The major obstacle to Apple would be price. Without considering cost as a problem, the total amount of customers intending to buy an iPhone would jump to 53 percent. The recent survey is however representative of a small part of Chinese society, because most people are relatively poor and affluence is concentrated mainly around a few cities big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Main competition for Apple is represented by Nokia. Although negligible on the smartphone market of the United States, a quarter of the 3G buyers in the Chinese survey claimed they would buy a Nokia phone next. Primary advantages brought by Nokia would be, according to the survey, reception, reputation, service, price and battery life. On the other hand, the iPhone is preferred for the interface, Internet and media features, as well as for social status.

China did not respond to these accusations so far, but, in the past, the government had denied to have been involved in such actions, although if Google claimed it could track the original attacks to a Chinese university frequently used to recruit cyberwarfare teams.

It is not clear what course the action could take from this point, but it is certain that Google’s presence in China will continue to be deteriorated. Following the incident appeared in January 2010, Google pulled out the search engine from mainland China after claiming it would not continue to censor search results. The company redirected requests to Google Hong Kong, as local lessened restrictions let it operate freely. The Chinese government is still known to maintain a strict control of whatever gets through.

In case Google planned a further withdrawal, it would affect the adoption of Android, which is used by local phone makers and carriers like Lenovo, ZTE and Huawei. All these companies depend on Android to maintain prices low and permit customization, but the government of China has the authority and can impose what platforms they should use.

By using GPUs, the system us able to conserve more energy, therefore the Tianhe-1A uses 4.04 megawatts. Without using the GPUs, the system would need 12 megawatts for the same effect. The difference of power would be sufficient for 5,000 homes for a whole year, according to data from NVIDIA. The performance of the new supercomputer has been measured using the LINPACK benchmark.

Designed by the NUDT (National University of Defense Technology) in China, the Tianhe-1A is fully operational in Tianjin, at the National Supercomputer Center. It will be used as an open access system and will serve for large scale scientific computations.

NVIDIA said that its GPUs power now two of the first three fastest supercomputers in the world. NVIDIA CUDA-based Tesla GPU is made specifically for applications where deep and massively parallel computations are required. They help in tsunami and hurricane modelling, cancer research, drug discovery, car design and many other very complex calculations.

Foxconn tried to keep the status of a company offering good working conditions to its workers, but this view was seriously undermined after a series of suicides that drew attention to working conditions at its factories, mainly in the southern China, in the Shenzhen area. There, employees frequently work overtime and complain of too little tolerance for breaks or injuries, not to mention widespread abuse. Doubts have also surfaced with respect to wage hikes, since some people reported only a third or even less of the extra pay.

Foxconn has denied such allegations but also tried to face their root causes. It has gone to even warning it would not pay families benefits for those employees that commit suicide. The series of suicides earlier this year seems to be triggered in part by workers with low enough salaries, as they would have thought that their death could provide their families with amounts equivalent to ten years of work.

Many details were collected through TaintDroid, a custom-built tool, which looked for occasions when an application might send private data to an outside server and compared to actual usage patterns.

There were concerns about Google’s approach relative to policies and notifications that it would allow advertisers or application developers to manipulate personal information without the consent or knowledge of the users. Android-based applications notice users before an application download of what type of access is required, but these notices are not specific enough about how the data will be used or what its ultimate destination is. A controversy erupted this summer, due to a wallpaper application caught to send information to China. However, it was then discovered that less information had been sent than Google’s application warning implied.

There was also a problem of the operating system with applications supposed to be malicious without sending alerts, like a proof-of-concept exploit that was sent out this very summer.

Although Google has not answered the initial details of this study, published in full in Vancouver, at the Usenix Symposium on OS Design and Implementation, the company has recommended that developers provide simple ways of access to the privacy policy for a given application when it is already installed.

This approach is drastically contrasting with that of Apple. iOS developers have a smaller set of application features and applications are explicitly prevented from using GPS mainly for advertising. Applications are also required to ask the users for their permission to use location information. Although excess information is still possible for iPhone applications and other Apple devices, it is more likely to be detected earlier.

The launch of the iPhone 3GS last year has triggered significantly less interest, partly because Apple had to modify the handset by removing the Wi-Fi capabilities at the express request of the Chinese government. The larger interest shown by the public in this year’s launch may also stem from the better price of the new model. While the 32GB iPhone 3GS was priced at $1,033 last year without a contract, the 32GB iPhone 4 is now selling for only $893.

A rumored expansion of Chinese retail has been validated as well and will see one store open in each of Apple’s existing footholds in the Asian state. There will be a store opened in Beijing, in Xidan Joy City at the same time as the iPhone 4 goes on sale. For Shanghai residents, there will be a store in Hong Kong Plaza too.

These launches come just as Lenovo is preparing a major push with Android in China and has criticized Apple for being slow to the market without as much impact as it could have. Critics have noted, among the touching points, that the lack of a China Mobile iPhone with China’s TD-SCDMA format effectively cuts Apple off from almost half a billion potential clients.

According to previous reports, the touchscreen device would be powered by Android 2.2, probably with a customized user interface. Support for multi-touch gestures as well as other features commonly encountered at the latest iPod touch and iPhone 4 is also expected to be present.

It is not clear if Meizu has scrapped the plans for its first-generation of M9, which still ships to customers. The Chinese company has introduced an early clone of the iPhone, the M8, a few weeks after Apple’s official announcement. The shipping time-frame for the first-generation M9 was initially set to October.

The Ebox is in development for over two years and should target casual gamers with its motion-controlled interface, camera-based. Sixteen global game developers are said to have agreed to sign contracts to supply content for the new gaming console. When shipping, in early 2011, the console would be bundled wit thirty free titles. The hardware should cost between the price of a Wii and that of the Xbox 360, which is sold for $300.

Eedoo hopes to have sales of one million units within its first two to three years of presence on the market. The real challenge for the company is, however, to develop games having a Chinese cultural element incorporated, which would significantly increase the interest for the device in its origin country.

The Xbox 360, although manufactured in China, is not allowed for sale in this country, due to a ban which forbids importing gaming consoles since 2000. Microsoft is negotiating with the Chinese government the possibility of selling the gaming console in China.

K. Srinivasan, head of the five-year old Allgo, claims that building 10,000 such units in China would be necessary for the $50 price tag; moreover, a production of at least 1,000,000 units would drop the price further, to only $40.

Despite all these, it is yet unknown when or if Stamp will ever be built; the device is currently in prototype stages and the manufacturer needs investor money in order to start producing the device in such quantities.