as buying milk, I would be doing that instead of using Yahoo for MP3s) (look in my sig if you don't believe me about using Yahoo to search for MP3s).
I have flashed it to the Smartone firmware, which supports non-secure MP3s (but at the cost of a load of other functions, like e-books), and I use the function daily with a 1GB SD card (I'm in China, afraid to buy an iPod because of the stories of quality control failures sold here, and another cheaper MP3 player finally died). I'm planning to flash back to Japanese because I need to type text messages in Japanese, so thanks for that little heads-up about the secure MP3s. I have the Handset Manager, but it doesn't let me add secure MP3s, only unsecure ones (maybe because of the Smartone firmware). The way you talk about it, it seems that the Smartone firmware is much improved over the Vodafone firmware, since it focuses pretty well in zoom. I can't say how well the videophone works because I'm in Shanghai, which plans to have 3G going "sometime before the Olympics", as in not now. Otherwise, I'm happy, and I will continue buying Japanese phones because they pack more features and are easier to use (I had a Nokia and as much as I liked the Series 60 interface, it's not as easy to use as the V902SH for me, and it lacked a couple of features (like QR code scanning and SD card).
I did. It started to spew smoke, and it died a week after I bought it- took down the power for my floor of the hotel I was staying at (apartment under renovation) with it. After that, the official policy was to disallow step-down transformers.
You *poor* thing! You have obviously never used an *imported* Korean or Japanese phone. My V902SH (otherwise known as the Sharp 902) has a wonderful interface for playing MP3s, and though it doesn't have an equalizer, I have no need for one. It has a great interface for a camera, too, which makes taking pictures a breeze. It makes a decent replacement for a console with its TV-out function and it has intuitive controls for games (although this part could just be me getting used to this thing because I'm stuck in 220V China with a 110V Gamecube, a broken PSP and Xbox360 at $1000 here...). A Korean friend of mine has a Samsung with a 3.2MP camera WITH 3x OPTICAL ZOOM. The pictures turn out so clearly on paper, and it has a REAL flash, something my V902SH sorely lacks (and it only has 2MP with 2x optical zoom). So really, before you say that a cameraphone is "jack of all trades but master at none" try using an imported phone and see what the Japanese and Koreans are keeping from you! You might not go back to a separate MP3 player, camera, video recorder, game console, and cell phone.
Strange... According to you and many other people, Japan would be a foreign dumpster-diver's paradise. Maybe that's why there are new (by Chinese standards, and in terms of the tech used, not in terms of usage time) PHS, CDMA, and PDC phones on eBay here in China. I can get a phone that can play MP3s with video recording and playback using a SD card for $25 on eBay here (page will be full of question marks because eBay US mis-processes pages from its Chinese counterpart, but the price at the top should make a point) Perhaps Japanese dumpster-divers take these phones and sell them in China? They could not possibly be so cheap otherwise.
I'm sorry, what did you say? I have purchased Sony stuff for most of my life, and I seem to have a positive experience overall with them. 2 MiniDisc players still work perfectly from 5 years ago, my sister's Vaio TR5EB survived a soup spill into the keyboard with no problems, and a CD player has withstood being dropped multiple times while playing- and it still works! Their CDs are great, too- their Copy Control CD DRM actually works well for me (I don't use MP3 when I don't have to- yes, I genuinely enjoy ATRAC3) and they even stopped using it in 2004, saying that people now respect copyright enough to keep them from worrying about it. Of course- I make frequent trips to Japan and import this stuff. When I can't(rarely, thank goodness), then Sony seems to be the crap that people say it is. A V505 I bought made in the US died from condensation on the outside of the case. A Cybershot T1 stopped working after a couple of screws came loose. Another Cybershot bought in the US cannot properly focus- and there is no obvious cause! I was also shocked to discover that Sony doesn't use Copy Control CD on their CDs in America- that rootkit was the reason I bought my first Apple laptop- a 15-inch Powerbook. Amazingly enough, my Copy Control CDs work fine in a Mac, and with the new Hi-MD that is Mac-compatible, I will stay a happy customer of Sony Japan. Stop complaining about Sony America and import from Sony Japan instead- you'll be much happier.
(Disclaimer-I am not a fanboy, in fact I have used products from most other Japanese/Korean companies because I go to those places often, and I FIRMLY believe that their domestic equipment is far better than their Western counterparts-Copy Control CD DRM, without a rootkit or security compromise of any sort, compared to XCP is a notable example. Also, this post is being made late at night without the assistance of caffeine, so excuse my lack of coherency)
So would that mean that I am slowly killing my Gamecube by using it in Japan (with their 100V supply) on a US power adaptor? Or that I am slowly killing my DVD player (not portable) that I imported from Japan by using it in the US (with their 120V supply)? I hope that's not the case, that I won't have to re-buy all those electronics after a while because they weren't as well-suited to the electricity as I thought...
I have been reading eBooks since I got my first Clie, and with my new V902SH (had a Moto StarTAC 2004 befor this capable of reading eBooks) I can read eBooks on a decently large and hi-res screen. I like this a lot because I have an extremely long bus ride to school (from one end of Shanghai to another, like going from Los Angeles to San Franscisco or from London to Manchester in terms of time depending on conditions- waking up at 6AM after doing AP Chemistry homework until midnight is not fun) and it is handy to read books on my mobile phone while I am sitting on the bus otherwise bored. I also read while on the subway or local city bus. I read books instead of watching movies because I don't really like mainstream cinema, and I listen to music on my phone too sometimes. Befor the Clie what held me back was the lack of support for eBook technology (I am an early adopter by nature, but because of financial restrictions my dreams are often unfulfilled... *insert extremely loud sobbing here*)(just kidding about the sobbing part, I'm not that obsessive)
I'm sorry? I think that Gmail and Gtalk are not failures at all- my whole school uses both services, teachers and all, to communicate with each other. I find it hard to believe that there are less than 1 million users of Gmail when it has spread to so many countries. Maybe you are only counting the US, but if it's true, I find it sad that my school is even 0.01% of total Gmail usage. Also, on the note of other webmail services taking up the good features of Gmail, Yahoo China has a 1GB inbox, but I certainly am not going to take that... and no other services have as efficient of a system- integration of chat and e-mail.
This post made from China late at night- I apologize for any spelling errors and lack of coherency in advance.
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Who says that it has to be via text-message? Look at Japan's Felica system- they use features like auto-lock and remote-lock to prevent unauthorized spending, and the system works loads better because you have to HAVE the phone RIGHT THERE to make a transaction-In Japan, you can pay for online purchases at a local convienience store (look at 7-Dream for example-yes, it's run by 7-ELEVEN, who unfortunately doesn't do this in the US) and use any method of payment to do so, be it cash, credit card, or mobile phone.
Well... I would hesitate to call for an end to guanxi before China completely opens up- it helps with little things like full access to Wikipedia, the BBC, and multiple other sources on a fiber connection at school.
Of course, the first step is getting big customers to move to legit systems. My school, for example, pirates software- I know because the teachers are willing to give copies of programs like Adobe Creative Suite(I think that's what it's called) and Macromedia Studio, and even Office to students, keygens and all(not kidding- the teacher had to instruct me on how to use the keygen when I had no clue how to activate Photoshop). They also share places to buy PSPs with the ability to play pirated games and how to download pirated material for the PSP, as well as other game consoles-Nope, not leaving. I hold my school (in Shanghai) as an example of sharing at a community level (well... it also demonstrates that prices for official products must be too inflated to actually purchase them here-if Americans can go so long with purchasing legit products, then they must be reasonably priced, right? Not in China, where prices can be inflated up to 25% of US prices-even though they're manufactured here- and we get quality control failures-my friends always tell me to buy Samsung or iRiver in China because they don't sell their QC failures in China like Apple does- and I'm listening because of first-hand experience). Sorry for being so long-winded, it's late and I am having trouble stringing out my thoughts...
I believe that there's 2 m's in the word you were thinking of as opposed to the lone m in "post humously"... Ah, the joy of misinterpreted humor.
... Not if you live in China. My school regularly pirates software and (get this) actually gives students burned CDs with working serials for expensive programs like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere. One Ghost image is cloned across all school computers on one license. This even extends to recreational areas, where teachers will (on off-time, of course) give students advice on how to get pirated copies of games and modded consoles for cheap and in general, support cutting costs where possible (like with pirated software). Now, I don't say this as a representation of all schools (law enforcement would be all over any school in the US that tried to do this, I know) but this probably represents China.
perhaps it was the fact that it was ext2 partitioned (I personally have never seen a non-linux platform be able to access a disk that is ext2 formatted).
To refute your point about Chinese, all my phones purchased in China, including CDMA handsets, so far have had T9 for the Chinese language based on pinyin. The pinyin is typed in, the T9 then gives a list of characters that might fit in the given sequence of keys.
That's why I use a pre-paid account. No one but me goes over my bill (only on-line, no paper) and I still have no problems. I use my computer privately because I would rather not have someone looking over my shoulder when I work (it's a deer-in-the-headlights effect for me, and I have tried many times to get over it with no success). My parents trust me to not do things that I'll regret later, and I don't. If you trust your children, they'll respect that most of the time. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. Or would you rather have your kids poking around in your stuff? If you want to raise them in an environment of surveillance, then who am I to judge since I'm only 15 and would be biased against such an environment but I do support those who raise their children in an environment of trust and privacy.
That and Japanese labels actually *DON'T* use DRM anymore, saying that people have learned to respect copyright more. So indeed, Japan seems to lead in everything- including common sense. If Sony Music Japan had any control over Sony BMG, the rootkit fiasco would have never happened (but we would have had Sony CDs restricted to ATRAC ripping, and we know how much everyone loves SonicStage.
Far into the suburbs? Subway? I've lived in Nashville (no, don't start on all those hick jokes) and Shanghai. One only has a bus system, and one has a subway. Nashville is less than fun to get around without a car, only having a bus system for public transportation. Especially when schools place themselves far into the suburbs (heck, almost the wilderness) without bus stops. Shanghai has a basic subway system (gets me where I want to go to) but it hardly reaches into the suburbs. It only currently has 2 lines that reach into the Eastern part of Shanghai, and they barely touch it (sure, the part close to the river diving west and east Shanghai is covered by lines 2 and 4, but reach farther and there's only line 2. In western Shanghai, 4 lines cover it well (lines 1,2,3,4) so that I never have to worry about high taxi fares again. In southern Shanghai (the only suburb covered by subway) line 5 covers it fairly well. Buses are too confusing, with over 100 lines and numerous destinations, it's hard to know where to change buses. (I'll end here because I'm getting sleepy, and it's affecting my coherency....zzzzzzzz)
Maybe not. When I first got an iMac, it was a radically different experience to a PC, yet I started using the PC less and less (I had a Sony laptop at the time) and am now a complete switcher. I did this by comparing what I had on the PC and finding Mac alternatives. They usually turned out better (the only exception is emulation, where a 3 hour battery life (on an iBook I later purchased) can be cut down to less than an hour while the same was not true of the PC. I really hated that at the time, but I lived wit hit and I'm now a very satisfied Mac user. I'm even more satisfied by the new Hi-MD player with Mac compatibility- being able to use Hi-MD Music Transfer (heck, anything else) instead of SonicStage on a Mac would be pure joy for many people who love their MD players but hate SonicStage.
I just happen to fall into the imported MD with Mac route because I go to Japan a lot and I happen to have a Powerbook. I don't prefer HD because of my friends' bad luck with HD-based players across Shanghai, and I don't prefer flash because that's not enough capacity for me (the primary capacity sizes sold in China are 128MB-1GB MP3 players that are either cheap and fall apart quickly or expensive if reliable ($100 for a D-snap MP3 player with 256MB). I don't have an iPod because iPods are priced 25% above normal here, and even then, China seems to get everything that was returned from the US (personal experience- bought a Shuffle supposedly new from an official Apple reseller and it came scratched up and with someone else's library already loaded- and they said they had quite a few other cases of this too.) I don't buy flash or HDD players in Japan because MD is still big in Japan. That's why I buy MD- decent players with great feature sets and the ability to move discs between players- so discs can be swapped and still work- can't say the same of an iPod. Also, I LIKE SonicStage because it is more intuitive for me- it's not for everyone, but it works for me.
SonicStage isn't that bad, at least not if you're using the Japanese version. For me, it's as simple as using iTunes (whether this is a difference between Japanese and English versions of SonicStage or personal preference is unknown to me because I import all of my MD players) and maybe you should try importing a Japanese MD player from Japan- Sonicstage may be much better in Japan. Also, the newest Hi-MD player, the MZ-RH1, doesn't use SonicStage if you are on a Mac- another reason to switch to Mac or install Mac OSx86 on your computer if you really hate SonicStage THAT bad. But, you still have to use SonicStage if you're on PC so switch if you like MD but want to avoid SonicStage. I'm buying one because I've always liked MD and I will continue to use it even though I have switched to Mac. (Yes, this post may seem like flamebait, but... I feel really strongly, and I couldn't possibly edit out the Mac fanboyism because I can't see it- seems like normal talking to me.)
Actually, if you want to, you should look for a shop like Tokyo Bikan that will unlock and flash your phone for you if you don't want to go through the hassle of using the SD-Audio tool to load music onto your phone. Also, flashing it to Smartone (Hong Kong) firmware will allow predictive English input, but it doesn't show any kanji that doesn't exist in simplified or traditional Chinese character sets.
Do you know of any places to get a reliable one then? I'm seriously asking because I really miss my Gamecube and want to play games on it again- while playing on my cellphone is fun, I can't get games like Mario Kart on it (and my parents -yes, I'm about 15- looked at the phone's feature set and immediately slashed my hopes of getting a Nintendo DS when they saw that it could play 3D games, just like when they saw that it could play MP3s and said to me "No, you can't have that D-snap MP3 player because this phone already plays MP3s) and I had plenty of fun on it. (I'm dragging this thread way off-topic by now, I bet). Also, soy sauce from burnt hair? I'd at least like to think that quality control in China doesn't suck THAT bad.
Already, in China there are places where people have to wait in line for ATMs, because they are the only representative for a bank for miles (in Suzhou, China there is one ATM within a 10km radius that works- I know because I had to run around one day looking for one when I didn't have money to buy lunch). It wouldn't be that bad to allow things like music downloads and bill paying through ATM (There are already machines specifically for paying bills in Shanghai, and machines that do this and much more in Japan so paying bills by ATM isn't too far of a stretch- convergence and all that) as well as perhaps a music download service (If buying MP3s was as easy as buying milk, I would be doing that instead of using Yahoo for MP3s) (look in my sig if you don't believe me about using Yahoo to search for MP3s).
I have flashed it to the Smartone firmware, which supports non-secure MP3s (but at the cost of a load of other functions, like e-books), and I use the function daily with a 1GB SD card (I'm in China, afraid to buy an iPod because of the stories of quality control failures sold here, and another cheaper MP3 player finally died). I'm planning to flash back to Japanese because I need to type text messages in Japanese, so thanks for that little heads-up about the secure MP3s. I have the Handset Manager, but it doesn't let me add secure MP3s, only unsecure ones (maybe because of the Smartone firmware). The way you talk about it, it seems that the Smartone firmware is much improved over the Vodafone firmware, since it focuses pretty well in zoom. I can't say how well the videophone works because I'm in Shanghai, which plans to have 3G going "sometime before the Olympics", as in not now. Otherwise, I'm happy, and I will continue buying Japanese phones because they pack more features and are easier to use (I had a Nokia and as much as I liked the Series 60 interface, it's not as easy to use as the V902SH for me, and it lacked a couple of features (like QR code scanning and SD card).
I did. It started to spew smoke, and it died a week after I bought it- took down the power for my floor of the hotel I was staying at (apartment under renovation) with it. After that, the official policy was to disallow step-down transformers.
You *poor* thing! You have obviously never used an *imported* Korean or Japanese phone. My V902SH (otherwise known as the Sharp 902) has a wonderful interface for playing MP3s, and though it doesn't have an equalizer, I have no need for one. It has a great interface for a camera, too, which makes taking pictures a breeze. It makes a decent replacement for a console with its TV-out function and it has intuitive controls for games (although this part could just be me getting used to this thing because I'm stuck in 220V China with a 110V Gamecube, a broken PSP and Xbox360 at $1000 here...). A Korean friend of mine has a Samsung with a 3.2MP camera WITH 3x OPTICAL ZOOM. The pictures turn out so clearly on paper, and it has a REAL flash, something my V902SH sorely lacks (and it only has 2MP with 2x optical zoom). So really, before you say that a cameraphone is "jack of all trades but master at none" try using an imported phone and see what the Japanese and Koreans are keeping from you! You might not go back to a separate MP3 player, camera, video recorder, game console, and cell phone.
Strange... According to you and many other people, Japan would be a foreign dumpster-diver's paradise. Maybe that's why there are new (by Chinese standards, and in terms of the tech used, not in terms of usage time) PHS, CDMA, and PDC phones on eBay here in China. I can get a phone that can play MP3s with video recording and playback using a SD card for $25 on eBay here (page will be full of question marks because eBay US mis-processes pages from its Chinese counterpart, but the price at the top should make a point) Perhaps Japanese dumpster-divers take these phones and sell them in China? They could not possibly be so cheap otherwise.
I'm sorry, what did you say? I have purchased Sony stuff for most of my life, and I seem to have a positive experience overall with them. 2 MiniDisc players still work perfectly from 5 years ago, my sister's Vaio TR5EB survived a soup spill into the keyboard with no problems, and a CD player has withstood being dropped multiple times while playing- and it still works! Their CDs are great, too- their Copy Control CD DRM actually works well for me (I don't use MP3 when I don't have to- yes, I genuinely enjoy ATRAC3) and they even stopped using it in 2004, saying that people now respect copyright enough to keep them from worrying about it. Of course- I make frequent trips to Japan and import this stuff. When I can't(rarely, thank goodness), then Sony seems to be the crap that people say it is. A V505 I bought made in the US died from condensation on the outside of the case. A Cybershot T1 stopped working after a couple of screws came loose. Another Cybershot bought in the US cannot properly focus- and there is no obvious cause! I was also shocked to discover that Sony doesn't use Copy Control CD on their CDs in America- that rootkit was the reason I bought my first Apple laptop- a 15-inch Powerbook. Amazingly enough, my Copy Control CDs work fine in a Mac, and with the new Hi-MD that is Mac-compatible, I will stay a happy customer of Sony Japan. Stop complaining about Sony America and import from Sony Japan instead- you'll be much happier.
(Disclaimer-I am not a fanboy, in fact I have used products from most other Japanese/Korean companies because I go to those places often, and I FIRMLY believe that their domestic equipment is far better than their Western counterparts-Copy Control CD DRM, without a rootkit or security compromise of any sort, compared to XCP is a notable example. Also, this post is being made late at night without the assistance of caffeine, so excuse my lack of coherency)
So would that mean that I am slowly killing my Gamecube by using it in Japan (with their 100V supply) on a US power adaptor? Or that I am slowly killing my DVD player (not portable) that I imported from Japan by using it in the US (with their 120V supply)? I hope that's not the case, that I won't have to re-buy all those electronics after a while because they weren't as well-suited to the electricity as I thought...
No, that was panasonic. But, they did make a version of the Sega Genesis for a while (Korea only, if I remember correctly...)
I have been reading eBooks since I got my first Clie, and with my new V902SH (had a Moto StarTAC 2004 befor this capable of reading eBooks) I can read eBooks on a decently large and hi-res screen. I like this a lot because I have an extremely long bus ride to school (from one end of Shanghai to another, like going from Los Angeles to San Franscisco or from London to Manchester in terms of time depending on conditions- waking up at 6AM after doing AP Chemistry homework until midnight is not fun) and it is handy to read books on my mobile phone while I am sitting on the bus otherwise bored. I also read while on the subway or local city bus. I read books instead of watching movies because I don't really like mainstream cinema, and I listen to music on my phone too sometimes. Befor the Clie what held me back was the lack of support for eBook technology (I am an early adopter by nature, but because of financial restrictions my dreams are often unfulfilled... *insert extremely loud sobbing here*)(just kidding about the sobbing part, I'm not that obsessive)
I'm sorry? I think that Gmail and Gtalk are not failures at all- my whole school uses both services, teachers and all, to communicate with each other. I find it hard to believe that there are less than 1 million users of Gmail when it has spread to so many countries. Maybe you are only counting the US, but if it's true, I find it sad that my school is even 0.01% of total Gmail usage. Also, on the note of other webmail services taking up the good features of Gmail, Yahoo China has a 1GB inbox, but I certainly am not going to take that... and no other services have as efficient of a system- integration of chat and e-mail.
This post made from China late at night- I apologize for any spelling errors and lack of coherency in advance.