After Success With E-Readers, Shanda Plans a Budget Smartphone

This is not the actual Shanda smartphone. The real thing is set to launch this summer.

The Chinese web company Shanda (NASDAQ:SNDA; FRA:RZP) is set to launch its first ever smartphone this summer, according to reports, which will run a highly customized version of Android. With a rumored price tag of just 999 RMB (US$158), Shanda could well be trying to create an ebook platform that supports both its e-reader, the successful BamBook, and its new smartphone – in the manner that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is doing with its Kindle and Kindle Fire tablet.

Local tech media reports that Shanda’s smartphone exists as an internal prototype that’s undergoing testing. Its specifications are not known, but at such a budget price it’s unlikely to be a cutting-edge device.

Shanda already has a great deal of apps for iOS and Android that support its ebook store, as well as other cloud-based services that it provides. But this report indicates that it feels the need to come out with a phone of its own.

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All About the E-Books

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Shanda’s BamBook is the second most popular e-reader hardware in China, and ties in with Shanda’s ‘Literature’ ebook store. But it faces stiff opposition in that sector from e-commerce giant Dangdang, which has an e-reader of its own coming to market soon.

Last year saw other major Chinese web companies making a big push into mobile with their own ecosystems – first there was Alibaba’s Aliyun phone, and then Baidu’s (NASDAQ:BIDU) Android-based Yi OS.

[Source: Techweb - article in Chinese]

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TechNode Launchpad Contest: Win At Least RMB20K and A Trip to Finland, Home of Angry Birds

 

Like TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing Battlefield held in October, TechNode is holding our own Launchpad contest to help start-ups get off to a great start to the year. Launchpad is a investor pitching competition where start-ups can win investment, great prizes and respect.

The contest will be held during our China Bang Conference on Sunday Feb 19 2012.

Who can pitch?

We are welcoming start-ups who are both Chinese or foreign run to apply. The only requirements are that:

• Founded in less than a year, with a working product to demo;
• Don’t already have too much media exposure;
• Innovative idea and business model

How it works

We will select 10-15 start-ups to present their idea in front of a panel consisting of investors and serial entrepreneurs

• Each team has 6 minutes to present and 6 minutes answer questions
• Panel of judges will score teams and the winner will be announced at the end of the China Bang conference

Win great prizes!

Currently we are excited to announce the winner will be rewarded with a host of prizes:

• An Innovation Trip to Visit Rovio HQ (Angry Birds) in Finland (more details to come)
• Prize money of at least RMB20K (to be confirmed)
• Media coverage on TechCrunch, our media partner

How to apply

• Please go to http://chinabang.technode.com/launchpad/ for submission.
• Applications will be close on January 31

Related posts:

1. StartUp Weekend Beijing is On This Weekend!
2. Lessons from Successful Technopreneurs at Echelon Singapore 2011
3. Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO

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S’pore startup donating money to defend digital rights amidst SOPA controversy

Zopim, a Singapore-based startup that integrates non-intrusive instant messaging functionality into websites (see interview), has joined the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) — a controversial proposed bill in the US that aims to curb online piracy but runs the risk of destroying Internet innovation.

According to their blog post, Zopim will protest against SOPA by “offering new and existing customers a 40% discount code and donating 10% of all such proceeds to the Electronic Frontier Foundation“, a donor-funded nonprofit dedicated to defending freedom of speech in the Internet space.

This is in addition to their recent move of ditching domain name registrar Go Daddy for rival NameCheap. GoDaddy was a proponent of SOPA, but soon reversed their stance when customers boycotted the company.

So far, the widespread resistance against SOPA seems to be working: The bill will not be brought up in the US House of Representatives, although the Protect IP Act (PIPA), a similar bill, might still see action in the Senate.

SGE, in a recent article, has also spoken up against the bill, highlighting that Singapore’s Law Minister is also mulling similar anti-piracy measures but enacting a SOPA-like bill would kill innovation in Singapore and the region.

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DeNA Continues China Push, Partners with NetDragon

Japanese mobile gaming company DeNA (TYO:2432) is starting off 2012 with more overseas partnerships on top of its busy year in 2011. The company has just announced a partnership with Chinese online game developer NetDragon. The two come together in a joint venture to develop and operate mobile social games for China.

This is not the first time that the two companies have done business, as the Mobage China app has previously been made available via NetDragon’s store. But this joint venture announced today, according to DeNA will “localize non-Chinese social games” for Chinese consumption.

This move is the latest step in DeNA’s push for the Chinese market. Back in December the company partnered with Alibaba Cloud Computing to bring its Mobage platform to Aliyun OS smartphones. Mobage only officially launched in China back in July of last year.

As for NetDragon, readers may recognize it as the company behind the 91.com gaming platform, and more recently, its Transformers Online game from this past year. The company also recently partnered with the Cartoon Network to launch a gaming portal for kids in China.

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Global Game Jam Singapore 2012

Global Game Jam 2012 (GGJ) is back and set to kick off on January 27. The annual event encourages game developers to create a game (digital or board-based) from a common theme that is only announced at the commencement of the event. The catch? Teams have only 48 hours in which to design, create and test the game. Ambitious? Indeed. Crazy? Maybe. Fun? Its got to be!

An initiative from the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), GGJ was first held in 2009 with 53 sites accross 23 countries. Last year 169 sites, 44 countries and around 6500 participants were involved across the globe including new members in Amman, Bangkok, Prague, Shanghai and Zürich. A staggering 1500 games were made during the two day period.

In 2012, Republic Polytechnic will be hosting GGJ 2012 in Singapore which will be the third year the institution has hosted the event. Commencing at 17:00 January 27 (Friday) through to 18:00 January 29 (Sunday) the event is sure be an intense, adrenaline-fueled way to spend the weekend.

Open to participants over 16 years, you can get involved as either a jammer (tertiary students and professionals) or mentor. There is no cost just bring along your own design materials (paper, pens, laptops, hardware, software, prototyping materials etc) and a healthy sense of collaboration. Details on how to get involved can be found on their information page. Check out the neat trailer below and game on!

Global Game Jam 2012 Trailer

Global Game Jam 2012 Trailer from Adam Barenblat on Vimeo.

For readers outside Singapore, there is sure to be a GGJ site near you. Participating jam sites are listed on the GGJ website.

Natalie is co-founder of Hummingbird Interactive, a Singapore-based gamification design consultancy. She blogs at www.recognitionpattern.com

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Chinese Travel Site Qunar Considering US IPO

Chinese travel site Qunar had a good year last year. It broke even — not a small accomplishment considering how rough things were for some Chinese startups in 2011 — and this year, things are looking even better. How much better? Double better. Qunar expects to double its earnings from last year, which should result in profits of “hundreds of millions of RMB,” according to CEO Zhuang Chenchao. (Perhaps that’s why Baidu invested $300 million in Qunar last year).

So what’s next for Qunar? An IPO in the US, according to Zhuang. Of course, the company recognizes that the market has been, er, less than friendly to Chinese tech stocks recently, and it plans to wait for things to settle down a bit. Zhuang wouldn’t specify a timeline for the IPO, but did say that the company would be seriously considering one as soon as “the market stabilizes.”

Qunar is one of China’s leading travel sites at a time when China’s travel market — both domestically and internationally — is exploding. Some experts expect China’s tourism market to surpass Japan’s in size as soon as 2013, making it second only to the United States.

[Via Sina Tech]

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RedPad is the Tablet Custom-Made for China’s Cadres, Costs Twice as Much as an iPad

A largely unknown Chinese manufacturer has launched a ‘Red Group Number One’ Android tablet that’s aimed at, and highly customized for, China’s ruling cadres. Following the URL of the very flakey website that it’s from, we’ll just call it the RedPad. Its specs are pretty decent but its price is enough to make even the most patriotic think about getting an iPad instead: the RedPad costs 9,999 RMB (US$1,580), though it’s currently available for the special offer price of 7,100 RMB ($1,124). With a mere 16GB of storage, that makes the RedPad inexplicably nearly twice the price of an iPad or a mid-range Android tablet.

It comes with a fancy leather case that’s embossed with in gold with the product’s name (pictured below) and lots of pre-installed apps that might help the officials go about their working day. They include the People’s Weibo app (a state-run microblogging platform that’s nowhere near as popular as Sina’s or Tencent’s Weibo), the People’s Daily newspaper app, and ‘Zhongnanhai Developments’ which is a guide to what’s going on in the National People’s Congress. But most of the apps are available as separate, free downloads if someone were to buy a normal Android tablet or smartphone instead.

The RedPad’s manufacturer – see its website here, though it’s struggling to cope with the traffic today – doesn’t seem to make any other devices, and it’s not clear who’s the OEM. Aside from the great curiosity about the tablet in the Chinese press, it has not been made stated if the near 3,000 members of congress must purchase it.

The RedPad’s key specifications are: Android 3.2 ‘Honeycomb,’ a 9.7-inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, an A9 ARM dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage space. Here are a couple more pics sourced from Evolife.cn:

Above: the RedPad comes with this embossed leather case. Below: the manufacturer's suitably patriotic poster to advertise the RedPad.

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Car-maker Nissan’s iPhone Case Heals its Own Scratches

While the iPhone case market is pretty crowded these days, we’re still pretty surprised to see Nissan (TYO:7201) change lanes from its usual business to enter a player into the race. But the company is taking advantage of the same scratch-healing paint technology that goes into its cars to create its Scratch Shield iPhone case.

According to Nissan, small scratches in this paint can ‘heal’ in as quick as an hour, while deeper scratches could take as long as a week. Nissan worked with the University of Tokyo and Advanced Softmaterials Inc. to develop this technology, and this is the first time that it has been implemented in product other than a car. Nissan’s overseas program director for Nissan in Europe, Bob Laishley, explained:

We’re really excited about the possibilities provided by this technology. In Japan, we’ve already linked up with world-leading mobile operator Docomo (NYSE:DCM) to allow them to use the Scratch Shield technology on its Style Series N–03B mobile phones [1], and we think this technology has real scope beyond the automotive world.

So far this case is just a prototype, although Slashgear reports that the company is considering a commercial launch later in 2012. I suspect that the case is less of a commercial enterprise as it is a marketing endeavor. I mean, if you want your product to get exposure, there are certainly worse ways to do it than piggy-backing on the fame of the iPhone, right? In case you’re wondering what ‘Nissan Juke’ emblazoned on the side of the case refers to — yes, it’s a car.

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1. Link added by me.  ↩

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Social Gaming Startups in Southeast Asia [PREVIEW]

Tetsuya Mori, Managing Director of DeNA’s Singapore office

The social and mobile gaming industry in Southeast Asia has seen a recent boom, which explains why DeNA (TYO:2432), a mobile gaming company from Japan is actively exploring opportunities in this space.

Southeast Asia might be fragmented but companies can still find gems in each country. DeNA, for example, has been very busy in Vietnam. It acquired Punch Entertainment last year, and had also recently announced a partnership with Vietnamese game studio, VNG, who will help create games for its Mobage platform.

Tetsuya Mori, managing director of DeNA’s Singapore office, is the mastermind behind DeNA’s Southeast Asia movements. While his office is based in Singapore, he often has to travel to Vietnam. Some of you might be curious to understand exactly what it is about Vietnam that has attracted DeNA to the country.

Vietnam is a big market which many of us would love to understand. So we are glad to invite Mori to one of our coffee chats to share his experiences with us. Plus, I will also pick his thoughts and opinions on social gaming startups in Southeast Asia.

Previously Mori was stationed in California for ten years, having contributed much to Nintendo and Sun Microsystems during that stint. At Sun, he was one of the co-inventors of Java 2 Micro Edition and established the de-facto standard for the mobile downloading application as director of J2ME business development. Prior to his DeNA’s appointment, he was a venture capitalist for Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, where he invested in startups.

You can catch Mori’s coffee chat with me live on stage on February 2, 1:30 – 2:00pm.

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