Google's China Rival To Create Android-Like OS 130
Stoobalou writes "Google's biggest search rival in China — homegrown market leader Baidu, is to develop a Linux-based smartphone to rival the Californian search giant's Android-based devices."
Wait, this is coming from China right? (Score:5, Funny)
So, what they're really saying is they'll be releasing an Android copy.
Re:Wait, this is coming from China right? (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, they just plan on peeling off the sticker.
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More like:
GoogleOS:BaiduOS=Blackberry:Redberry.
But Android is at least Open Source... So it won't be a complete reverse engineer job like the Redberry.
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So, GoogleOS:BaiduOS=RedHat:CentOS?
Less RedHat:CentOS, more RedHat:RedFlag.
"GreenMetalMan. Better than Android. GreenDam already installed."
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probably not even that much effort. They'll probably just stick their own sticker on top, not paying too much attention if the old is completely covered.
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"...they just plan on peeling off the sticker."
Give them some credit. First, they're gonna spend a few million on espionage, after they steal the code and a prototype, they'll trot out a completely re-designed package, Chinese internationalization; and eureka! The People's Phone.
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Some one modded me "flamebait" huh? Oh really...? [networkworld.com]
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Green Dam kernel module?
Re:Wait, this is coming from China right? (Score:4, Funny)
but is it censored? :)
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but is it censored? :)
Yes. And I stole a leaked copy of their mascot [tinypic.com]...
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but is it censored? :)
I little less censored than an iphone I've guess
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This is China, yes it will (Score:3, Insightful)
There is vanishingly little innovation in Chinese industry. A good portion is just manufacturing companies, that build what other companies request. You come in with designs, specs, and parts, they turn those in to the finished product. A good portion of the remainder is devoted to ripping off products that others make. They copy what parts of the design the can and produce clones. Sometimes said clones are just cheap knockoffs not sold as the real things, other times they try and pass off the whole thing a
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A good portion is just manufacturing companies
Those silly Chinese. Basing their economy on manufacturing.
They should be basing their economy on credit default swaps and subprime mortgages.
The US still manufactures more than they do (Score:2, Flamebait)
I know the common Net-tard line is that the US makes nothing, however that's not just wrong, it is the opposite of right. The US produces more manufactured good than any other nation, including China. Now if China continues growing as it has, that will change in about 2020, then the US will be #2.
Also, a good deal of what the US produces it works to create too. Take things like, say, Intel CPUs. Most of them are made in the US. They do have a few overseas fabs, one in Ireland, one or two in Israel, but most
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And you're ignorant of the situation to still think that the USA still makes tons of shit, when most of it is in fact, manufactured in Mexico, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc, shipped to China for final assembly, and then brought back to the USA.
If your version of things was true, Ohio, PA, and basically any and every other state/commonwealth that relied on manufacturing wouldn't be struggling so much because 90% or more of their manufacturing base is gone.
Have you actually BEEN to Detroit, Lansing, or ANY
My brain is in the facts (Score:2)
I don't look at anecdotes, I look at data.
http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1010305.shtml [finfacts.ie]
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Maybe you should conduct a reality check on your "data". If you tally up manufacturing based on the reported "value" of the goods being "manufactured", the US manufacturing sector looks like it's doing pretty good.
That is until you realize that a huge chunk of what's left of "manufacturing" in America consists of the final assembly of components manufactured overseas (which is where the bulk of the actual work is performed, involving the highest headcounts), and that companies routinely import the componen
Not so sure (Score:2, Insightful)
While China-bashing is really popular these days, I wouldn't be so quick to say "they'll just copy Android". There are a LOT of phones in China that run Linux. Most of the Linux distributions used are homegrown by the manufacturer and have little consistency between them. I wouldn't be surprised if Baidu just bought one of the dev teams from a phone manufacturer and had them slap "Baidu" all over everything.
It would be a Good Thing if they could get it used phones from multiple manufacturers - there might b
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Yeah, and they also work like crap and have crap for UIs.
No, the OP is right and the snide AC who tried to blame the USA is wrong. Despite their massive engineering workforce, there is still stunningly little original design happening in China.
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... Says the AC!
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Sure it will, because China is all about choice.
It may be but odds are it will be a fork with a new name and some limitations added in.
It will also probably not be seen in the west.
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Yes, and it will be called "Andloid"
Re:Wait, this is coming from China right? (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually work with Baidu to collect marketing metrics. Google, Yahoo, and Bing all have API access setup so clients can access reports anytime via a SOAP request. Baidu? You have to actually talk to a person in China on the phone and ask for a report which they then send you manually every day. God knows if the data is legit, and there is no availability on weekends or holidays (which it turns out, China has a LOT of).
I don't really see how they are going to develop their own mobile OS unless its a direct copy of Android.
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>You have to actually talk to a person in China on the phone and ask for a report which they then send you manually every day.
You think their search engine works differently?
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Why assume that it is Android that they are copying? It could still end up being a really kicking clone of WinMo 6.5 (or at least as kicking as WinMo gets).
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This is article is click-bait. Mainland China has already said over a year ago that they were forking version 1.6 of Android (and more recently a second fork from version 2.x) and re-branding it completely (stripping out google maps, google search, etc). This is a fact that Google was quite happy with at the time. Even if it's not technically called Android, or technically figuring within their official figures for Android adoption. It was something that they bragged about. Google was delighted to hear that
Rival? (Score:2, Insightful)
You surely mean counterfeit, right?
It'll probably have radium and cyanide and melamine in it too..
Re:Rival? (Score:4, Funny)
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Hmm, a phone that doubles as a yoyo.
Dude, you realise that you may have just inadvertantly invented one of the coolest things ever?
I mean think about it... take it out your pocket, use it as a yoyo for a bit, put it in, use it as a phone. You wouldn't need to carry a yoyo and a phone, you'd have both at once.
Eat that Steve Jobs, my phone doesn't have a fancy shiny antenna around the edge, no, it has string and it doubles as a yoyo.
This could be the greatest merger of "things" since the Spork. Bonus if it wo
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I'm confused how do you counterfeit open source software?
Don't under-estimate the Chinese. We may not have the capability to counterfeit open source software but they WILL find a way.
I for one... (Score:2, Funny)
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Well, at least to the Taiwanese anyway...
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Yeah, they're what we call the "indigenous population" that were there hundreds of years ago before being colonised by the Chinese.
Why? (Score:2)
What's the point? It would be so much easier to just use android and set Baidu as the search engine (since I'm sure that's the motivation behind this).
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SOMEONE SET US UP THE BAIDU!
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
What's the point? It would be so much easier to just use android and set Baidu as the search engine (since I'm sure that's the motivation behind this).
Nah. Imagine a repressive government having control of the OS in your phone. Could you trust that your phone isn't reporting its location behind your back? (iPhone does but that is anonymous and can be disabled)
There are so many nefarious things that could be done my tinfoil had needs another layer.
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Give me something easier, like imagining a repressive corporation having control of the OS in my phone.
Evil doesn't become more palatable when it'd done for profit.
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heya,
I'm a bit confused here - did you mean Google? Because last time I checked, Android was open-source, and even has a vibrant hacking community, so I'm not exactly sure how they have "control" of the OS in your phone?
Or do you mean err...Nokia and Symbian? Or WinMo? Neither of those have ever been accused of being "repressive"...so I suspect you're simply throwing words around.
Cheers,
Victor
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Ever heard of the RIAA?
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And I was wondering why they would necessarily want to make their own smartphones at all. Google, the company, happens to be in the search business and the smartphone business (among others). Baidu happens to compete with them on search. Is there a reason, other than some irrational copycat strategy, that they would want to go and compete with Google in other markets?
I guess this could coincidentally be the profitable choice for them, but it leaves the impression that Baidu is trying to horn into Google's m
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Maybe the Chinese government saw what a great success Google had with the Nexus and wanted to get in on the action.
Or not.
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It's more like an opportunity to create a storyline where Google fails and Baidu succeeds. Even the linked article offers it up: Baidu outcompetes Google, forcing them to close shop in China. Now they're going to succeed where Google has misstepped. Or something.
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Is there a reason, other than some irrational copycat strategy, that they would want to go and compete with Google in other markets?
google isn't in the smart phone or phone OS business. they don't make money on that directly and they never will. their angle is,
1. get google apps on the phone. this will drive people to google apps on the desktop where they will see advertising.
2. lock them into google search on their phones. the number of searches coming from smart phones is becoming a significant factor. baidu can't afford to be locked out of that.
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That's probably exactly what they will do. Just take google's code and change the branding.
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What's the point? It would be so much easier to just use android and set Baidu as the search engine.
Great, now you just leaked their entire design plan.
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Then Baidu is more nationalist than the PRC government itself, as their national Linux distro is based on a joint cooperation between a Chinese, a Japanese and a South Korean companies, which is itself based on Red Hat.
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This is about flag saluting, cock waving nationalism.
Goddamn it, there go the Chinese stealing patented American IP again. :)
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This is about flag saluting, cock waving nationalism.
Goddamn it, there go the Chinese stealing patented American IP again. :)
I realize you're kidding, but I wonder how much of the actual work on Android from Google, and others, has actually been performed in China?
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Jealous, Comerade (Score:5, Funny)
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Brilliant move, and actually good for Google (Score:2, Interesting)
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Surprised at Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
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Loaded up the comments for this news report to see if anyone knew anything about the phone and was confronted with a page of comments of downright racism. I feel quite ashamed all of a sudden.
sarcasms against communism is not racisms.
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Maybe if they had communism, they clearly do not have that. What could be more capitalist than selling prisoners organs?
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China is still basically a communist country with a free market. Nearly everything is state owned. The only reason they are in the WTO is pure corporate greed. Also, it could be argued that it was necessary to prevent another arms race and potential cold war, but it looks like they are hell bent on moving in that direction anyways.
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Wowzers...
In days of yore, we'd be subjected to a GNAA troll with a goatse link and would laugh at ourselves for being fooled.
Now people get upset about the silliest jokes/trolls.
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Awe, is your pussy hurting because some people said some mean things that don't even apply to you?
Do you need to have someone rub it for you?
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Loaded up the comments for this news report to see if anyone knew anything about the phone and was confronted with a page of comments of downright racism. I feel quite ashamed all of a sudden.
Well, the comments reflect actual objective experience.
Your problem seems to be that reality has a well-known politically incorrect bias. Many an idealistic liberal has been burned by that unfortunate misfeature.
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It will randomly display inspiring images and cultural anecdotes from mao's "Little Red Book"
There's an App For That [apple.com]
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If it's a different OS, why would it run Android apps?
If you're not dominant in a market, cross-platform application compatibility is usually beneficial to you.
Android's core is based on Linux, but most apps run in the Dalvik Java VM.
Right, so if you were thinking of building a Linux based mobile OS, you wouldn't consider either using the Dalvik VM (which is open source), or writing a VM that was executable compatible with it?
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Open Source (Score:2)
uhm. Isn't that the entire idea behind Open Source?
Why wouldn't they be allowed to take the Android source code and make their own OS out of it?
As a matter of fact they can collaborate with Google on this... If I'm not mistaken it's called a "Community" which consists of "Collaborators".
Y
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Why wouldn't they be allowed to take the Android source code and make their own OS out of it?
As a matter of fact they can collaborate with Google on this... If I'm not mistaken it's called a "Community" which consists of "Collaborators".
And you would trust China to Collaborate? I don't think I would. I could however, see Chinese engineers take the existing, available AndroidOS source, ad in some goodies, and notpublish the source changes.
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Chinese engineers adding their own custom goodies? Why would I worry about that? A good portion of the source code they'll use for their "goodies" is already available on the internet!
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Given my experiences with Chinese outsourcing, that's exactly what will happen. Demanding the source will simply lead to scornful refusal.
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How dare they flaunt US Copyright law like that.
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And you would trust China to Collaborate?
And you trust Google to collaborate? You must not have read the articles about Google (whether more or less intentionally is debated) not publishing their kernel work back to the Linux community. Sorry...
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Source: http://lwn.net/Articles/357658/ [lwn.net]
Surely they have a better reputation for collaboration than China, no?
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Basically, it was about Google having made some changes to the kernel, which in turn meant that hardware companies supplying drivers for touch screens and so on had to specifically target the Android-linux variant. As a consequence, those drivers could not work under plain linux, and Google couldn't be bothered to do the work to integrate their changes upstream so it would work. ...or something along those lines. :-)
Here are a few of the articles that popped up:
* http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/02/03/193 [slashdot.org]
Red Droid! (Score:2)
Like Android but with Built in filters and state spy-ware. Fun.
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No reason to bring up the iPhone.
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Google vs China in the Linux OS market (Score:2)
Whoever loses, we win.
Glorious news everybody! (Score:2)
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Rival? (Score:1)
More like partner. Google doesn't like rivals any more than Microsoft does. If they don't break them, they will buy them.
The risk with android forks is... (Score:1)
No more marketplace access - but maybe that is there goal.
ads (Score:1)
What? Linux as it was meant to be?! (Score:2)
Seriously, I've been trying to find an open source *nix phone where you don't have to void the warranty to use it. If the Chinese make a decent one then I'll be buying it. Capitalism at its best people, Communists are allowed to play by Capitalist rules if they want to.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900 [wikipedia.org]
Lessons learned from Huawei. (Score:2)
Don't forget that Huawei once copied Cisco's IOS [wikipedia.org] including documentation [cnet.com], via stolen source code.
I wouldn't expect anything different from Baidu
The Real Question is... (Score:2)
Who'll want to create apps for it?
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Tens of thousands of Chinese developers who don't know English and don't care to learn it, targeting millions of Chinese users with the same attitude?
Chandroid? (Score:2)
Andrina?
TaikOS?
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