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08 Nov 2011 10:47

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Tech: iPhone sales: Hong Kong really wants to try out Siri, apparently

  • 10 minutes to sell out iPhone 4S pre-orders in Hong Kong source
  • » Want to pre-order the iPhone 4s in Hong Kong? Too late. You’re stuck waiting in line. The phone will be available in stores this Friday and analysts are expecting “long lines and serial stock outs.” It’s a good sign for when the phone hits mainland China — a date for which has not been announced. It’s led to a black-market Apple-smuggling industry between Hong Kong and China, which is likely to only continue with the iPhone 4S

08 Dec 2010 21:50

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Tech: In the U.S., people smuggle drugs. In China, they smuggle iPads

  • 14 Chinese housewives were arrested for smuggling lots of tech devices into China
  • 88 the number of iPads the fourteen women had, roughly enough to create an iPad fort
  • 340 the number of phones they had; it was a total haul worth roughly $143,000 source
  • » Why the demand? Simple. The only version of the iPad sold in China is the wi-fi version. The 3G version (sold in Hong Kong) is in very high demand as a result. Plus, China has recently started taxing iPads brought in from Hong Kong, and on the other end, smugglers have been recruiting people without criminal records to make the runs from Hong Kong to China (for around $30 a run). We end this post with a visual image; imagine a woman with 65 smartphones wrapped around her chest and 20 more in her handbag. Yes, this actually happened.

05 Nov 2010 10:45

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Offbeat: Asian guy boards flight convincingly disguised as old white man

  • We took this young Asian man over to the left, replaced him with the old man over to the right and threw his ass on a transpacific flight between Hong Kong and Vancouver. See if you can notice the difference. source

29 Jun 2010 11:17

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Tech, World: Who blinked first in the Google vs. China search stand-off?

  • Google did, but not too much. The search giant angered China by re-directing to its free-speech-allowing Hong Kong site, threatening to revoke its business license. So, to prevent that, Google will force Chinese users to click on an image before going to the Hong Kong site, which is annoying but likely gets around China’s problems. Will it work? Good question. China is finicky. source

22 Mar 2010 15:55

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Tech, World: Google gets around China, moves searches to Hong Kong

  • We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk  is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China.
  • Google Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond • Regarding the company’s final decision on handling the China problem. There’s a very good chance that China will censor the search engine on the mainland after this, but you can at least say they tried very hard to have it both ways. This is a win for human rights. Unfortunately, it may not be a win that does Chinese citizens a whole lot of good. Is it better to be unable to give uncensored information, or willfully censor by the rules of a country that is willing to make people drive long distances just to check e-mail? source

10 Jan 2010 09:58

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World: Hong Kong’s got jerks throwing acid at tourists, hurting people

  • 30 people were injured in an acid attack aimed at tourists last night
  • four similar attacks took place in Hong Kong in recent months source

09 Jun 2009 10:48

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World: Some evil jerk is dropping acid off of buildings in Hong Kong

  • 24 hurt, including a little kid, after someone threw acid source