China Mobile has set up the world’s highest internet cafe on Mount Everest, prinicipally to cater to the needs of China’s Olympic torch relay team. At a breathtaking altitude of 5200 meters, the complex also includes a business hall providing such services as automatic seller machines, as well as basic services like communications fee payment and card changes. The business hall and the net cafe are doing brisk business with up to 50 customers daily. China’s telcos are currently engaged on various projects to boost bandwidth in rural areas of the country. Over 50 million of China’s current 220+ million net users are rurally based, and this number is growing rapidly.

Image source: Daniel Allen

And for those who still can’t find a free hotspot, communications provider PCCW has set up more than 400 special phone booths across Hong Kong which integrate paid Wi-Fi access.

Image source: Virtual China

Check out the trailer on YouTube
More info on the Boomtown Beijing blog

Image source: Boomtown Beijing blog

The Nike Zoom campaign, devised by media agency MindShare China, won Campaign of the Year recently at the Venice Festival of Media. Planned out of MindShare’s Shanghai office, the Zoom campaign ran in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. Bluetooth technology was used in special “information shelters”, offering a chance to win a pair of Zoom’s by running between the shelter and the closest Nike shop.

Standard billboards with Nike ads were specially equipped in each city to emit a Bluetooth signal aimed at nearby mobile phones. When people approached the billboard, they received short-range signals on their activated mobiles to start a “virtual stopwatch.” Then they received a message to run to the nearest designated Nike store as fast as they could, where a second Bluetooth signal stopped the stopwatch and recorded their time. Every day, for the length of the promotion, the store gave away one different pair of running shoes for the fastest athlete.

Image source: Nike Zoom

Chinese virtual world HiPiHi recently announced the beginning of their public beta testing phase with the release of the “Dawn of Society” version - this marks an end to almost a year of private testing under the “Genesis” version of the HiPiHi platform that has amassed more than 40,000 users. The “Dawn of Society” version will re-open user registration to allow new users to join existing “elder” users in the creation of new lands, tools, and artifacts, and participate in the further development of a new virtual society. To date the HiPiHi community has created 12,084 homes, 572,476 objects, and 510 groups.

In line with HiPiHi’s efforts to improve and expand in-world creativity, socialization, and commerce, the “Dawn of Society” version will unveil a few new features, including:

- A more intuitive user naming system, to facilitate better global online interaction. HiPiHi has revamped its previous user registration system, which now supports English, Chinese characters, and numbers.

- A more intuitive and “human-friendly” user interface. Beyond its fresh platinum sheen, the new interface is the culmination of multiple re-designs and a data-driven process based on the desires and preferences of in-world residents. For non-Chinese users a lot of 3-D images have been created to supplement Chinese words.

Besides feature optimization and promotion of in-world creation, the “Dawn of Society” version also heralds the start of a new platform architecture design process for HiPiHi. In collaboration with global strategic partners such as Intel and IBM, HiPiHi’s future platfrom architecture will be more open, scalable, and inter-operable, in order to lay the groundwork for the eventual mainstreaming of virtual worlds.

Previous CScout interview with HiPiHi founder Hui Xu

Image source: HiPiHi

The much-anticipated opening last November of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing’s 798 Art District signified the beginning of a new era in China. It arrives at a time when the work of a generation of artists including Zhang Huan, Cai Guoqiang, and Zhang Xiaogang are selling for record prices. Yet the UCCA, founded by retired Belgian businessman Guy Ullens and his wife Myriam, is a non-profit operation with an emphasis on exhibitions and cultural programming, including film and music.

With a collection of more than 1,500 works, the center represents the largest museum devoted to Chinese contemporary art by both established and emerging artists. Housed in an 86,000-square-foot building, the vast space is set among galleries and artists’ studios in the former industrial complex in Beijing’s northeastern suburbs.

On March 1st Frenchman Jérôme Sans joined UCCA as its new director. This marks a new phase of developments following the center’s successful launch led by the previous artistic director, Fei Dawei. Jérôme Sans is among the most creative and adventurous personalities working in today’s art scene - he is renowned for rethinking the curatorial practice and approach, first as an independent curator, and then as an inventor of new models of institution, such as the world acclaimed Palais de Tokyo in Paris that he co-founded and directed until January 2006.

Commenting on his reasons for coming to China, Sans explains, “It is truly exciting to be involved in China’s art scene right now. There is a huge and growing interest in art here - part of an appetite for all things cultural. There is an energy here - it reminds me of the US in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I wanted to be part of what was happening, to be able to participate and contribute.”

Sans feels that the UCCA can help to take the 798 area forward, and to bridge the gap between East and West through art. He comments, “798 is a fanstastic neighborhood, with such a dense cultural presence. I want UCCA to be a beacon, a lighthouse within this space. I want this center to have a dynamic relationship with China and Chinese artists - to be an open platform for dialogue that can benefit everybody.”

UCCA will feature work by both Chinese and international artists - a number of Chinese artists have been commissioned to produce work that will be shown long-term in the Center. On July 17th part of the famed Ullens collection of Chinese contemporary art, which Guy Ullens has built since the mid-1980’s, will come to China for the first time, and will be displayed in the UCCA until after the Olympics.

Images by Daniel Allen

Once an obscure hutong rarely frequented by tourists and expats, Nanluoguxiang’s recent transformation into a bustling, Bohemian alleyway is symptomatic of Beijing’s extensive pre-Olympic makeover. Located several kilometers north of the Forbidden City and east of Houhai Lake, the 800-meter long North-South street is now lined with hip cafes and bars, bargain basement hostels, funky boutiques, and a wide assortment of restaurants serving up everything from fish and chips and chicken tikka to gongbao jiding and hawaiian pizza.

Nanluoguxiang’s first facelift happened in early 2006 – the uneven thoroughfare was leveled and paved with grey bricks, storefronts were renovated, and a stream of cafes and shops were opened. Today the area continues to thrive, with new businesses snapping up coveted spaces on the remodeled “old street”, despite rising rents and real estate prices. Thanks to a steady stream of publicity, Nanluoguxiang is now firmly established on Beijing’s tourist trail, with overseas visitors mingling with a young local crowd, trendy expats, and, of course, Chinese residents.

With its universal appeal it was little surprise when Nanluoguxiang held its first street festival in 2006. This was followed up by a second event last September, with the alley playing host to activities such as fashion shows, traditional Chinese dancing, storytelling and art exhibitions, and live music. Although it looks as though this year’s event has been postponed until after the Olympics, there’s no reason to think it won’t be more popular than ever.

Image source: Daniel Allen

In a great example of localized service provision, wireless carrier Guangdong Mobile is now noffering migrant workers 15 minutes of free long-distance calls under the “Appreciation to Guangdong” program. Those who don’t have a mobile can visit one of Guangdong Mobile’s “Communication 100 Service Halls” to use up their free minutes. The company also plans on arranging traveling vehicles from which migrant workers can make calls, and will build service centers to provide free internet service for migrant workers.

Additional info: China Tech News

Image source: Daniel Allen

Check out a new blog called Beijing Youth Voices (needs proxy server in China) by 6 teenage Beijingers. For the next few months Iris, Siqi, Steven, Linda, E-mail(!), and Kelan will be posting bi-weekly blogs, giving readers a peek into their lives and life in China. The blog is a project between US NGO What Kids Can Do, Inc. and Adobe Youth Voices. As most Chinese blogs are obviously written in Chinese, this will be a great chance for non-Mandarin readers to hear about what life is like in this Olympic city from a Chinese viewpoint, and to learn more about the opinions, ideas, hopes, and dreams of some everyday Chinese youth.

Image source: Beijing Youth Voices

With over 350 million smokers China is legendary for its nicotine addiction, and numbers increasing by more than 3 million a year. There are 50 million teenaged smokers alone. The number of non-smokers in China affected by passive smoking was 540 million as of 2007, one-third of whom were under 18 years old. What these numbers mean is that about two-thirds of the Chinese population either smokes or is affected by those who do. More than one million Chinese die of smoking-related illnesses ever year – this number could reach 3 million by 2050.

Although a few Beijing coffee shops have introduced no smoking zones, these usually consist of a few tables in a dark alcove where the waitress ventures once every twenty minutes. It clearly makes more business sense to keep the 70% of Chinese men who smoke happy, rather than cater to the needs and desires of the health conscious. Although next month’s watered down ban may go some way to cutting the numbers of Chinese smokers, it would be naive to expect any kind of major impact. With the cigarette now as firmly rooted in Chinese culture as rice or the mobile phone, it seems the best Beijing can hope for is a little more segregation from enlightened café owners.

China will survey smoking habits among key sectors, including doctors and teachers, in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities this year as it works to establish a national network of anti-smoking clinics. The survey, whose parameters are yet to be determined, will study whether people know of the risks of smoking and how to stop, according to the Department of Maternal and Child Health Care and Community Health of China’s Ministry of Health.

Those Chinese who do want to kick that habit may get help from China’s Golden Dragon Group, which last year introduced the first ever electronic cigarette. The eCig (image above) is a battery powered, cigarette-shaped device that “delivers nicotine to inhalers in a bid to emulate actual smoking.” It even emits vapor, so in many ways the whole experience is like smoking an actual cigarette.Users of the “eCig” still get their daily dose of nicotine, but without any of the carcinogenic tar and health-threatening side effects.

Image source: Daniel Allen and Reuters