kai

An outspoken opponent of censorship in China, Kai-Fu Lee has responded to a ban from social networks in his homeland by inviting his 30 million followers to follow him on Twitter.

Lee, the former chief of Google's China division, was banned from China-based Weibo and a Tencent service for three days after using the microblogging services to complain about state controls over the Internet. It's not clear who ordered the ban, but suspicion has fallen on the government, which heavily limits Internet access inside the country.

"I've been silenced on Sina and Tencent for three days, … Read more

If you thought Nvidia was just a little too ambitious when it indicated that we'd have $199 Tegra 3 tablets by the second half of the year, this next bit might surprise you. Nvidia's Vice President Rob Csongor, speaking with investors last week, revealed that such an animal is already in production.

To be clear, I'm not talking about one particular tablet or piece of hardware expected to come to market. Called Kai, Nvidia's initiative should be considered more of a platform or strategy at this point.

Though product specifics haven't been fleshed out completely, Nvidia believes it can potentially deliver quad-core Tegra 3 tablets at the all-important $199 price point later this year. Fully realized, this would give consumers a variety of high-powered Android 4.0 tablets with Kindle Fire price tags. … Read more

book review There are few former Microsoft executives who have sparked the ire of the software giant as much as Kai-Fu Lee.

In 2005, Microsoft sued to block Lee, who founded Microsoft's China research lab in 1998 and moved to its Redmond, Wash., headquarters two years later, from joining nemesis Google.

Lee wrote a book about his life, including details of his Microsoft experience, called "Making A World Of Difference," that was published in Chinese two years ago with little notice in the West. He has just released an English version of the book, translated by Crystal … Read more

Google is working on launching a new data exchange, AdAge is reporting.

Data exchanges are not new. The services allow Web site owners to sell data on their users to potential advertisers. So, rather than buying a single banner ad at the top of the page for all to see, data exchanges allow advertisers to target specific portions of the site's audience, such as stay-at-home parents living in Montana or people shopping for a new smartphone.

Citing "executives" with knowledge of Google's plans, AdAge says that the search giant is calling its data exchange "DDP&… Read more

Sure, every blogger worth his salt has weighed in on the long-rumored Apple tablet that may or may not be--its possible size, shape, specs, debut date, and on and on. Now offering up a perspective on the matter is a high-profile tech industry executive, Kai-fu Lee, who until recently was the head of Google's China operations.

It seems that Lee, who's now working to foster entrepreneurship in China, wrote on his Chinese language blog earlier this week that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be releasing a tablet PC in January, and expects to produce a voluminous 10 million … Read more

Kai-Fu Lee, the president of Google's Greater China operation and the subject of a bitter employee custody battle between Google and Microsoft, will leave the search giant later this month.

Lee, who left Microsoft in 2005 to take over Google's operations in China, is resigning from the company to start his own venture and will be succeeded by a Google employee, the company confirmed Thursday evening. Lee's departure was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

"With a very strong leadership team in place, it seemed a very good moment for me to move to the … Read more

Good tools are a necessity in the kitchen. They save time, heartache, and money in the long run. A good knife, in particular, can really make or break your food preparation--which, in turn, can determine whether your meal inspires or falls flat.

When it comes to serving, I often choose form over function. But knives? Forget it. I don't care how much a knife costs; I care how well it cuts. For slicing tomatoes and cucumbers for Israeli salad, for example, I use the world's cheapest knives, purchased in a four-pack in Israel years ago. But sometimes, you … Read more

It's always nice to have the right tool for the job. Anybody who has ever tried mashing potatoes with a spoon or mincing garlic with a fork can certainly attest to that. While it might be obvious that a peeler is a necessary tool for the kitchen, sometimes it's the little things we overlook.

The Kai Ultimate Wide Peeler available for $19.95 at Williams-Sonoma is an oversized utensil designed for specific tasks. Capable of producing buge slices of cheese, chocolate, or vegetables, this peeler is more versatile than the average standard-sized variety. Additionally, the extra-wide 4.25-inch … Read more

A trio of mobile companies including two global giants will collaborate to find more ways to profit from and develop mobile phone-based internet use, the Financial Times reported.

Vodafone, the biggest-earning mobile company, China Mobile, the company with the largest user base, and Softbank, the third-place Japanese carrier, form the coalition.

FT writes, "The collaboration underlines how mobile operators are keen to stop internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo dominating the provision of potentially lucrative services on the wireless internet."

Indeed, Google is working on ever more wireless applications. At WWW2008 in Beijing on Wednesday, Google'… Read more