Archives: April 2006

Nintendo's Wii: What's in a name?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 28

You've heard the old saw about Chevrolet's marketing faux pas in Latin America. The story goes that the Chevy Nova didn't sell well in Spanish-speaking countries because the car's...

China's cat killer and the latest Net crackdown

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 28

I learned something new this week: China has a snuff video problem. There’s a propaganda campaign underway in China right now, with online companies pledging to keep the Net clean...

Time Warner and News Corp. help China with its “Cultural Deficit”

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 22

A few days ago I blogged about the news that Time Warner’s AOL, which has been very low-profile in China since the collapse of its joint venture with Legend a...

Lenovo's two-front war

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 21

Ever since he took over as Lenovo CEO in December, Bill Amelio has been busy repositioning the Chinese PC maker for the U.S. market. He’s launched a new line of...

The Sony TV that wasn't...yet

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 19

There's been a lot of talk from TV makers about the potential of organic electro-luminescent displays. That's because at some point in the future, electronics makers think they can refine...

AOL gets back into China

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 18

AOL and the Shanghai Media Group have announced plans for AOL to carry SMG programming on the U.S. company’s Chinese-language site. Government-owned SMG is the biggest fish in China’s media...

The Red and the Black

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 16

With Chinese President Hu Jintao traveling at the end of the month to the U.S. for a much-anticipated summit with President Bush, China is supposed to be defusing trade tensions,...

Lenovo teams up with Best Buy

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 12

Lenovo’s U.S. push is gathering momentum. Not long ago, the Chinese computer maker launched a new line of desktops and notebooks, part of Lenovo’s effort to build up its U.S....

Haier invests in South Carolina

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 12

If ever a Chinese company needed a new brand, it’s white-goods and consumer-electronics maker Haier. The company is a success story, with its refrigerators and washing machines and TVs selling...

This is no androgynous droid!

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 11

Move over Doutzen Kroes! This droid is bound for stardom. A few days ago, Japanese robot creator Tomotaka Takahashi took the wraps off FT (short for Female Type), his...

PSP buzz

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 11

The new features for Sony's PlayStation Portable were hardly out of the box before the rumor mill went into overdrive. Now comes talk that Sony is working on a new...

Awaiting Divine intervention at Taobao

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 08

Recently we ran a story in BW about the troubles that eBay has been having in China. The big problem for eBay is Jack Ma, the fast-talking former schoolteacher from...

Microsoft's game show in Tokyo

Posted by: Kenji Hall on April 06

Microsoft trotted out the big guns of the video gaming world for a new Xbox 360 marketing push in Japan. And what a show it turned out to be....

Apple's latest victim

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 06

Quick: What Asian company is the biggest threat to Apple and the iPod? My guess is that most people would answer Samsung or Sony. But when it comes to...

Any color you want as long as it's green

Posted by: Ian Rowley on April 06

In the era of the hybrid car and global warming--not to mention rising gas prices--Japanese carmakers don't need to be asked twice to talk up their tree-hugging credentials. Just look...

China enters the Ice Age

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 03

Back in the late 1940s, when they took over Shanghai and ended Western domination of the city, one of the first things Mao’s Communists did was purge Shanghai of its...