With the 2008 Olympics under way, it is becoming increasingly irritating to hear presenters on TV and radio pronouncing the name of the Chinese capital with a French-sounding “j”. It is as if they think, “Beijing is a foreign word, so it must be pronounced in a foreign way”, and as French is the most [...]
Yahoo’s photo service closed for good on 18 October in favour of the Flickr photo sharing site, also owned by Yahoo. Users had been given some warning, and were given the option of transferring their photos to Flickr or to another photo-sharing site, or ordering a CD with all their images on it. Many users [...]
As of earlier this month, the Chinese authorities appear to have blocked access to Flickr. More specifically, Flickr images are blocked, but the rest of the site (all the text content) is still available. The reason for the ban seems to be that some photos of the Tiananmen Square massacre were posted on the site [...]
We often hear about the “Great Firewall of China”, the filter put in place by Chinese censors to prevent access to material that is disapproved of by the Chinese government. For example, there is no access to BBC News. However, for those in the West, it’s usually only possible to read media reports, or hear [...]
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