Not just in "certain areas", but as far as I can tell, in every single PRACTICAL area. In every single type of renewable energy, China has the latest technology (sometimes bought, sometimes self-developed, sometimes a combination) and can do things cheaper than any other country. Yes, bio fuels, was one I did not know about, and it's possible Brazil is ahead of China. The same is true about nuclear, hydropower, "clean" coal tech, wind farms, biomass, coal bed methane, and others. In the case of solar power, some claim the American firm (First Solar?) has better technology, but the company is building a production plant in China as well.
News on China's scientific and technological development.
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Martian
Senior Member
China's R&D Spending More Than Double Korea's
"China's R&D Spending More Than Double Korea's
July 1, 2010
China is emerging as a formidable rival to Korea in science and technology as it invests twice as much as Korea in research and development in the fields. According to the Korea Industrial Technology Association on Wednesday, China's 100 biggest companies invested a combined US$33.76 billion in R&D in 2008, 2.3 times larger than Korea's $14.72 billion.
China's five largest firms far surpassed their Korean counterparts in R&D spending, with the exception of top-ranked China National Petroleum Corp. which was outspent by Samsung Electronics. China exceeded Korea in investment in almost every sector including textiles, metals, machinery, mining, and utility and service industries. Korea was the leader only in the fields of electro-mechanics and electronics.
Recently China has been making waves in state-of-the-art science and technology. The Chinese-developed Nebulae ranked second on a list of the 500 most powerful supercomputers released at the International Supercomputer Conference last month.
Huawei, the nation's leading communications device maker, filed the most applications for international patents and trademarks in 2008. Early this year it clinched a deal to build a next-generation Long Term Evolution network in Sweden, the home of telecom giant Ericsson, alarming U.S. and European companies.
Chinese companies are also distinguishing themselves in green technology. The nation's mining and energy firms are focusing on eco-friendly power generation technologies to reduce pollutants by gasifying coal. In the rechargeable batteries sector, companies such as Shenzhen-based BYD are making names for themselves in the world market.
"China is forging global partnerships with market leaders in the electric car industry while conducting its own research to rapidly absorb advanced technologies," Park Rae-jung, a senior researcher with the LG Economic Research Institute said. "The country's solid financial resources will further facilitate its technological development."
[email protected] / Jul. 01, 2010 08:22 KST"
"China's R&D Spending More Than Double Korea's
July 1, 2010
China is emerging as a formidable rival to Korea in science and technology as it invests twice as much as Korea in research and development in the fields. According to the Korea Industrial Technology Association on Wednesday, China's 100 biggest companies invested a combined US$33.76 billion in R&D in 2008, 2.3 times larger than Korea's $14.72 billion.
China's five largest firms far surpassed their Korean counterparts in R&D spending, with the exception of top-ranked China National Petroleum Corp. which was outspent by Samsung Electronics. China exceeded Korea in investment in almost every sector including textiles, metals, machinery, mining, and utility and service industries. Korea was the leader only in the fields of electro-mechanics and electronics.
Recently China has been making waves in state-of-the-art science and technology. The Chinese-developed Nebulae ranked second on a list of the 500 most powerful supercomputers released at the International Supercomputer Conference last month.
Huawei, the nation's leading communications device maker, filed the most applications for international patents and trademarks in 2008. Early this year it clinched a deal to build a next-generation Long Term Evolution network in Sweden, the home of telecom giant Ericsson, alarming U.S. and European companies.
Chinese companies are also distinguishing themselves in green technology. The nation's mining and energy firms are focusing on eco-friendly power generation technologies to reduce pollutants by gasifying coal. In the rechargeable batteries sector, companies such as Shenzhen-based BYD are making names for themselves in the world market.
"China is forging global partnerships with market leaders in the electric car industry while conducting its own research to rapidly absorb advanced technologies," Park Rae-jung, a senior researcher with the LG Economic Research Institute said. "The country's solid financial resources will further facilitate its technological development."
[email protected] / Jul. 01, 2010 08:22 KST"
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Spartan95
Junior Member
Re: China's R&D Spending More Than Double Korea's
Interesting news.
Looks like Samsung will continue to dominate LCD TVs and the like for the near future. Chinese LCD TV makers are unlikely to have innovations since they are not spending enough on R&D to overtake Samsung yet.
However, it looks like its a matter of time before Chinese super computers dominate the list of the world's most powerful super computers. I wonder when this will translate into a Chinese computer/chip maker that can compete with Intel/IBM.
Interesting news.
Looks like Samsung will continue to dominate LCD TVs and the like for the near future. Chinese LCD TV makers are unlikely to have innovations since they are not spending enough on R&D to overtake Samsung yet.
However, it looks like its a matter of time before Chinese super computers dominate the list of the world's most powerful super computers. I wonder when this will translate into a Chinese computer/chip maker that can compete with Intel/IBM.
Martian
Senior Member
A possible shortcut for China to compete with Samsung and Intel
China has plenty of money, but it is currently behind in LCD and microprocessor technologies. To quickly catch up, China will need to expand the China-Taiwan ECFA (e.g. free-trade agreement) and attain Taiwan's assent for mainland companies to acquire or invest heavily in Taiwanese companies. At a minimum, China needs to achieve a licensing agreement of technology transfer from Taiwanese companies to mainland companies.
To achieve near-parity with Samsung, China can form a joint-venture, alliance, or outright buy Taiwan's AU Optronics (see news article below). Also, to acquire the core technologies to compete with Intel, China will have to make a move on Taiwan's VIA (see second news article below). China can make things interesting for Samsung and Intel by acquiring Taiwanese companies that possess LCD and microprocessor technologies.
The road to China's true economic superpower lies through Taiwan.
"LG [Display] LCDs May Be Banned Worldwide
6:50 PM - May 3, 2010 - By Kevin Parrish - Source : Tom's Guide US
A patent infringement case may block the sale of certain LG LCD panels.
ZoomComputerworld reports that Taiwan-based AU Optronics (AUO) is trying to halt the import and sale of LG Display LCD panels across the globe. If an injunction is successful, this could ultimately hurt consumers and their choice of LCD options, as LG currently commands over a quarter of the LCD panel market.
Over the past three and a half years, LG and AUO have been in a legal scuffle in regards to patents covering material and processes used in making LCD panels. Friday marked the end of the long, multifaceted battle, with AUO emerging as the winner based on LG's inability to prove that the rival company infringed on its LCD patents.
But in February AUO filed a counter-suit and won. Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr. said in a 77-page verdict that AUO provided enough evidence to show that LG literally infringes on patents asserted by AUO--LG was unable to prove otherwise. Now AUO is warning consumers not to purchase 'unauthorized infringing products from LG for sale or use in the U.S. without the need for further court action.'"
"VIA Technologies (TWSE: 2388) is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory, and is part of the Formosa Plastics Group. It is the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. As a fabless semiconductor company, VIA conducts research and development of its chipsets in-house, then subcontracts the actual (silicon) manufacturing to third-party merchant foundries (such as TSMC.)
...
While its Pentium 4 chipset designs have struggled to win market share, in the face of legal threats from Intel, the K8T800 chipset for the Athlon 64 has been popular.
VIA has also continued the development of its VIA C3 and VIA C7 processors, targeting small, light, low power applications, a market space in which VIA is successful. In January 2008, Via unveiled the VIA Nano, an 11 mm × 11 mm footprint VM-enabled x86-64 processor, which debuted in May 2008 for ultra-mobile PCs.
[edit] Legal issues
On the basis of the IDT Centaur acquisition,[2] VIA appears to have come into possession of at least three patents, which cover key aspects of processor technology used by Intel. On the basis of the negotiating leverage these patents offered, in 2003 VIA arrived at an agreement with Intel that allowed for a ten year patent cross license, enabling VIA to continue to design and manufacture x86 compatible CPUs. VIA was also granted a three year grace period in which it could continue to use Intel socket infrastructure."
"The first 64-bit, superscalar, speculative out-of-order processors in VIA's x86 platform portfolio, VIA Nano processors have been specifically designed to revitalize traditional desktop and notebook PC markets, delivering truly optimized performance for the most demanding computing, entertainment and connectivity applications, including Blu-ray Disc HD video playback and the latest PC games, such as Crysis. The VIA Nano processor family leverages Fujitsu's advanced 65 nanometer process technology forVIA Nano logo enhanced power efficiency, and augments that with aggressive power and thermal management features within the compact 21mm x 21mm nanoBGA2 package for an idle power as low as 100mW (0.1W), extending the reach of power efficient green and silent PCs, thin and light notebooks and mini-notes around the world."
China has plenty of money, but it is currently behind in LCD and microprocessor technologies. To quickly catch up, China will need to expand the China-Taiwan ECFA (e.g. free-trade agreement) and attain Taiwan's assent for mainland companies to acquire or invest heavily in Taiwanese companies. At a minimum, China needs to achieve a licensing agreement of technology transfer from Taiwanese companies to mainland companies.
To achieve near-parity with Samsung, China can form a joint-venture, alliance, or outright buy Taiwan's AU Optronics (see news article below). Also, to acquire the core technologies to compete with Intel, China will have to make a move on Taiwan's VIA (see second news article below). China can make things interesting for Samsung and Intel by acquiring Taiwanese companies that possess LCD and microprocessor technologies.
The road to China's true economic superpower lies through Taiwan.
"LG [Display] LCDs May Be Banned Worldwide
6:50 PM - May 3, 2010 - By Kevin Parrish - Source : Tom's Guide US
A patent infringement case may block the sale of certain LG LCD panels.
ZoomComputerworld reports that Taiwan-based AU Optronics (AUO) is trying to halt the import and sale of LG Display LCD panels across the globe. If an injunction is successful, this could ultimately hurt consumers and their choice of LCD options, as LG currently commands over a quarter of the LCD panel market.
Over the past three and a half years, LG and AUO have been in a legal scuffle in regards to patents covering material and processes used in making LCD panels. Friday marked the end of the long, multifaceted battle, with AUO emerging as the winner based on LG's inability to prove that the rival company infringed on its LCD patents.
But in February AUO filed a counter-suit and won. Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr. said in a 77-page verdict that AUO provided enough evidence to show that LG literally infringes on patents asserted by AUO--LG was unable to prove otherwise. Now AUO is warning consumers not to purchase 'unauthorized infringing products from LG for sale or use in the U.S. without the need for further court action.'"
"VIA Technologies (TWSE: 2388) is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory, and is part of the Formosa Plastics Group. It is the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. As a fabless semiconductor company, VIA conducts research and development of its chipsets in-house, then subcontracts the actual (silicon) manufacturing to third-party merchant foundries (such as TSMC.)
...
While its Pentium 4 chipset designs have struggled to win market share, in the face of legal threats from Intel, the K8T800 chipset for the Athlon 64 has been popular.
VIA has also continued the development of its VIA C3 and VIA C7 processors, targeting small, light, low power applications, a market space in which VIA is successful. In January 2008, Via unveiled the VIA Nano, an 11 mm × 11 mm footprint VM-enabled x86-64 processor, which debuted in May 2008 for ultra-mobile PCs.
[edit] Legal issues
On the basis of the IDT Centaur acquisition,[2] VIA appears to have come into possession of at least three patents, which cover key aspects of processor technology used by Intel. On the basis of the negotiating leverage these patents offered, in 2003 VIA arrived at an agreement with Intel that allowed for a ten year patent cross license, enabling VIA to continue to design and manufacture x86 compatible CPUs. VIA was also granted a three year grace period in which it could continue to use Intel socket infrastructure."
"The first 64-bit, superscalar, speculative out-of-order processors in VIA's x86 platform portfolio, VIA Nano processors have been specifically designed to revitalize traditional desktop and notebook PC markets, delivering truly optimized performance for the most demanding computing, entertainment and connectivity applications, including Blu-ray Disc HD video playback and the latest PC games, such as Crysis. The VIA Nano processor family leverages Fujitsu's advanced 65 nanometer process technology forVIA Nano logo enhanced power efficiency, and augments that with aggressive power and thermal management features within the compact 21mm x 21mm nanoBGA2 package for an idle power as low as 100mW (0.1W), extending the reach of power efficient green and silent PCs, thin and light notebooks and mini-notes around the world."
Last edited:
Martian
Senior Member
China's money will hasten its Loongson microprocessor technology advancement
After consideration, I retract my former statement that "the road to China's true economic superpower lies through Taiwan." If you have lots of money, there is usually a company that is willing to sell you the core technologies for the right price (e.g. Microsoft licensed Spyglass' web-browser tech to create Internet Explorer to compete with Netscape's browser; see newslink below).
MIPS is a RISC (i.e. Reduced Instruction Set Computing; pronounced as "risk") processor. On the other hand, an Intel x86 is a CISC (i.e. Complex Instruction Set Computing; pronounced as "sisk") processor. Anyway, the division between the theoretically more-efficient RISC versus CISC processors has lessened due to hybridization of the technologies (e.g. the CISC designers "borrowed" the best design elements of the RISC technologies; see newslink below).
Loongson CPU ("Dragon Core" at )
"Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Chinese Government to Purchase Stake in U.S. Semiconductor Firm
The investment would represent China's first ownership stake in the firm behind part of its home-grown Loongson processor.
By Christopher Mims
Chinese language news sources are reporting that the Institute of Computing Technologies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is considering plans to buy a 20% stake in MIPS technologies, the California-based semiconductor IP development firm founded more than 20 years ago by John Hennessy, who is now president of Stanford University.
The sale is significant for two reasons. The first is that MIPS is a storied company, whose original chip designs, while now used primarily in embedded devices, once powered everything from desktops to supercomputers, and are still used as teaching platforms in many electrical engineering programs. The second, more important reason this sale matters is that China's home-grown Loongson processor runs an extended version of the MIPS architecture, and the Institute of Computing Technologies (ICT) has a full architecture license that allows its engineers to both build MIPS-powered chips and to extend the architecture itself with new instructions. This has allowed the ICT to develop successively faster generations of Loongson processors, from the first prototype to the Loongson 2F, which is currently available in netbooks and low-power desktops from Chinese manufacturer Lemote. The third generation of the Loongson processor might even be fast enough to allow China to build the world's fastest supercomputer using Loongson Chips.
ICT is following in the footsteps of countless tech companies before it (e.g. Apple and Imagination Technologies) by acquiring a stake in a company that makes intellectual property that is essential to its products. MIPS has so far declined to comment on this potential acquisition.
MIPS is a small company and does not manufacture chips. Instead, like its competitor ARM, MIPS maintains, enhances, and licenses the existing MIPS architecture. If I'm reading its quarterly reports correctly, it has a market capitalization well south of $100 million, which means that acquiring a 20% stake in it would be trivial for the cash-rich Chinese government, though perhaps quite significant for the ICT and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which no doubt have their own budgets.
MIPS' architecture has long been the only portion of the IP behind the Loongson processor that wasn't entirely invented and controlled by organizations within China--potentially a sore point for government backers of a processor that seems to be as much about national pride as advancements in the field of semiconductors. By buying a piece of MIPS, the ICT has taken a small step toward addressing that issue."
"CISC and RISC
The terms CISC and RISC have become less meaningful with the continued evolution of both CISC and RISC designs and implementations. The first highly (or tightly) pipelined x86 implementations, the 486 designs from Intel, AMD, Cyrix, and IBM, supported every instruction that their predecessors did, but achieved maximum efficiency only on a fairly simple x86 subset that resembled only a little more than a typical RISC instruction set (i.e. without typical RISC load-store limitations). The Intel P5 Pentium generation was a superscalar version of these principles. However, modern x86 processors also (typically) decode and split instructions into dynamic sequences of internal buffered micro-operations, which not only helps execute a larger subset of instructions in a pipelined (overlapping) fashion, but also facilitates more advanced extraction of parallelism out of the code stream, for even higher performance."
"The R4700 processor implements the full MIPS R4000 instruction set and features:
* 64-bit floating-point unit
* 32 orthogonal 64-bit registers
* memory management unit
* 32kB 2-way set associative, write-back cache"
.
"Spyglass, Inc. (former NASDAQ ticker symbol SPYG), was an Internet software company based in Champaign, Illinois.
The company, founded in 1990, was an offshoot of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and created to commercialize and support technologies from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Prominent among these was the Mosaic browser, of which Spyglass licensed the technology and trademarks, but not the source code, to develop their own Web browser. Spyglass Mosaic's codebase was then licensed to Microsoft and became the basis for their Internet Explorer."
After consideration, I retract my former statement that "the road to China's true economic superpower lies through Taiwan." If you have lots of money, there is usually a company that is willing to sell you the core technologies for the right price (e.g. Microsoft licensed Spyglass' web-browser tech to create Internet Explorer to compete with Netscape's browser; see newslink below).
MIPS is a RISC (i.e. Reduced Instruction Set Computing; pronounced as "risk") processor. On the other hand, an Intel x86 is a CISC (i.e. Complex Instruction Set Computing; pronounced as "sisk") processor. Anyway, the division between the theoretically more-efficient RISC versus CISC processors has lessened due to hybridization of the technologies (e.g. the CISC designers "borrowed" the best design elements of the RISC technologies; see newslink below).
Loongson CPU ("Dragon Core" at )
"Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Chinese Government to Purchase Stake in U.S. Semiconductor Firm
The investment would represent China's first ownership stake in the firm behind part of its home-grown Loongson processor.
By Christopher Mims
Chinese language news sources are reporting that the Institute of Computing Technologies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is considering plans to buy a 20% stake in MIPS technologies, the California-based semiconductor IP development firm founded more than 20 years ago by John Hennessy, who is now president of Stanford University.
The sale is significant for two reasons. The first is that MIPS is a storied company, whose original chip designs, while now used primarily in embedded devices, once powered everything from desktops to supercomputers, and are still used as teaching platforms in many electrical engineering programs. The second, more important reason this sale matters is that China's home-grown Loongson processor runs an extended version of the MIPS architecture, and the Institute of Computing Technologies (ICT) has a full architecture license that allows its engineers to both build MIPS-powered chips and to extend the architecture itself with new instructions. This has allowed the ICT to develop successively faster generations of Loongson processors, from the first prototype to the Loongson 2F, which is currently available in netbooks and low-power desktops from Chinese manufacturer Lemote. The third generation of the Loongson processor might even be fast enough to allow China to build the world's fastest supercomputer using Loongson Chips.
ICT is following in the footsteps of countless tech companies before it (e.g. Apple and Imagination Technologies) by acquiring a stake in a company that makes intellectual property that is essential to its products. MIPS has so far declined to comment on this potential acquisition.
MIPS is a small company and does not manufacture chips. Instead, like its competitor ARM, MIPS maintains, enhances, and licenses the existing MIPS architecture. If I'm reading its quarterly reports correctly, it has a market capitalization well south of $100 million, which means that acquiring a 20% stake in it would be trivial for the cash-rich Chinese government, though perhaps quite significant for the ICT and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which no doubt have their own budgets.
MIPS' architecture has long been the only portion of the IP behind the Loongson processor that wasn't entirely invented and controlled by organizations within China--potentially a sore point for government backers of a processor that seems to be as much about national pride as advancements in the field of semiconductors. By buying a piece of MIPS, the ICT has taken a small step toward addressing that issue."
"CISC and RISC
The terms CISC and RISC have become less meaningful with the continued evolution of both CISC and RISC designs and implementations. The first highly (or tightly) pipelined x86 implementations, the 486 designs from Intel, AMD, Cyrix, and IBM, supported every instruction that their predecessors did, but achieved maximum efficiency only on a fairly simple x86 subset that resembled only a little more than a typical RISC instruction set (i.e. without typical RISC load-store limitations). The Intel P5 Pentium generation was a superscalar version of these principles. However, modern x86 processors also (typically) decode and split instructions into dynamic sequences of internal buffered micro-operations, which not only helps execute a larger subset of instructions in a pipelined (overlapping) fashion, but also facilitates more advanced extraction of parallelism out of the code stream, for even higher performance."
"The R4700 processor implements the full MIPS R4000 instruction set and features:
* 64-bit floating-point unit
* 32 orthogonal 64-bit registers
* memory management unit
* 32kB 2-way set associative, write-back cache"
.
"Spyglass, Inc. (former NASDAQ ticker symbol SPYG), was an Internet software company based in Champaign, Illinois.
The company, founded in 1990, was an offshoot of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and created to commercialize and support technologies from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Prominent among these was the Mosaic browser, of which Spyglass licensed the technology and trademarks, but not the source code, to develop their own Web browser. Spyglass Mosaic's codebase was then licensed to Microsoft and became the basis for their Internet Explorer."
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Martian
Senior Member
Taiwan's HTC EVO 4G squares off against iPhone 4
"Jun 8, 2010 ... HTC EVO 4G true challenger to the iPhone 4 ... Apple has added this new mobile, in the middle of the thrill of the Taiwanese HTC's new product which have ... HTC EVO 4G went on sale in US last Friday via operator Sprint. ..."
3,151,053 people have watched this video.
698,813 people have watched this video.
"Jun 8, 2010 ... HTC EVO 4G true challenger to the iPhone 4 ... Apple has added this new mobile, in the middle of the thrill of the Taiwanese HTC's new product which have ... HTC EVO 4G went on sale in US last Friday via operator Sprint. ..."
3,151,053 people have watched this video.
698,813 people have watched this video.
Last edited:
Martian
Senior Member
Taiwan's HTC EVO 4G squares off against iPhone 4
"Best Buy Trying To Fire Employee Over Those Hilarious EVO Versus iPhone Videos
by MG Siegler on Jul 1, 2010
By now it seems like just about everyone has seen the iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO video (and the rebuttal video). The video portrays an electronics store employee trying to convince a person looking for an iPhone 4 to buy an HTC EVO 4G instead. It’s hilarious — like all good humor, so funny because it’s at least partially true. But you know who didn’t find it funny? Best Buy. How do I know that? Because they’re trying to fire the kid who made it.
The video in question was made by Brian Maupin, a 25-year-old based in Kansas City, Missouri. For the past three and a half years he’s been working at Best Buy selling mobile phones. He’s probably not going to be doing that anymore as Best Buy has suspended him indefinitely and is currently taking the steps to terminate him, Maupin tells us. The reason? The video.
The video became so popular (it currently has nearly 1.3 million views on YouTube) that someone at Best Buy corporate saw it. They then put two-and-two together that it was an employee at one of their stores that made it, and the hammer came down. “They felt it disparaged a brand they carried (iPhone/Apple) as well as the store itself and were fearful of stockholders & customers being turned off to Best Buy Mobile,” Maupin says.
What’s ridiculous is that nowhere in the video does Maupin have anything indicating the fictitious store the iPhone buyer is walking into is a Best Buy. At the beginning, the cartoon employee identifies the store as “Phone Mart.” The character isn’t even wearing the signature Best Buy blue polo shirt — and they’re standing in an outdoor field with a pink tree.
In other words, nothing about this video seems to imply Best Buy in anyway. In fact, the only reason it will be tied to Best Buy now is thanks to this story.
Maupin says he was asked to quit, which he declined to do, and so they suspended him this morning telling him that he would most likely be terminated after they review it with HR. He expects the decision in the next day or two. “I issued a statement to them explaining that the video was intended to be comedic and hence, not taken seriously by them or all these stockholders & customers they are worried about [being] turned off to buying from them due to the video,” Maupin says in his defense.
Maupin isn’t sure how exactly Best Buy corporate knew to tie the video to him, but believes they did so because a couple other videos under his Tiny Watch Productions (a little indie film group he made with his friends) YouTube account featured videos referencing him and Best Buy. Maupin says he removed those videos at Best Buy’s request, but refuses to take down the EVO vs. iPhone videos because, again, they in no way reference Best Buy.
Regardless of whether he keeps his job or not (which he doesn’t expect to), Maupin is optimistic. “I see it all as a blessing in disguise. I’ve wanted to start my career in graphic design/animation for so long, I see this as my kick in the pants to go get it,” he says."
"Best Buy Trying To Fire Employee Over Those Hilarious EVO Versus iPhone Videos
by MG Siegler on Jul 1, 2010
By now it seems like just about everyone has seen the iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO video (and the rebuttal video). The video portrays an electronics store employee trying to convince a person looking for an iPhone 4 to buy an HTC EVO 4G instead. It’s hilarious — like all good humor, so funny because it’s at least partially true. But you know who didn’t find it funny? Best Buy. How do I know that? Because they’re trying to fire the kid who made it.
The video in question was made by Brian Maupin, a 25-year-old based in Kansas City, Missouri. For the past three and a half years he’s been working at Best Buy selling mobile phones. He’s probably not going to be doing that anymore as Best Buy has suspended him indefinitely and is currently taking the steps to terminate him, Maupin tells us. The reason? The video.
The video became so popular (it currently has nearly 1.3 million views on YouTube) that someone at Best Buy corporate saw it. They then put two-and-two together that it was an employee at one of their stores that made it, and the hammer came down. “They felt it disparaged a brand they carried (iPhone/Apple) as well as the store itself and were fearful of stockholders & customers being turned off to Best Buy Mobile,” Maupin says.
What’s ridiculous is that nowhere in the video does Maupin have anything indicating the fictitious store the iPhone buyer is walking into is a Best Buy. At the beginning, the cartoon employee identifies the store as “Phone Mart.” The character isn’t even wearing the signature Best Buy blue polo shirt — and they’re standing in an outdoor field with a pink tree.
In other words, nothing about this video seems to imply Best Buy in anyway. In fact, the only reason it will be tied to Best Buy now is thanks to this story.
Maupin says he was asked to quit, which he declined to do, and so they suspended him this morning telling him that he would most likely be terminated after they review it with HR. He expects the decision in the next day or two. “I issued a statement to them explaining that the video was intended to be comedic and hence, not taken seriously by them or all these stockholders & customers they are worried about [being] turned off to buying from them due to the video,” Maupin says in his defense.
Maupin isn’t sure how exactly Best Buy corporate knew to tie the video to him, but believes they did so because a couple other videos under his Tiny Watch Productions (a little indie film group he made with his friends) YouTube account featured videos referencing him and Best Buy. Maupin says he removed those videos at Best Buy’s request, but refuses to take down the EVO vs. iPhone videos because, again, they in no way reference Best Buy.
Regardless of whether he keeps his job or not (which he doesn’t expect to), Maupin is optimistic. “I see it all as a blessing in disguise. I’ve wanted to start my career in graphic design/animation for so long, I see this as my kick in the pants to go get it,” he says."
Martian
Senior Member
Sprint HTC EVO 4G Android WiMax Smartphone Demo at CTIA
I admit that I'm not a cutting-edge tech adopter. I don't own a smartphone. I became interested in the "HTC EVO 4G vs. iPhone 4" controversy when a newspaper featured an article stating that Best Buy (e.g. America's largest electronics retailer) was trying to fire one of its employees.
After watching the video where the beige bear recites a litany of superior features for the HTC EVO 4G over the iPhone 4, my curiosity has been piqued. I recommend that you watch the following impressive widescreen and HD video and decide for yourself whether a HTC EVO 4G phone is right for you. I plan to buy one within the next 3 months.
422,338 people have watched this video.
I admit that I'm not a cutting-edge tech adopter. I don't own a smartphone. I became interested in the "HTC EVO 4G vs. iPhone 4" controversy when a newspaper featured an article stating that Best Buy (e.g. America's largest electronics retailer) was trying to fire one of its employees.
After watching the video where the beige bear recites a litany of superior features for the HTC EVO 4G over the iPhone 4, my curiosity has been piqued. I recommend that you watch the following impressive widescreen and HD video and decide for yourself whether a HTC EVO 4G phone is right for you. I plan to buy one within the next 3 months.
422,338 people have watched this video.
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Martian
Senior Member
Taiwanese scientists among pioneers in exploring Dark Energy
"A remnant of the Cygnus Loop supernova. Image courtesy of NASA."
"Radio Astronomers Develop New Technique for Studying Dark Energy
PITTSBURGH, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Pioneering observations made by researchers from Academia Sinica in Taiwan, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Toronto with the National Science Foundation's giant Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have validated a new tool for mapping large cosmic structures. Observations made using the method, called intensity mapping, promise to provide valuable clues about the nature of the mysterious "dark energy" believed to constitute nearly three-fourths of the mass and energy of the universe. The findings will be published in the July 22 issue of Nature.
Dark energy is the label scientists have given to what is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. While the acceleration was discovered in 1998, its cause remains unknown. Physicists have advanced competing theories to explain the acceleration and believe the best way to test those theories is to precisely measure large-scale cosmic structures.
Sound waves in the matter-energy soup of the extremely early universe are thought to have left detectable imprints on the large-scale distribution of galaxies in the universe. The researchers developed a way to measure such imprints by observing the radio emission of hydrogen gas. Their technique, called intensity mapping, when applied to greater areas of the universe, could reveal how such large-scale structure has changed over the last few billion years, giving insight into which theory of dark energy is the most accurate.
"Our project mapped hydrogen gas to greater cosmic distances than ever before, and shows that the techniques we developed can be used to map huge volumes of the universe in three dimensions and to test the competing theories of dark energy," said Tzu-Ching Chang, of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan and the University of Toronto.
To get their results, the researchers used the GBT to study a region of sky that previously had been surveyed in detail in visible light by the Keck II telescope in Hawaii. This optical survey used spectroscopy to map the locations of thousands of galaxies in three dimensions. In the GBT survey, instead of looking for hydrogen gas in these individual, distant galaxies — a daunting challenge beyond the technical capabilities of current instruments — the team used their intensity-mapping technique to accumulate the radio waves emitted by the hydrogen gas in large volumes of space including many galaxies.
"Since the early part of the 20th century, astronomers have traced the expansion of the universe by observing galaxies. Our new technique allows us to skip the galaxy-detection step and gather radio emissions from a thousand galaxies at a time, as well as all the dimly-glowing material between them," said Jeffrey Peterson, of Carnegie Mellon's Bruce and Astrid McWilliams Center for Cosmology.
The astronomers also developed new techniques that removed both man-made radio interference and radio emission caused by more-nearby astronomical sources, leaving only the extremely faint radio waves coming from the very distant hydrogen gas. The result was a map of part of the "cosmic web" that correlated neatly with the structure shown by the earlier optical study. The team first proposed their intensity mapping technique in 2008, and their GBT observations were the first test of the idea.
"These observations detected more hydrogen gas than all the previously-detected hydrogen in the universe, and at distances ten times farther than any radio wave-emitting hydrogen seen before," said Ue-Li Pen of the University of Toronto.
"This is a demonstration of an important technique that has great promise for future studies of the evolution of large-scale structure in the Universe," said National Radio Astronomy Observatory Chief Scientist Chris Carilli, who was not part of the research team.
In addition to Chang, Peterson and Pen, the research team included Kevin Bandura, a McWilliams Fellow at Carnegie Mellon.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc."
"A remnant of the Cygnus Loop supernova. Image courtesy of NASA."
"Radio Astronomers Develop New Technique for Studying Dark Energy
PITTSBURGH, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Pioneering observations made by researchers from Academia Sinica in Taiwan, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Toronto with the National Science Foundation's giant Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have validated a new tool for mapping large cosmic structures. Observations made using the method, called intensity mapping, promise to provide valuable clues about the nature of the mysterious "dark energy" believed to constitute nearly three-fourths of the mass and energy of the universe. The findings will be published in the July 22 issue of Nature.
Dark energy is the label scientists have given to what is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. While the acceleration was discovered in 1998, its cause remains unknown. Physicists have advanced competing theories to explain the acceleration and believe the best way to test those theories is to precisely measure large-scale cosmic structures.
Sound waves in the matter-energy soup of the extremely early universe are thought to have left detectable imprints on the large-scale distribution of galaxies in the universe. The researchers developed a way to measure such imprints by observing the radio emission of hydrogen gas. Their technique, called intensity mapping, when applied to greater areas of the universe, could reveal how such large-scale structure has changed over the last few billion years, giving insight into which theory of dark energy is the most accurate.
"Our project mapped hydrogen gas to greater cosmic distances than ever before, and shows that the techniques we developed can be used to map huge volumes of the universe in three dimensions and to test the competing theories of dark energy," said Tzu-Ching Chang, of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan and the University of Toronto.
To get their results, the researchers used the GBT to study a region of sky that previously had been surveyed in detail in visible light by the Keck II telescope in Hawaii. This optical survey used spectroscopy to map the locations of thousands of galaxies in three dimensions. In the GBT survey, instead of looking for hydrogen gas in these individual, distant galaxies — a daunting challenge beyond the technical capabilities of current instruments — the team used their intensity-mapping technique to accumulate the radio waves emitted by the hydrogen gas in large volumes of space including many galaxies.
"Since the early part of the 20th century, astronomers have traced the expansion of the universe by observing galaxies. Our new technique allows us to skip the galaxy-detection step and gather radio emissions from a thousand galaxies at a time, as well as all the dimly-glowing material between them," said Jeffrey Peterson, of Carnegie Mellon's Bruce and Astrid McWilliams Center for Cosmology.
The astronomers also developed new techniques that removed both man-made radio interference and radio emission caused by more-nearby astronomical sources, leaving only the extremely faint radio waves coming from the very distant hydrogen gas. The result was a map of part of the "cosmic web" that correlated neatly with the structure shown by the earlier optical study. The team first proposed their intensity mapping technique in 2008, and their GBT observations were the first test of the idea.
"These observations detected more hydrogen gas than all the previously-detected hydrogen in the universe, and at distances ten times farther than any radio wave-emitting hydrogen seen before," said Ue-Li Pen of the University of Toronto.
"This is a demonstration of an important technique that has great promise for future studies of the evolution of large-scale structure in the Universe," said National Radio Astronomy Observatory Chief Scientist Chris Carilli, who was not part of the research team.
In addition to Chang, Peterson and Pen, the research team included Kevin Bandura, a McWilliams Fellow at Carnegie Mellon.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc."