TWO MORE FAKE APPLE STORES POP UP IN CHINA;

After American expat BirdAbroad made her local stores famous last week in China's province of Kunming, local officials have since been combing through the city's 300-plus gadget shops on behalf of Apple China, and managed to dig up two more "Apple" stores. It's not exactly clear if these new offenders are at the same severity as the ones spotted by BirdAbroad, but the authorities have confirmed that none of the five stores are Apple Authorised Resellers, let alone having its permission to use its logo on their store front.

Additionally, two out of the five stores have since been shut down due to unlicensed retail operation. The fate of the remaining three is still unknown -- the officials have only concluded that no KIRF products have been found in the stores, though details such as the decor and staff uniform are certainly very similar to those of the real deal. Well, we're glad they agree, but this is only just the beginning -- BirdAbroad has since gathered photos of more sketchy Apple stores across the world, so go take a gander.

HUGE RARE EARTH MINERAL DEPOSITS FOUND IN PACIFIC OCEAN

Every time someone goes out and buys a new TV, laptop, iPad, Android smartphone, or any such device they are using up some of our rare earth minerals which these gadgets require to work. They are called rare not because there is only a small amount on earth, but because the deposists are small and therefore require a lot of mining to recover very little.

Another problem exists in the fact China holds about 97% of the rare earth mineral market, and it decides how much exits the country. This pushes up prices and makes it more difficult for companies outside of China to not only manufacture enough devices, but also to keep the costs of those gadgets competitive.

It will come with great relief then, to hear that Japanese researchers have found very rich deposits of rare earth minerals as well as the metal yttrium. In total around 26 sites located in the international waters of the Pacific Ocean have been found to have high concentrations buried between 3,500 and 6,000 meters beneath the sea bed.

The deposits are so rich they are thought to increase our reserves by 1000x. Current reserves are estimated at 110 million tonnes, but this new discovery adds another 100 billion tons.

Not only does this take the pressure off in terms of finding alternatives in the near future, the locations of the deposits near Hawaii and Tahiti means the reliance on Chinese exports will be removed. Prices should fall and competition will not be influenced by a lack of supply.

CHINA'S LEADING SEARCH ENGINE, BAIDU, TO PARTNER WITH BING FOR ENGLISH SEARCHES

A year and a half after Google pulled its popular search engine out of mainland China, partly over concerns about censorship, its rival Microsoft has struck a deal with the biggest Chinese search engine, Baidu.com, to offer Web search services in English.

Baidu, previously primarily a Chinese-language search engine, made the announcement Monday afternoon, saying Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, was expected to appear on Baidu’s Web pages by the end of this year.

Baidu, which dominates Chinese-language search services here with about 83 percent of the market, has been trying for years to improve its English-language search services because English searches on its site are as many as 10 million a day, the company said.

GOOGLE ADMITS SOME SENSITIVE EMAILS HACKED; BLAMES CHINA

The Contagio security blog posted evidence back in February of targeted attacks against government and military officials on Gmail. Today, nearly four months later, Google has finally admitted this is true: hundreds of personal accounts have been compromised by hackers it believes to be working out of Jinan, the capital of China's Shandong province.

The accounts include those of "senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists." The hijackers' aim appears to have been to spy on their targets using Google's automatic forwarding function. But unlike the PSN fiasco, Google insists its internal systems "have not been affected." Instead it seems the hackers used a phishing scam, possibly directing users to a spoof Gmail website before requesting their credentials.

Google says its own "abuse detection systems" disrupted the campaign -- but in a footnote right down at the bottom of their official blog page they also credit Contagio and user reports.

China's Foreign Minister, Hong Lei responded with a statement saying "Allegations that the Chinese government supports hacking activities are completely unfounded and made with ulterior motives."

FOXCONN ASKS WORKERS TO SIGN "NO-SUICIDE" PLEDGE

Foxconn has a problem on their hands. Too many of their workers wind up getting sick or deciding to kill themselves because of the long hours and stressful work involved with manufacturing products they know the world markets demand.

The company has already tried boosting wages to increase employee morale, but now company management has another trick up their sleeves: “no suicide” pledges that every employee has to sign. The wage increases apparently haven’t changed the core working conditions at Foxconn plants in China, and at least 14 workers have committed suicide in the past 16 months.

Foxconn is notable because they manufacture Apple iPads and iPhones, among other Apple products. Employees are not only subject to high demand and a fast-moving assembly line, but also are required to work in utmost secrecy, especially when a new product is beginning a manufacturing run.

That’s not the end of the story, either: the Centre for Research on Multinational Companies and Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour did a study of Foxconn’s facilities and found that the problem was systemic. Workers were forced to work overtime hours, with one employee clocking in over 98 hours of overtime in a single month, and during peak iPad demand workers were only able to take one day off every 13 days. Other workers were forced to stand during their entire 12-hour shifts.

Unfortunately, none of those problems are issues that a signed pledge that a worker won’t kill themselves can actually fix. The pledge itself was a response by management to studies documenting the working conditions at Foxconn’s Chinese plants. Management also claims that while they admit to breaking the overtime laws, they claim it’s voluntary and the employees want to work long hours.

They have also said that some employees commit suicide not because of the working conditions, but because they want to net their surviving families big compensation payments from the company. Management also points to the anti-suicide “nets” that have been put up around the Foxconn dormitory buildings where the employees stay as an example of their desire to protect workers.

A “no suicide” pledge is a far cry from a fix to Foxconn’s problems, and social observers and international human rights groups claim the company isn’t doing enough to spread the workload out across more workers or pay current workers what they’re really worth. Apple’s own investigation noted that Foxconn may be failing to meet Apple’s own supplier code of conduct. Regardless, demand for iPads and iPhones is still high, and with a new iPhone on the horizon, it’s doubtful there’ll be a long term fix to Foxconn’s HR problems in the near future.

GLOBAL RARE EARTH MINERAL SUPPLY DEFICIT SHOULD TURN TO A SURPLUS BY 2013

It looks like rare earth elements are getting slightly less rare. According to a research note released by Goldman Sachs today, the world's rare earth supply deficit will probably reach its apex this year, before converting into a surplus by 2013.

Goldman's analysts constructed their projections based on evidence that many Western companies have begun building their own mines, in response to China's overwhelming market dominance. Today, the People's Republic produces about 90-percent of the world's rare earth minerals -- a group of 17 elements that are used to manufacture many of the flat screen TVs, hybrids and cellphones we've come to know and love.

Over the course of the past few years, China has only consolidated its hold on the industry, thanks to economic policies aimed at nationalizing private mines and implementing restrictive export quotas. As a result, global rare earth prices have skyrocketed, forcing mining companies in the US and elsewhere to look inward and harvest their own deposits.

The only downside, however, is that even if global supply spills into a surplus within the next two years, prices probably won't cool down until 2015. But at least the horizon looks brighter than it has in recent months.

JESSE JACKSON JR. BLAMES iPAD FOR HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT

You know how ebooks are gradually taking over paper books as the most popular format for the consumption of the written word? Well, that's bad, mmkay? Publishers, librarians, and booksellers are losing their jobs and It's all entirely the iPad's fault. Forget the Kindle's millions of sales, the iPad did it. In a technophobic rant to rival all technophobic rants that have come before it, Illinois Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. accuses the iPad's popularity for the current level of unemployment in his nation, before proceeding to sculpt a rickety argument about how the First Amendment to the US Constitution is being exploited for the benefit of China. Check out the spectacle for yourself:

CHINA DENIES TAMPERING WITH GMAIL

On Monday, Google expressed its belief that its email users in China were experiencing "a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail." Now, as is par for this thorny course, the Chinese state has come out with a terse rebuttal, saying simply that "this is an unacceptable accusation." The retort was, says the BBC, part of a regular news conference on Tuesday and it doesn't appear that any more time was spent on the subject.

GOOGLE SAYS CHINA BLOCKING GMAIL

Google and China have a long history of conflict stemming from the work of Chinese hackers to gain access to the inboxes of thousands of Gmail-using political dissidents… a conflict which finally resulted in Google pulling itself from the country.

Now the search giant is accusing the Chinese government of hacking Gmail and disrupting service to the popular webmail provider because of fears of a “jasmine revolution,” or an uprising of the oppressed similar to that which has happened over the course of the last month in Middle Eastern countries like Libya, Egypt, etc.

China’s interference with Google makes it appear as if Google’s services are having technical problems, even when they’re not. Users and advertisers within China have complained about numerous technical issues plaguing Gmail within the country, including difficulty sending messages, marking messages as read, and so on.

Google says there is no problem with the service on their end. In fact, they explicitly say it’s because China is blocking Gmail, but trying to make it look like they’re not involved.

“Relating to Google there is no issue on our side. We have checked extensively. This is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail,” said a Google spokesperson.

This is just another in a long line of moves on the part of the Chinese government to suppress the Internet’s ability to coordinate political dissident. Consequently, China has been doing everything possible to lock Western companies like Google out of the country, even having gone so far as to launch their own search engine, Panguso, through the state run China Mobila telecom.

CHINA NATIONALIZES RARE EARTH MINES

Rare earth minerals can be found in almost every modern electronic device from computers to TVs and hybrid vehicles. Unfortunately, most of the world's supply of these 11 minerals are in China, who recently nationalized the rare earth mines. According to the Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources the nationalization of the facilities was prompted by illegal strip mining and dumping of toxic tailings in nearby waterways. However, China has stated previously they want to reduce rare earth exports by ten percent, inflating the prices.

Japan and the US are working together to find alternatives to these minerals to break China's monopoly.

GEINIMI TROJAN APPEARS IN CHINA; AFFECTS ANDROID DEVICES

A new trojan virus called Geinimi has appeared in China aimed at Android. The trojan is spreading via third party app markets. Geinimi has been repackaged to look like a popular game, but is in fact a trojan virus. The official versions of these games on the Android Market are fine, it’s the repackaged versions on third-party networks that carry the Trojan and need to be avoided. Examples of the games are:

• Monkey Jump 2
• Sex Positions
• President vs. Aliens
• City Defense
• Baseball Superstars 2010

Lookout Mobile Security, who identified the threat, is still looking into what Geinimi can do. This is what they have found it can do so far:

• Send location coordinates (fine location)
• Send device identifiers (IMEI and IMSI)
• Download and prompt the user to install an app
• Prompt the user to uninstall an app
• Enumerate and send a list of installed apps to the server

Lookout also points out this is the most advanced Trojan they have seen yet for Android even if it was quite obvious to spot by the security company. [Geek]

A group of 17 minerals in the rare earth category go into everything from missile guidance systems and mobile phones, to flat screen TVs, lasers and new energy technology. Pending scarcity— driven by increases in global demand, and China’s near-monopoly on the minerals market— could lead to prices that eat into industry margins, a slow down for clean tech projects worldwide, and diplomatic clashes between supplier nations (China) and buyer nations (U.S., Germany and Japan).

Rare earth minerals are essential to build photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, fuel cells and vehicle batteries. As widely reported, including by the Geosociety, BBC and the New York Times, some 97% of the global supply of rare earth minerals now comes from China.

Canada, Australia and the U.S. used to have more global market share, and rare earth minerals mines but the relative value of the currency, and relaxed-to-poor environmental regulation of mines in China made sourcing there favorable for buyers.

A trade war is imminent, James Burnell of the Colorado Geological Survey explained in a Geosociety report:

“China is preparing to build 330 giga-watts worth of wind generators. That will require about 59,000 tons of neodymium to make high-strength magnets — more than that country’s annual output of neodymium. China supplies the world with a lot of those rare earth elements, like neodymium, and will have little or none to export if it moves ahead with its wind power plans…So the source for the West is problematical.”

Earlier this month, during the East Asia Summit, Chinese officials told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Beijing aims to be a reliable minerals supplier and would not impose bans on exports of industrial minerals for political purposes. Sec. Clinton reportedly expressed gratitude, but requested further details on China’s export policies and new assurances.

Today, Reuters reported, 35 global business and trade associations— including the Consumer Electronics Association and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and other major consumers of rare earth minerals— called on the Group of 20 (G-20) summit of the world’s 20 largest economies to address scarcity and trade war concerns at their forthcoming meeting, Nov. 11-12 in Seoul.

Officials from Japan and Germany have already complained that their automotive, and clean tech industries have been adversely impacted by China’s tightening of mineral exports. China has denied the implications of market manipulation and political motivations to reign in mineral exports. The country’s officials said China was trying to control some of the negative environmental impacts of mining, instead. [TechCrunch]

DRIVERLESS VAN GOES 8,000 MILES FROM ITALY TO CHINA

The Visilab team left Italy back in July with an EV autonomous orange van.  They have arrived in China after going through places like Moscow and the Gobi Desert.  The EV van used an array of laser scanners, cameras and GPS to navigate with minimal human intervention.  Since the vehicles are EV they made the trip without having to stop for fuel, but the range was limited to four hours before they had to stop to recharge.  The trip was 8,078 miles (13,000km).  Pretty impressive! [Engadget]