Shanghai Government Proposes 100 Community Hackerspaces 76
taweili writes "According to a tweet from Shanghai Morning Newspaper's Weibo account, the Shanghai Government Technology committee has issued a call for a proposal to build 100 community hackerspaces with government funding for equipment and a community managing the spaces. Hackerspaces have been growing rapidly in China since the first one, XinCheJian, was started in Shanghai last November as reported here by CNN Go. Currently there are three hackerspaces in China, with XinCheJian in Shanghai, Maxpace in Beijing and Chaihuo in Shenzhen. It looks like the governments are paying attention to the trend and are getting into supporting (or 'regulating') the movement."
The translations need some work.... (Score:1)
New destination for the trailer. (Score:5, Funny)
“You forget we're in China, there are tons of iPad clones available for a pittance in the local markets,” he says. “We modify them to match our specifications.”
Ah, to be free. Chinese couldn't be any more difficult to learn than Australian. Could it?
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You no like City Sushi?
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I'm very "Western". But - I look at this, and I wonder if that attitude will be worth much in years to come. Face it - our laws have innovators tied in knots in America. If Joe Blow comes up with something unique and exciting, he faces patent suits from Apple, Microsoft, SCO, and any number of lesser known patent trolls. In China, the government is actually getting behind these people who want to hack stuff.
Freedom? I'm watching ours being eroded, while the Chinese are beginning to explore their freedo
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Good post, ElectricTurtle. And, that is the reason I send letters to the White House, congress, ICE, and other places. Hell, I haven't flown in years - but I imagine that if I tried to board an international flight, I'd probably find that I'm on a watch list - if not the "No fly" list!
I've got a bad attitude. That comes from not being afraid of the bastards! The worst they can do is to kill you, and they can only do that once. Being dead is better than living in fear, IMO.
China (Score:2)
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When I was in Shanghai a few years ago, they had whole empty towns built outside the main city area, just waiting to be filled.
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China is doing the exact same thing that Japan did in the 90's. Banks are offering loans to create make work projects for which they will never get repaid. Eventually it will bite them just like it did with Japan.
That somehow that this is just working fine is fairy tale thinking.
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Just one tiny difference (Score:2)
There were NOT 1 billion plus Japanese.
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From what I've heard on TV shows, it's exactly what happened in the USA.
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The problem with China isn't construction projects or lending per se, it's that farmer Wang is having his land seized by corrupt officials for said projects. More and more peasant farmers in China are being driven off of their land with minimal compensation, and it's sowing unrest. Rural unrest among farmers is where every popular uprising in
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The Chinese government needs to do like the South Korean government and buy the land from the farmers - create a whole new class of nouveau riche that are willing to consume like mad.
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No, that's why they're hacking it to get more.
Bizarro world (Score:4, Insightful)
USA, land of draconian restrictions and propaganda.
Re:Bizarro world (Score:5, Insightful)
China, land of innovation and engineering.
USA, land of draconian restrictions and propaganda.
Wait, what?
Do you think those Chinese "hackerspaces" are going to be available without strings attached? Do you honestly think they won't be monitored, censored, and otherwise strictly controlled?
Absolutely. I might even be okay with that here, depending upon the nature of the strings. Anything to promote science and engineering again and maybe give the kids something to do outside of watching TV.
Or are you being "ironic" with "satire"? I can't tell. "Irony" and "satire" has been so overused these days, I don't know what the fuck to think anymore.
Frankly, I can't even tell, and I wrote it. :(
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Do you think those Chinese "hackerspaces" are going to be available without strings attached? Do you honestly think they won't be monitored, censored, and otherwise strictly controlled?
This is a FACT, at least for Xinchejian.
Re:Bizarro world (Score:4, Insightful)
China, land of innovation and engineering.
USA, land of draconian restrictions and propaganda.
USA, land of engineering AND draconian restrictions and propaganda AND a minimum wage higher than China.
China, land of cheap labor for manufacturing products based on designs engineered in US.
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Chinese 'engineering' is like their idea of 'R&D' which is what we would call copying and theft.
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Yes, have you seen the latest processors, stealth fighters, and trains produced by China? Oh wait, its the west that does all that stuff well.
China is making big strides, but acting like the west isnt leading in most technology areas is just ridiculous. High-tech is what we do BEST.
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I would say that High-tech is what corporations do best, not us. Remember the corporation is only here because it's convenient to them; there's no "Magic Western Civilization Fairy" keeping them here. China could replace us,
All of the top microprocessor firms are US-based: Intel, AMD, the former ATI, nVidia. All of the top router companies are US-based: Cisco, Juniper (Alcatel-Lucent is also western, but based in France). All of the major OS efforts are based in the west: BSD, Linux, Windows, Unix, OSX-- all came out of the west, and the biggest of those on a consumer level (Windows, OSX) are both US based. All of the major web browsers, and the major plugins (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Flash, Silverlight, Java, Quicktime) are US
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Like the famous US maglev train, and the amazing US manned space fleet? We get to see who p0wns the top 10 supercomputers tomorrow. China has more engineering graduates than the US has graduates, and real currency to back them up with.
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You mean the Maglev that was constructed by Siemens? Yea, thats totally Chinese technology.
You will find that most of the best examples of technology in China are either based off of western tech, or implemented by western companies.
first link - bad translation (Score:2)
"[Shanghai is the proposed "innovation house" to promote public hands lathe machine tool has everything you will] newspaper reported use of machine tools, lathe? Are not interested in DIY a stool? Shanghai Science and Technology Commission plans to "second five" during the construction of 100 "innovation house", each area of not less than 100 square meters, equipped with wood lathes, metal lathes, saws and drill grinding combined machine, milling machine and other too
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What the hell... (Score:4, Interesting)
...is a "hackerspace".
Re:What the hell... (Score:4, Informative)
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'Innovation' appears to be how well they can copy western tech (and related).
http://www.ruijienetworks.com/about/MarketStatus.aspx [ruijienetworks.com]
Ruijie claims to be getting government awards for being innovative but they actually have copy and paste of Juniper pictures and text on their website.
Re:What the hell... (Score:4, Informative)
hackerspaces.org [hackerspaces.org].
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If it were the USA... (Score:2, Redundant)
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Making for personal use and research is protected.
I don't believe it is
Brown & Michaels Frequently Asked Questions on PATENTS [bpmlegal.com] says: "It [A patent] is a right to stop others from making, using or selling - any one of these. Thus, even if an infringer were to make the invention in a foreign country, he could not sell it in the USA. Similarly, it is still an infringement if the invention is made in this country but exported immediately, or if a person buys the invention overseas and uses it in the USA for their own use - there is no "personal use" excep
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Is this going to work? (Score:5, Insightful)
My experience with hackerspaces and government officials is that they really don't think the same way. One is all about breaking the rules and the other is all about living within them. I suppose it's possible for government to fund them and let them loose but it is certainly out of character. Big money tends to draw corruption too and that's death to a knowledge sharing environment.
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better to keep your enemies close...by building them spaces where they can do there thing, fully observed and understood.
China is run by an engineer (Score:3)
China is run by an engineer. The US is run by a not-terribly-successful lawyer. That's all you need to know. I bet Obama (let alone his predecessors) doesn't even know what a "hackerspace" is and what it could be useful for.
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You appear to be operating under the misapprehension that 'hackerspace' is a negative term. Quite the contrary, there are plenty of self-described hackerspaces in the US.
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You know that "hackerspace" is an already existing term, right? /. mods didn't choose to mash together "china" with "hacker" in this article based on some agenda. It's an existing thing that already has a name, and some are in China.
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Hackerspaces [hackerspaces.org]
China needs to do some thing about there copys (Score:1)
China needs to do some thing about there cheap knockoff copy's of others stuff.
And what makes you think if some one in this space does some thing that china does not like that they well will live to much longer the gov can make there death look like accidents and then say the hacker spaces need people on site to make them safer (read cops ready to stop some from thinning the wrong way)
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China needs to do some thing about there cheap knockoff copy's of others stuff.
And what makes you think if some one in this space does some thing that china does not like that they well will live to much longer the gov can make there death look like accidents and then say the hacker spaces need people on site to make them safer (read cops ready to stop some from thinning the wrong way)
The U.S. needs to do something about their educational system if they want to stay in the game.
China doesn't have to do anything, especially not care about foreign patents.
They are eating your lunch and there is nothing you can do about it until you are willing to work twice as hard for half the wage. Whining about rules and rights is not going to take you anywhere.
its going to be interesting development (Score:2)
planning/thinking and action are two different things, we've witnessed a lot of thinking at XinCheJian..
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"we've been forked" - cool
slashdoted (Score:2)
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just added in a proxy thomas, waiting for the primary dns to get updated... thanks though :)
Good Idea (Score:2)
Hey, can I get some of that over here? Subsidizing a group to foster technical innovation in the general population is just what this country needs. I'd totally join a hackerspace, but the $50+ / month doesn't sound like a good deal to me. If gov't spending were to bring that down then maybe I'd be ready to join, and who knows what could happen from there?
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in a way it's a super cheap education..
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Just scrolled through the list at http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_ALL_hackerspaces [hackerspaces.org] . Took a peak at a couple of the active ones in Norway, and they are operated by university level student societies. See a potential for hackerspace ranges: open-closed/simple-advanced/chaotic-orderly. Would be a nice fit as a "club" type thing in college aswell.
This hackerspace: http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/ [ifi.uio.no] in Oslo apparently does "education fair" type work at http://www.gathering.org/ [gathering.org] everey year.
We are building a new lib
bad translation (Score:1)