LiveSide - News blog : China

China blocks Bing.com, Hotmail.com, Live.com, Twitter, Flickr

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:01:35 GMT

Receiving word from multiple sources, including some of our friends in China, that a number of websites in China are blocked, including Bing.com, Microsoft’s newly rebranded “decision engine”.

Danwei.org, P2P.net, and our friends at LiveSino.net have reports on the blockage:

China employs what is known as the Great Firewall of China, or the Golden Shield Project, to monitor and sometimes block internet access to sites within and from beyond China’s borders. Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, when Chinese tanks cleared the vast central square in Beijing of some 100,000 protesters. There is some speculation that the website blocking may be an attempt by the Chinese government to control access to information about what is known as the June 4th Incident inside China. In addition to Bing.com, Live.com, Hotmail.com, Twitter, and Flickr, YouTube and Blogspot have been blocked in China since March.

Apparently Windows Live Messenger is working fine still, and these blockades come and go, but for now, unless a proxy server is used, the rollout of Bing.cn will have to wait.

MSN China: “prayers and blessings” to earthquake victims

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:46:00 GMT

Our thoughts and prayers go out to victims of the recent earthquake in China, and MSN China is helping to remember those who suffered through the earthquake by remembering them with a Rainbow symbol in front of your nick:

An earlier campaign, one to show support for China in light of all the negative press surrounding the Olympic Torch tour, by including “ China” spread quickly and was very popular in China.

The rainbow is meant to express hope:

According to MSN, the rainbow represents hope and a good things to come: "We [MSN] believe that there is always a rainbow after the wind and rain."

To put the rainbow symbol in front of your nick, first type a set of parentheses (), then fill it in with a capital R – .

(Link to Windows Live Translator version of the MSN China post)

(via Danwei.org)

If you would like to contribute to relief efforts, another blog about China, Lost Laowai, posted instructions on how to place a badge redirecting to the Red Cross Society of China:

New Windows Live Community in China

Kip Kniskern — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:45:07 GMT

Our good friend PicturePan2 has been working hard on a new project, a new Windows Live Community in China. I asked him to write up a post on it, in English:

Hello everyone, I am Picturepan2 from LiveSino, also the LiveSide Representative to China. After weeks of work by our LiveSino Team, Windows Live Community was opened to public on Jan 23rd. And now I would like to introduce you some basic information about our Windows Live Community.

We establish the community for 4 main goals. It is worth noting that we will recognize MSN Community Influencers (awarded by Microsoft MVP Program Team) from the community. That is our great honor of having this opportunity. Other 3 main goals are listed below:

1. Make Windows Live and MSN more wonderful in China, and keep posting on Windows Live.

2. Help users to play with Windows Live products and find the solution to their problems.

3. Provide a strong communication platform for LiveSino/LiveSide visitors, Windows Live/MSN enthusiast, and Windows Live/MSN users.

After that, I am going to introduce the community infrastructure. We use Discuz forum platform (php + mysql) and the Theme IRIS which inspired from Windows Live Wave2. Because the live site is in Chinese, I’ll just walk you through 2 screenshots.

Community Homepage

Profile page

We have some Windows Live Services integration inside. Such as Windows Live IM Control, etc.

Last but not least, the domain is http://forum.livesino.net. More news to come, stay tuned!

If you have thoughts on this post or Windows Live Community feel free to email me at picturepan2 –at-hotmail.com. Thanks for all your attention.

LiveSino.net is continuing to grow and expand in China, we're really proud of the hard work Picturepan2 and his compatriots have putting in on this project, and on LiveSino.net. Congratulations!

More on Live Maps in China: O'Reilly interviews Vincent Tao

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:37:10 GMT

Some interesting information from Vincent Tao, Senior Director of Virtual Earth and Live Local Search at Microsoft, from an interview by Brady Forrest at O'Reilly Radar. While maps.live.com is fully available in China, the ditu.live.com version does not presently include any imagery, nor does it contain readily available latitude and longitude information, in accordance with the quite strict regulations from the Chinese government. From the interview:

What's coming in the future? Will there be an API? Will there be aerial or satellite imagery? Why is there satellite imagery of China in the US version and not in the Chinese version?
[VT] We have our roadmap for China VE services both in B2C and B2B. Our VE API will be available for enterprise and mashup users in a not too distant future. We are looking into the image solutions. So far there are some issues, not technical, about on-line image publishing in China.

Was the data allowed to leave China? What other restrictions were placed on the data and its use?
[VT] The map data is not allowed to leave the border. Some other countries also have the same regulations (Korea for example). In China, maps can only be provided by the licensed map data providers. Also the on-line publishing maps need to go through a ‘encryption’ process whereby map coordinates are transformed to an unknown coordinate system (not in Lat/Long). This is mainly for the national security reason as far as I know.

What are the issues surrounding showing images? Why would they be more concerned about their own population seeing them? Is http://maps.live.com blocked in China?
[VT] The same reason as above. In general, mapping is a highly regulated area in China and so on-line mapping services. Given the incredible opportunity in China commercial mapping market and the coming Olympic event, the China mapping agency is actively developing and examining their data policy and regulations. I was using maps.live.com when I was travelling China. Our site is running just fine.

Live Search Maps - the Chinese version

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:55:00 GMT

Live Search Maps announced via their blog today that a new Chinese version is now available, at www.ditu.live.com (ditu (地图) means maps in Chinese, according to our friend PicturePan2, who was of course already all over this news and has posted on LiveSino.net). From the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog:

Congratulations to the Virtual Earth team in China for releasing version one of Live Search Maps for China. If you read Chinese you can try it out at http://ditu.live.com. The application was built in China with a focus on getting the features most relevant to our Chinese customers out first. Business search, Collections, and public transit features were emphasized, covering over 100 cities with 7 million business listings.

While it is commendable that the focus is on relevant features for Chinese customers, it is also interesting that in this Chinese version, at least at this point, there are no aerial maps at all, and as a matter of fact the whole top leg of the navigation control is missing. However, according to PicturePan2, there is more road information in the ditu.com version than the maps.live.com version.

(click on the picture to go to the map)

This is where our friend PicturePan2 lives, by the way:

Be sure and say Hi next time you're in Shanghai :)