SARS Technica: A China Tech Blog

There's something ingenius about taking an 'O' and making it a 'C.'  It's so subtle. So clever. It boggles the mind with possibilities: Orec cookies anyone? Maybe a little Cvaltine to wash it down?  Ok, maybe not. But that's generally the idea behind this 'Viac' 'Vaic,' a shanzhai version of the tiny Sony Viao.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you're likely familiar with the unusual phenomenon of inventive Chinese farmers. For some reason, these rural inventors are grabbing more headlines than most Chinese tech companies. Well, here's another distinguished farmer to follow in that tradition.

This particular pear producer isn't going to let any economic downturn get the best of his crop sales. His baby buddha pears are selling like hotcakes, and he's doing so well that he now hopes to take them overseas. Check the photos:

What's hairy, forbidden, and red all over?  Why, it's this replica Tian'anmen Gate built entirely out of leftover hair clippings! (Sorry, I hope I didn't disappoint any Anne of Green Gables fanboys out there.)

The latest viral video to come out of China features a young man's unique marriage proposal, created by making a sort of LED screen out of hundreds of cell phones. The display was then programmed to display a surprise romantic message to the unsuspecting girlfriend. Check out the video and see for yourself:

Many of you are likely familiar with the case of the American student from Berkley back in April of 2008 who when he was taken into custody by Egyptian police managed to send out a short tweet via SMS saying "Arrested." Subsequently his embassy and the press were notified and he was eventually released (see CNN story) thanks to his twitter distress call.

Yesterday in China there was a very similar situation, where blogger Peter Guo, who goes by the twitter handles amoiist, sent out the following plea for help:

Here's yet another Chinese 'Shanzhai' creation for you viewing pleasure. This time it's the much anticipated iPhone Nano, the device that the world seems to think Apple will inevitably produce. Nevermind that it doesn't exist yet, that's no reason to refrain from copying it. The folks down in Shenzhen are getting into this knock-off market early by trying to envision what an Apple iPhone Nano might look like, and then copying that vision.

With the protests in Iran, there has been a lot of discussion in the news of late about the power of technology in circumventing government control and censorship. Of course no one knows this kind of censorship better than Chinese netizens, especially after these past few weeks that saw the blocking of popular social media sites and the introduction of the 'Green Dam' filtering software.

in the face of such censorship, some more creative Chinese netizens (I have no idea who, or how many) have used Google Docs to release a declaration of war against this government imposed internet filtering.

The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece earlier this week entitled 'China Squeezes PC Makers' where they outlined the Chinese governments' recent requirement that PC makers to ship their machines with internet filtering software. The Green Dam software is intended to filter out explicit language and pornographic images, but early user reports indicate that this software might not be as slick as many might have expected.

China has a lot of secrets that it sweeps under the national rug, but here is one of the most unusual ones. According to World Mysteries, the existence of these pyramids had been rumored for years with one of the most intriguing reports coming from an American pilot half a century ago.

Move over Japan. China's making huge strides in the field of weird and wacky. Check out this crazy bicycle with a pentagonal wheel on the the front and a triangular one on the back. It was developed by Chinese inventor Guan Baihua who believes that people will want to ride the bike because it requires more effort than a conventional bike, and thus provides a greater workout for the rider.