As part of a global anti-piracy initiative, Microsoft announced that it would launch an updated version of the anti-piracy systems Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) and, for the first time in China, also introduce the Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) which is aimed at targeting pirate versions of Microsoft Office including Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007. The company made the announcement last week and the new system came into effect at midnight on Monday.

A wave of consternation swept through Internet chat rooms after the announcement, with netizens worried that the constant appearance of a “black screen” would interrupt their ability to use their PC. Forum and BBS users came up with satirical black screen-themed desktop backgrounds to display their opposition to the new anti-piracy measures and various online polls registered strong opposition to the move.

Experts estimate that there are a million iPhones in China. Based on my last trip to Ghost Street, that’s about right. It seemed like every third Da Ge and Xiao Mei had a silver and black thing placed precariously close to some sesame sauce. I myself live in an apartment where 75% of roommates own an iPhone, putting us in the running for the most obnoxious apartment in Beijing. But, living with two other iPhone users has been great for troubleshooting this sometimes-tricky device.

Mine was bought in the States and brought back for me. I had it cracked by the friend of a Bai Nao Hui stall owner for RMB 200 back when you needed to attach a tape-like chip to your SIM card to use your local number. Now, it’s easy to crack the phone using a wireless connection and free online software. Installing Chinese language ability is also quite easy. The best input software I’ve seen is called WeFit and can be downloaded by the Installer program from the source http://www.iphone.org.hk.

image Steven Schwankert

Two weeks after the opening of the world's largest Adidas store at the Village in Sanlitun, China's first official Apple store is set to open in the same development. The store, which is split over two floors, will officially open at 10am this coming Saturday, July 19. According to Steven Schwankert, who took a look around the store earlier this week and reports on what he found over at PC World, although no iPhones will be available, Beijing consumers will be able to get their hands on the complete range of Apple computers and iPods, including the iPod Touch.

According to this report in today's Beijing Times, Beijing residents and Olympic visitors will be able to take advantage of free wireless internet throughout large sections of central Beijing during the Olympics. The first phase of the roll out of free internet, part of the Wireless City WiCity initiative (thanks to Banyue at Danwei for the correction and link to the official site), will begin testing today. The area covered in the first phase (see map above) includes the second and third ring roads, the CBD, Financial Street, Zhongguan Cun and the Wangjing Economic and Technological Development Zone. Areas of Xuanwu and Yizhuang are also covered in this first phase which offers high-speed wireless services over an area of around 100 square km.

Starting from today, people in the areas mentioned above can use the new system to get online and come the Olympics the wireless service will be available for free. China Comm, the company behind the project, have also announced that after the Olympics, they plan to extend the wireless zone to first cover everywhere within the fifth ring road by 2009 and then cover the whole city by the end of 2010.

We noticed over at Shanghaiist that Google China have teamed up with Chinese movie site M Time to unveil a new service that allows you to search for movie screening times at a good selection of cinemas in major cities across China. All you need to do is enter the Chinese name of the movie you're interested in seeing – for example, say you want go and see Jackie Chan and Jet Li's The Forbidden Kingdom (Gongfu zhiwang 功夫之王) – after you've entered 功夫之王 into the search box of the main Google China page, you'll see this screen and if you click on the first entry 功夫之王在北京市的放映时间 you'll find this page which contains all the details of screening times at 35 cinemas around Beijing. You can search for screenings on a particular day in the future and also for all movies being shown at cinemas across Beijing.

The service is only available in Chinese and replicates (admittedly with more cinemas) what Sina has been doing for quite some time. Of course, you can always find movie screening times in English every week as part of the Beijinger's regular Tuesday Film Roundup.

I haven't really been paying much attention to the Chinese Google site of late and took this chance to have a look around. The site offers some useful functions for those who can recognize Chinese characters including a handy "directions search" attached to Google Ditu and also the search options available through Google Shenghuo that includes search tabs for housing, jobs and restaurants in Beijing as well as plane tickets. New additions to the main Google.cn page include the presence of 7 colored points below the main search box. The first four are for features that I was already familiar with: Google's video, image, news and map search functions. The other three are relatively new and include a blog search function, a page devoted to "top ten" rankings that have been culled both from popular search items on Google and other sources, and a guide to useful websites.

On Tuesday commuters waiting for bus numbers 723 and 458 were met with a pleasant surprise, as instead of the regular old bus pulling into the stop, the first of the more than 2000 bright and shiny, environmentally-friendly buses that the Beijing Public Transport corporation is bringing into service this winter, glided into the stop. Despite running on diesel, with the help of something like a catalytic converter (anyone know how to translate 尿素液注筒?), the buses meet strict European IV emission standards and measuring in at 15.4 meters long, they’re also have the added advantage of being able to transport up to 200 passengers.

We've got it all here: sex, crime, censorship and the Olympics.

Chuāngxì (sex scene): Xinhua reports on the dangers of young Chinese lovers rushing to practice the moves they learned from watching chuāngxì in (the uncut version of) Lust, Caution. Read the entire entertaining translation at Shanghaiist (including such gems as “these highly challenging positions should be considered as ‘snacks,' and not your ‘main course.'”)

不少影迷有意模仿《色·戒》高难度床戏
Many fans are eager to imitate Lust, Caution’s highly complicated sex scenes.

If you've dared to step inside an internet bar anywhere in China, you may have immediately realized two things: it is easy to inhale the second-hand smoke equivalent of an entire Zhongnanhai cigarette, and kids and adults are more than willing to spend bleary-eyed days playing fantasy dragon-slaying games and chatting online. Whether they will take to chat-based fantasy worlds like Second Life or its Chinese equivalent HiPiHi is not yet clear. As Adam Hsu and I wrote in this month's That's Beijing cover feature, HiPiHi claims to have 30,000 registered users. But where most of those users are remains a mystery; most of our explorations around the virtual temples and gardens turned up only a handful of avatars at a time. [UPDATE: Anding Zhang of HiPiHi emails in: "We have about 500 active users currently and concurrent online number is averagely about 30."] Still, HiPiHi and its Chinese brethren are betting big that if they build it, users will come. "We could be the leader," one HiPiHi employee told us.

But Linden Labs, the creators of Second Life, the world's most popular virtual world, have other ideas. The company have recently set up a Beijing office. China's very real virtual world contest is getting hotter.

Hate to say we told you so, but gloat we must: Travelchinaguide.com reports that the Beijing Metro Company has announced that by March 2008, all subway lines in Beijing will be equipped with AFC – a.k.a. the “Automatic Frequency Control System,” a system of automated turnstiles whose impending installation is evidenced by the rows of crates that have begun appearing in subway stops around town. As with Hong Kong’s excellent subway system, the plan is to integrate the AFC to allow passengers to pay according to the distance of their commutes by the end of next year.

Much to the relief of Beijing's office drones, who’ve become tired of throwing sheep at each other on Facebook, the ultimate office time waster is back online. Yes, Youtube has been accessible since late Wednesday afternoon. A quick search of Beijing related clips turns up the legendary Free Hugs in Wangfujing video and plenty of clips from the good folks over at Sexy Beijing.

Shouts of frustration that Youtube had been blocked began to circulate on the Chinese internet on Oct 17 and some bloggers have suggested that the sudden outage might have had something to do with the release of a Chinese-language version of the site in Taiwan and Hong Kong. As in the case of the on-again, off-again wikipedia blocks, we'll never be sure how long the site will accessible for from Beijing. Still, for those enduring the dreariness of an afternoon in the office, the voyeuristic pleasure of grimacing at Britney’s latest music video, sharing in Angelina Jolie’s pregnancy claims and watching Chinese-speaking politicians (from other countries, that is) nibble on their own ear wax still remains.