Hasta La Gadget!

Spotted outside the auditorium at Qualcomm’s China QRD (Qualcomm Reference Design) Summit earlier today were a handful of — surprise, surprise — QRD-based smartphones from China, several of which featured the Cortex-A5-based quad-core MSM8x25Q announced back in September. The usual suspects were there in the quad-core lot: Yulong had its Coolpad 5890 (EVDO) and Coolpad 7268 (UMTS), along with Hisense’s U958 (UMTS) and Tianyu’s K-Touch U86 (UMTS). These all fall within the so-called “¥1,000 ($160) phone” category and yet they are also gifted with a second SIM slot. But what really got our attention was Beidou’s Little Chilli LA-M1, which also does dual-SIM (UMTS) but packs an OGS gapless IPS display, while the others came with an LCD panel of obviously lesser quality. Read on to learn more about this mysterious phone, as well as checking out our hands-on photos of the other aforementioned quad-core QRD phones.

Here’s a little background: Little Chilli is Beidou’s fairly new brand that attempts to follow Xiaomi’s online retail model, but without supplying a heavily customized version of Android like MIUI. Most of its earlier models didn’t really stand out as they carried almost the same set of components used by other budget phones; but that was until Beidou and ZTE announced their ¥999, Tegra 3-based U950, followed by the Little Chilli Q1 which was officially launched four days ago. The latter went on sale yesterday and the first batch of 20,000 units promptly sold out — not a surprise since it comes with Tegra 3 and a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display for just ¥999 as well.

Giving the Q1’s recent availability, you could say the timing of the LA-M1’s announcement today wasn’t ideal, which is likely why Beidou has yet to mention the price and availability for its newer phone, but we did hear mentions of a sub-¥1,000 on the show floor. That would be pretty decent for the specs we know so far: 4.5-inch 800 x 480 IPS gapless display, MSM8225Q quad-core chip, dual-SIM support, an eight-megapixel main camera (which produced reasonably good photos, from what we could see), a two-megapixel front-facing camera, and Baidu cloud service integration with 15GB of storage for life, plus another 15GB free for one year. No word on battery size nor battery life yet, but our guess is that neither should disappoint.

While it isn’t exactly the most handsome phone on the planet, the M1 that we got to touch actually felt pretty solid, and it ran the native Android 4.1 quite smoothly. So given the choice (and assuming they cost the same), it’s either the M1 with its dual-SIM capability but qHD display, or the Q1 with the 720p display but with just one SIM slot. Regardless, Beidou could be well on its way to become the new Xiaomi (sans the software part), though only time can tell whether it has the reliability and after-sale service to prove it. If not, there’s still plenty of opportunity for others — Qualcomm’s already completed over 170 QRD-based projects, with about 100 more in the pipeline. Watch out, MediaTek!

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Attempts to get away from unlocking our smartphones through codes and finger swipes have mostly centered on camera tricks like Android’s Face Unlock. If you happen to pick up a Lenovo IdeaPhone A586 when it reaches China on December 12th, you’ll have the option to use some dulcet tones instead. The Android smartphone builds in a new speaker verification system from Baidu and A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research that looks for a specific voice signature: speak a distinct passphrase and the phone unlocks without gestures or a longing stare. Few will be especially smitten with the 4.5-inch, 854 x 480 display, 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 5-megapixel camera or 4GB of storage, but they’ll be glad to get access to their A586 in a more hands-off (and hopefully spoof-resistant) way. We’d only be worried about choosing a passphrase that won’t trigger odd looks from passers-by.

Continue reading Lenovo A586 touts voice unlock through Baidu, A*STAR verification tech

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Lenovo

Comments

Via: CNET

Source: Singapore Government

Google has had a rough go of it in China. The company seems to fall farther and farther behind the home-grown search powerhouse Baidu. The latest battle Mountain View has been forced to concede is in the world of music. Google Music Search launched in 2009 as a legal alternative to Baidu’s own tool that turned up primarily illicitly shared results. The service never took off, even with the backing of a local partner, and things only got worse when the web giant ceased censoring results and took it wares to Hong Kong. The fatal blow came last year when Baidu signed a licensing deal with One-Stop China — a joint venture of Universal, Warner and Sony BMG. Since that day, you could argue that Google has only been postponing the inevitable. Today’s announcement officially begins the countdown, and on October 19th Google Music Search will close its doors for good in China.

Filed under: Internet

Google shutters Music Search in China, concedes battle to Baidu originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Reuters  | Email this | Comments

In China, the biggest search engine on the block isn’t Google; it’s Baidu. Baidu has announced the launch of a mobile browser to compete with UCWeb, Google, and Apple within the country. Mobile browsers are important within China because a huge number of people access the Internet on mobile devices.

Some of the latest statistics show that 388 million people access the Internet on mobile phones. That number puts the amount of people accessing the Web from mobile phones higher than the number of users who access from a desktop computer in the country for the first time. The new mobile browser will be called the Baidu Mobile Browser.

The new Chinese browser promises to be 20% faster than rivals based on internal tests. That statement came from Baidu’s general manager of mobile and cloud computing Li Mingyuan on Friday, at a pre-launch briefing reports Reuters. The mobile browser has a number of features, including the ability to access web-based mobile applications and the ability to run HD video through the browser.

Baidu says that its mobile browser can accomplish those tasks without having to download apps or other supporting software. Finding a way to make money off mobile web users is a huge goal for the Chinese search engine. The company makes most of its money off people who access the search engine via computers. With more people now accessing the site via mobile phones the push is on to find a way to monetize the traffic.

[via Reuters]

Baidu Mobile Browser launches is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s easy to think that Google is the world’s dominant search engine, but in China the majority of online searches are made using Baidu. The company has found itself in some hot water, however, after it has been discovered that four employees deleted posts from its forum service after accepting bribes. All four employees have since been fired, and three have been arrested by Chinese police, although it’s not clear exactly what the employees were deleting.

A spokeswoman for Baidu has said that the employees took the equivalent of thousands of pounds in order to delete the posts off the Baidu forums. The company has issued an official statement regarding the matter, saying that it “does not tolerate such behaviour,” and that it will enforce even more “rigorous administration and procedures in managing illegal post deletion”.

Baidu says that this isn’t the first time the company has had to deal with the problem of forum post deletions, although it is the first time the police have had to become involved due to the exchange of money. It seems to be a growing problem in China, as underground markets have been established that promise to delete unwanted forum or blog posts that attract negative attention.

At the end of its statement on the matter, the company says, “We remind the general public that any online information claiming Baidu Postbar accepts payment to delete posts are considered illegal information, amd that the public must guard against such online scams. Baidu will be cooperating with the public security bureau, the industrial and commercial bureau as well as other relevant government organizations in the crackdown of outlaws and illegal behaviour.”

[via BBC]

Baidu employees arrested over forum post deletions is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.