(By Yan Jie (China Daily))
Updated: 2010-02-10 10:09
Goojje, the Chinese knockoff of Google Inc, "will not change" its design despite a threat from the US Internet company to sue it over copyright infringement, Huang Jiongxuan, the website's founder, said yesterday.
Goojje's logo resembles the logo of Google Inc and also bears a paw print sign like that of Baidu Inc, the biggest Internet search engine in China and Google Inc's archrival in the country.
The website's interface also imitates those adopted by Google Inc and Baidu Inc, but falls short of the copyright sign and a link indicating the website's license number issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Google has sent the operators of Goojje a cease and desist letter through a Beijing-based law firm, demanding that they stop copying Google's logo by Monday or the company will probably file a lawsuit against them.
Goojje, however, kept its logo and interface unchanged as of yesterday afternoon.
"The website is our team's achievement," Huang, the founder and team leader of Goojje, told China Daily over the phone. "It's impossible that we would close it down."
The team has invested less than 30,000 yuan ($4,400) for the website's set-up, said Huang.
The website has yet to return a profit and Huang is now relying on his family for a living.
But he shrugged off the threat from Google Inc.
"A lot of lawyers have offered to be our counsel for free, and we also have many supporters," he said.
Huang, 24, and seven other team members born in the 1980s, launched the website on Jan 14, a day after Google announced the company would quit the Chinese market.
These young men's overnight efforts have made a splash in China's cyber world, partly because of the breaking news of Google Inc's exit claims and the website's name -Goojje.
Its second syllable, "jje", is the same as the Chinese word "older sister", while that of Google, "gle", sounds like another Chinese word for "older brother".
The website is designed as a search engine, but experts said it produces search results by simply combining those of Google Inc and Baidu Inc, which means Goojje does not have its own search technology.
But it appears that fans of Goojje don't care much about the technologies behind the website, and they keep coming in throngs to use the search services there.
The website had an average page view of about 3 million in the first few days after the launch, said Huang. The number has fallen to only 2 million lately, which is still remarkable for any website in the early days since a launch.
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(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-26 20:15
BEIJING - A craggy peak in a scenic part of southern China has been renamed after floating mountains featured in Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar," with the province hoping to cash in on the movie's massive success.
The "Southern Sky Column" in Zhangjiajie in southern Hunan province formally had its named changed to "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain" in a ceremony on Monday, according to the Zhangjiajie government's official website (www.zjj.gov.cn).
The government said the floating "Hallelujah Mountains" in the movie were inspired by the "Southern Sky Column," as a Hollywood photographer spent time shooting there in 2008.
"Many pictures he took then become prototypes for various elements in the 'Avatar' movie, including the 'Hallelujah Mountains'," the website said.
"Avatar," directed by James Cameron, has so far sold $1.841 billion worth of tickets worldwide, making it the biggest international release of all time.
Chinese cinemas last week began taking the 2D version of "Avatar" off their screens to make way for domestic movies over the upcoming Chinese new year holiday, though the wildly popular 3D version is still available.
"Avatar" has so far made around $80 million in China, and has become the country's most popular film ever.
Zhangjiajie hopes to capitalize on that fame.
Tourists can now join a "Magical tour to Avatar-Pandora" or a "Miracle tour to Avatar's floating mountain," the Zhangjiajie branch of China International Travel Service Corp said on its website. (www.citszjj.com)
"Pandora is far but Zhangjiajie is near," the municipal government added on its website. "Welcome to Zhangjiajie to see 'Avatar's Hallelujah Mountains' and discover the real world of Pandora."
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dollars. I was in between Tom Tom and Navigon back then and the
special price made my option clear. Plus - Navigon has better features
although I heard someone said that the map service that Navigon use
was not the best choice for Australia.
The reason I bought it was to avoid data usage. We used Google Maps a
lot to get around the city (walking) and we passed our quota and our
data charge was a hundred dollar above our usual bill. From that,
seventy bucks seemed like a good investment. We use Navigon mainly for
walking. It has pedestrian mode, but we hardly hear the turn-by-turn
guidance. It suit our needs with very extensive list of POI -which
made us happy. But we did not utilise it full capacity.
This weekend we are on a road trip to Jervis Bay. Our hotel is in
Sanctuary Point, several minutes from Nowra. This is a best chance to
try Navigon.
I decided to use iPhone 3G instead of 3GS for our trip from home to
Sanctuary Point. No particular reason other than if it works well in
3G, it should work in 3GS better.
And it works very well in 3G. We had some occassional GPS misalignment
- asking us to turn back while we were on one way freeway - but the
software quickly recalculated once it recalibrated itself.
We played our music collection using iPod app and Navigon faded out
the music when it needs to "talk". It has text to speech as well so it
helped me taking the right turns.
The recalculation was decently fast and very helpful. I did not worry
at all taking small roads or rerouting to random places - the software
guided us to the right direction every time.
When we fired Navigon, our setup was to take the most direct route.
However, we decided to take some of the scenic routes. Navigon tried
to reroute us back to the highway but after we insisted on scenic
route, it seemed the software adjusted itself and recommended us
scenic route all the way. It took us longer drive than I expected, but
we enjoyed the scenery of the route Navigon directed us. Well done.
So overall we are very satisfied with Navigon and any enhancement or
improvement they are making is a welcome addition to a very good
navigation software. And of course it should be a free update :)
Plus - a gentle notification every time we were about to pass school
zone was a very nice touch.
Regards from Sanctuary Point and this blog is written using my iPhone.
BB
This is an exciting product in term that this is the first product where Apple is using their own processor - after their acquisition of PA Semi industries. It is a licensed ARM product and will definitely set a path of next Apple product lines in the future. The success of iPad will determine how the other product lines will be specced out. This will allow Apple to set the product differently with competitors, especially in the smartphone space. iPhone has reached scale where it can absorb the PA Semi capacity and builds economic of scale overall. However, this also means that iPad is atrial product. I will stay away from this batch at the moment.
Apple also build an ecosystem supporting the product to make it marketable. Leveraging existing iPhone ecosystem is a very smart move and building iBook Store supports the justification why people wants to buy iPad. Like I said earlier, I may want to shell out at least USD500 to allow me subscribing to my favourite magazines, buy comic books and conveniently reading them in a sexy, shiny tool. I can imagine as well myself starts to go back to my childhood hobby of making sketches - may need to buy a pen accessory for that as it wont be convenient to draw using my fingers. Other than that, I start struggling to justify having a glorious enormous iPhone in the house.
Lack of camera also put me off a little as I thought that I can use iPad to do video calls. iPad is better than normal eBook reader and if i need one, iPad would be my first choice. But at the moment I probably would rather to get iPhone 4.0 (or whatever the new name will be) that would be better than currently amazing phone 3GS - as I know I am going to use it everyday everywhere and bring more value to me eventhough the price may be almost double than the iPad.
So my take on iPad: if you need/want an eBook reader, I recommend you to get iPad, you can do so much more than normal reader, and it is fun, too. But if you are looking for laptop replacement, this thing is not for that, get a MacBook.
Comments welcome...
American Express made the following annotations on Wed Jan 27 2010 21:05:34 ----------------------------------------
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