Monthly Archives: November 2012

My attention was initially caught by this article’s title, which looked like a very innovative business. The mobile network company makes profit from users and donates part of the profit to charities; meanwhile, users also donate 10% of their bill to the charity.

Although now it is quite hard for this company to get numerous users in a short time, mainly because of its not very economical package. But I believe with the improvement of the package, there must be more and more consumers to be attracted by this double-win business, that not only meets consumer themselves’ needs, but also makes a difference to the society. As Keith Dyer said: while there was “nothing remarkable” about the packages on offer, the scheme itself may appeal to users’ philanthropic side, this is such a smart business that provides people both service and the opportunity to donate money during their “day-by-day lives”.

People would like to see more and more this type of business that is being created, and they are willing to spend their money on this business that is repaying back to the society at the same time.

Reference:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20394691

As a British luxury vehicle brand, Jaguar and land rover is quite popular in Chinese high-end market. Chery as the most famous Chinese local brand owns a huge proportion of the local market. The 1 million joint venture between these to company brings them to a milestone.

The establishment of the manufacturing plant indicates that Jaguars and Land Rovers cars will be manufactured in china, in other words fewer cars are being shipped from foreign countries, so the shipping cost could be eliminated and more profit on each car could be made. At the same time, chery is able to benefit from this double-win partnership as well; it could get some technology help from the higher-level foreign company. Jaguar takes a huge step to explore further its Chinese market.

Reference:http://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/358989/Jaguar-building-new-plant-in-China

It’s not surprised to see that eBay has agreed to partner with a Chinese firm to expand its occupation of Chinese Internet market. Because of the large potential of Chinese Internet market, foreign internet-related companies have been trying their best to occupy some part of Chinese markets for years.

China, as the largest developed country, has rapidly increasing number of Internet users nowadays. Internet has already been a necessity for people living in urban areas of China. They use it for not only communication with friends and getting lately updated information but also consuming goods. And with the increasing amount of people living in rural areas starting to explore Internet, more foreign firms begins to target this amazing market for development which have huge potential.

Just few days ago, the biggest online marketplace in China, Taobao, has announced that they have made 19.1 billion Yuan trade in one day on September 11st. That astonishing statistics signals all the firms across the world that Chinese internet market would be the choice to make if they want to make larger profit.

And why does China own such a great potential to grow? That’s large amount of population, greater amount of wealth accumulation, growing sense of happiness of Chinese people, large economic growth, low-cost labour force and the huge amount of people that have not started to use Internet make this happen. And that’s why so many international companies or banks have been making effort to explore their markets in China.

Reference: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20307571

With the release of the Ipad mini and more portable tablets, this kind of electronic device is becoming increasingly popular among students and it will be found in classroom very common. It is not surprising that the tablet is getting so popular, because it has perfect size to be carried around and users for both entertainment and academic using can easily operate it.

As a matter of fact, students are using tablets to take notes instead of using heavy laptop and traditional paper during class, and they are reading e-book rather than the actual books, which undoubtedly makes students’ study more convenient.

However, from my personal experience, sometimes the tablet becomes a huge distraction for me during class when I am supposed to take notes by this while I use this for social networking or play with some apps. This does not only happen to me, I have also seen many classmates are distracted by this as well.Moreover, as Sidneyeve Mrtrix said: some engineers still use pen and paper to take notes, since it is difficult to write equations on a computer, which is absolutely true.

Thus I would say the tablet is better for students to use as a tool for entertainment. Taking notes by pen and paper still works well all the time, it is not necessary to use the tablet in class, which might exert negative effects on students.

Reference Blog:

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/tech/105414–tablets-in-the-classroom-will-soon-be-the-norm