America gives back

The fund raising drive resulted to an overwhelming text-message donations for American Red Cross for the earthquake victims of Haiti.  Even the atlethes and the first lady joined in the campaign. 

As report, the organization had collected pledges of $103 million, about $22 million of which came through the text-messaging program (as of late Sunday). The National Football League’s promotion of text-message donations during its weekend playoff games produced stunning results, with money “coming in at the rate of $500,000 an hour,” said Roger Lowe, a Red Cross spokesman.

Photos are excerpt from google images

Google China Aftershock

The unveiling of Google mobile phones in China was postponed, obviously due to the ongoing tension.   

As per previous report, Google China is to be shut down if China continues to require censorship.  The threat came last week after Google exposed the hacking attempt to steal software coding and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists protesting Chinese policies. 

If the Google China is shut down and the distribution of its services is to be stop, it could cut off the world’s most populous country from Google through any kind of computer or phone.  This will surely hurt both Google and China market as the newly resealed Android devices are expected to attract more surfers to Google search engines and YouTube (now owned by Google) in the next decade.  China is already the world’s largest mobile phone market, with more than 700 million accounts, and its rapidly growing economy is providing more people with the means to buy the latest gadgets. “It’s a high-stakes poker game for both sides,” said Michael Grossi, director of Altman Vilandrie & Co., a telecommunications consultant). On the contrary, the showdown hasn’t hurt Google’s stock much so far. It gained $7.62 Tuesday to close at $587.62, just $3 less than its value when Google publicly challenged China. 

The aftershock could also deprive China’s people and businesses of other technology unless the parties agreed to resolve their rift over online censorship and security. 

Expert analyst Charles Golvin fined it logical for Google to hold back the selling of Android-powered phones to Asian countries as it doesn’t make sense to sell the devices in a market where key services might be restricted or unavailable.  Phone manufacturer as Motorola and Samsung also uses the Android operating system created by Google to steer people to its search engine and other services.   China Unicom Ltd. was supposed to be the carrier.  

Let’s see what happen next.  The absence of Google’s services in China may result to diversion of some sort of marketing channel.  Nonetheless, a number of Android devices have already made it to China market as Galaxy by Samsung. That phone will remain on sale.  Only this month that Nexus One was unvailed by Google.   But that device is only available in the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore and Hong Kong.  There’s no indication when Google will sell it in China or elsewhere. 

There statement mentioned by Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said at a regular news briefing.  “Foreign enterprises in China need to adhere to China’s laws and regulations, respect the interests of the general public and cultural traditions and shoulder corresponding responsibilities,” “Google is no exception.” 

China strictly prohibits computer hacking in any form.

But with all the buzz, Google remains optimistic that all these will be resolve soon.