Skype has been outlawed in China. The popular Internet phone service is yet another Western web service that has been banned, leaving all other Internet phone calls to be made through the state-owned networks China Unicom and China Telecom. Already popular websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been blocked, and Google abandoned the Chinese market last year due to intense government pressure. By making Skype illegal, the Chinese government is effectively making services like Skype unavailable in the country. Still, the government contests that it’s helping protect users…

Okay, ‘released’ isn’t exactly the right word. But the now-mythic white iPhone 4 has been spotted in China, and it can be yours for the bargain price of up to 8000 Yuan ($1204) for the 16GB model. I don’t even wanna know how much the 64GB goes for. But considering China’s reputation as the land of knock-offs, can this be the real thing? Well, you be the judge. The boxes are marked ‘for internal use only’, and from the pictures, they’re certainly more real than any Chinese counterfeit version I’ve ever seen, by a large margin. Frankly, I’m willing to believe this is the real deal. It’s just being sold by…

Three things are now certain in life: death, paying taxes, and Chinese growth. China just so happens to be the one I’m focusing on now. And why is China so important? Video games! More specifically, Web-based video games — those time wasters that we spent hours on, which probably contributed to our economic demise and China’s incredible growth, is now invading China at a hot clip. How big can it get? The browser-based gaming market in China has already doubled from 990 million yaun ($149 million) in 2009 to 2.28 billion yaun ($343 million) in 2010. Around 15 million Chinese got their gaming on last…

Looks like the iPed’s days are numbered – Cupertino has announced from on high today that the magical iPad will soon go on sale in China. Er, the Wi-Fi models, at least, for a suggested retail price of å…ƒ3988 (16GB) to å…ƒ5588 (64GB) – only a bit more expensive than over here. Not to shabby. The official PR hucks around all the usual ‘magicals’ and whatnot, and tells you everything you’re sick to death of hearing about iPads, so I’ll spare you. But where’s the 3G at? Something tells me there’s probably a little government red tape in there, but honestly, I probably would spring for a Wi-Fi-only model…

Whenever I see the word ‘endgame’, the only thing going through my head is Highlander. I wonder why that is. Either way, that’s how the headline up there is meant to be read. Like, imagine the poster for Highlander: Endgame, and just imagine Christopher Lambert is Google, or something. “More Action! More Steamy Scenes! All-New Ending!” All-new ending. If only. “Google agreed…that it will respect China’s laws and regulations,” said Zhang Feng of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Tuesday. “That is to say, it will not provide any information that will endanger China’s…

This might have been a no-brainer for some, but the tension between China and Google has been eased when it was announced this weekend that Google’s operating license in China was renewed without issue. Guxiang is the company responsible for operating Google’s Chinese sites, and included in the license renewal application was a pledge to ensure that all sites in their jurisdiction comply with Chinese law. The law states that no company or website should aim to “subvert state power, undermine national security … or that incites ethnic hatred and secession, transmits pornography or violence”….

Today’s big thing: Google’s lights are back on in China after a longer-than-was-really-necessary-you-guys bruhaha that saw Google damn near shut down Chinese operations entirely. Long story short, Google has promised to end its auto-redirect from google.cn to the unfiltered Hong Kong site, which Chinese government officials have deemed ‘unacceptable’. At the time of writing it does still redirect (save for, like, text translation), so maybe that hasn’t gone through yet. But the good news for Google and millions of its Chinese users is that the government has approved Google’s application…

The news has been chock full this year about how China hates Google and Google hates China, but how does the largest country in the world feel about the rest of the internet? Well, not so hot either, in fact China has banned its soldiers from tweeting, blogging and online dating. Apparently, China is concerned that soldiers will be easier to compromise if they are overly available via the internet. “Soldiers should not take part in any Internet interaction, even if they try to cover up their military identities, because they cannot ensure they will not be revealing any information relating to…

For those of you following the Google Vs. China melodrama, you know the internet giant is doing its best to walk a fine line between revolutionizing search in China and getting kicked out. So far, Google’s tactic has been to redirect users from its google.cn page to google.com.hk, effectively providing uncensored search. But now Google’s Internet Content Provider license is up for renewal, and if the license is not renewed then Google’s entire presence in China will disappear. In an attempt to appease the government, Google has slightly modified the way users are sent to Google’s Hong Kong search…

Sounding more like a banned iPhone app than a tablet, the iPed is exactly what you’re probably thinking: a Chinese knockoff. Now available (!!!) in Shenzhen, China, the iPed is an Intel-driven, Android-based copycat packaged like an Apple product and, to be honest… it doesn’t look half bad. An Android device for Â¥9,600 ($105)? Yes, please. However, this device isn’t without its shortcomings. From the looks of this video, it’s mighty, mighty slow. Though allegedly powered by an Intel chip, the device apparently only sports up to 16gigs of space, and runs on 128mb of RAM – in this technological…