Going to Beijing for the upcoming Olympic games? Well, if you weren’t aware, China is not a democracy. Their nation-wide firewall leaves access to certain websites blocked, dulling your internet experience. No worries, thanks to Germany’s Chaos Computer Club’s USB dongle dubbed The Freedom Stick. For just $30, this device is preloaded with software which will secure your connection, routing traffic around the world through anonymous computers. The commies will never know what hit ‘em.

The stick will only be available during the games, which hopefully won’t piss the Chinese government off too much.  It’s not made of LEGOs and it’s not a Bluetooth adapter, but it’ll be more productive at a fraction of the price.  Be warned: if you find yourself in a Chinese prison for messing with their networks, the Chaos Computer Club will not bail you out and neither will your own government.

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Two new buildings are being built in Tinajin, China that are sure to rival the Dubai tower in design. The 1175-foot Sinosteel International Plaza and the 288-foot hotel next to it may not be as tall as the Ultima tower, but they’ve got something to prove with the hexagonal windows installed in them. The windows are placed in such a way that will take the most advantage of the sun and wind that it possibly can, allowing the structure to use as little energy as possible from conventional energy sources.

The Chinese architects, MAD Ltd, came up with this innovative honeycomb design for their windows not only for energy efficiency but also for stability and space. I’m hoping they’re shatter-proof in the event that someone throws a wild mud wrestling party in one of the hotel rooms.
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Nelson Yrizarry is pretty decent at his LEGO crafting. This Chinese Lion, typically found at Chinese New Year celebrations worldwide, is constructed from an assload of LEGOs and features intricate details. Maybe if we team Nelson up with that dude who built his own submarine, they’ll make one out of LEGOs that works. I wonder if it’s ever been attempted before…

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The Chinese are incredibly smart and tactile. My roommate must be the one exception to the rule, though. I went to brush my teeth the other day and found him building a server rack inside our shower. After some frustration, I skipped that and went straight for the coffee. Sure enough, the coffee maker was rigged with an Arduino and a USB plug. What a commie!

But when it comes to DIY, the Chinese dont fuck around - except for my roommate. I mean look at this dude. He made a one-man submarine from old metal barrels. Who does that? His new pad includes oxygen supply, headlights, monitoring cameras and a TV set. All it needs now is a mini-fridge and a bong for it to become the underwater dorm room.

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Comparing to Nokia, LG is doing a far better job in handling illegal “replicas”. That is, they act before the replicas had the chance to become popular, before their own product starts selling, and most importantly before they have to hire a law firm. Across the Easter weekend LG has issued a warning letter to shops in Hong Kong warning them from carrying the SHINE clone (a clone from a mainland Chinese company), the shops were so freaked out and removed the stock so fast that we didn’t even have the chance to figure out what they’re called, how they looked like. If Nokia is Nokir, does that make LG Shine Shinier? –Sam Chan

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You’ve got to give it to them, Chinese companies these days are just commercializing phones that we’ve all just dreamed of at some stage. We had the Nokia N73 clone — Nokir E828 that packed an even larger touch screen with a decent camera at an unbeatable price; we had a cigarette pack incorporated to a phone. Today we came across this Thunder Super Radio HiFi phone with a huge huge huge soundblaster, built on the back, that is extremely loud and clear. The screen is a 2.4″ TFT and the camera is of 1.3 megapixels. The phone takes microSD cards, and can play MP3 and MP4. The extra screen on the back can display track information such as artist and song title. For now we do not have much details about the phone, apart from the fact that it’s being sold in Taiwan and runs on Dualband GSM. More pictures after the jump.

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In large cities it’s not uncommon to see people carrying 2 phones, one for work and one for personal use (or one for each significant other). We’ve seen phones that can take 1 GSM card and 1 CDMA card from LG and Samsung, but Chinese company Doubao unveiled this 728 phone that takes 2 GSM SIM cards at the same time. You will be able to receive calls and messages from either account, and they need not be on the same different network. Take note that when you are on the phone with one line, the other line will be diverted to your voicemail automatically, but that’s expected.

The Doubao 728 comes with a 2.2″ QVGA touch-screen with Chinese handwriting recognition, a 0.3MP camera for snapshots, and microSD card slot for your data and music. The 728 is a dualband phone and is only being sold in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan SIM-free for about $170 now. — Sam Chan

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