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  China Requires Censoring Software on New PCs By ANDREW JACOBS BEIJING — China has issued a sweeping directive requiring all personal computers sold in the country to include sophisticated software that can filter out pornography and other “unhealthy information” from the Internet. The software, which manufacturers must install on all new PC’s starting July 1, allows the government to update computers regularly with an ever-changing list of banned Web sites. The rules, issued last month, ratchet up Internet restrictions already among the most stringent in the world. China regularly blocks Web sites that discuss the Dalai Lama, the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, and the Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement. But free-speech advocates say they fear the new software could make it even more difficult for China’s 300 million Internet users to access uncensored news and information. “This is a very bad thing,” said Charles Mok, chairman of the Internet Society, an advocacy group in Hong Kong. “It’s like downloading spyware onto your computer, but the government is the spy.” Details of the new regulations, posted Monday on a government Web site, were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Called “Green Dam” — green being a foil to the yellow smut of pornography — the software is designed to filter out sexually explicit images and words, according to the company that designed it. Computer experts, however, warn that once installed, the software could be directed to block all manner of content or allow the government to monitor Internet use and collect personal information. PC makers who serve the Chinese market, among them Dell, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard, said they were studying the new rules and declined to comment. But privately, industry executives in the United States said they were upset by the new rules, which were issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology with no consultation and no advance warning. Beyond the nettlesome issue of abetting government censorship, they said six weeks was not enough time to shift production on such a large scale. “Many of us are going to take it in the neck with this mandate,” said one executive. “It has put people into five-alarm mode.” More than 40 million personal computers were sold last year in China, one of the fastest growing markets in the world. Despite the slowing economy, industry analysts expect that figure to rise by 3 percent this year. A group of industry representatives met with American officials Monday to express their displeasure with the new rules, said Susan Stevenson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. “We view any attempt to restrict the free flow of information with great concern,” she said. Zhang Chenming, whose company, Jinhui Computer System Engineering, helped create Green Dam, said concerns that the software could…

US GDP rebounds with 3.3% growth The US economy grew at a revised 3.3% annually in the second quarter of 2008, the Commerce Department said, much higher than its first estimate of 1.9%. The rebound was linked to strong US exports, helped by the weak dollar, while government tax rebates also boosted consumer spending. GDP grew at a rate of 0.9% in the first quarter, after a 0.2% contraction in the last three months of 2007. The Federal Reserve has warned the economy will remain weak this year. "While we're not out of the woods yet, maybe we're beginning to see some sunlight," said John Wilson, equity strategist at Morgan Keegan. "At some point, the market will begin to look through the trough and gauge the strength of the coming upturn." 'No recession' The data showed that exports grew at an annualised rate of 13.2%, higher than the government's initial estimate of 9.2%. Imports fell at a rate of 7.6% as the US economic slowdown reduced demands for goods made overseas. The improved trade balance added 3.1 percentage points to second-quarter GDP, the biggest since 1980. The slowdown in the housing market was evident, as builders cut back and businesses reduced their spending. Consumer spending, boosted by the government's $600 tax rebate payments, rose by 1.7%, slightly higher than the previous quarter's 1.5%. Some observers said that the figures lent support to the argument that the US was not heading for a recession. "For a recession the economy is certainly growing very quickly," said Avery Shenfeld, senior economist at CIBC World Markets. "A lot of that growth is driven off exports and pessimists might say that can't continue during slowing growth overseas. "But I would say this happened precisely during the period of slowing growth overseas ... this is still an economy that faces slow times but not a recession." 16-year low However recent data on the US housing market suggests a grim outlook for the sector. US house prices were down a record 15.4% in the April to June quarter compared with a year ago, according to a closely-watched report released earlier this week. The decline was recorded by the latest S&P/Case-Shiller survey of US national home prices. The report said the fact that the falls were nationwide was the latest sign the US housing downturn is continuing. Separate government data said sales of new homes were at an annual rate of 515,000 units in July, up slightly from June, but still near a 16-year low, and half the rate of new home sales one year ago.

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  Google CEO: Chinese language will dominate webAP A web where Chinese is the dominant language, and connections are so fast that distinctions between audio, video and text are blurred is perhaps just five years away, the head of Google said. Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer of Google, spoke to about 5,000 chief information officers and information technology executives in Orlando for a technology conference. "All of these distinctions will completely go away," he said. "We're not trying to design the future. We're trying to invent it along the way ... This is about inventing the future, and we score ourselves based on whether our customers like it." Teens today consume information much differently on the Web and are able to juggle various forms of information seamlessly, he said. Streams of information will increase as connections grow faster, and if web surfers feel as though they are drowning in information, it is because a fundamental shift is occurring to user-generated content. The success of sites such as Facebook and Twitter are examples of this shift, he said. "You will tend to listen to other people," he said. The problem, of course, is how to organise all the information, he said. It is the fundamental problem facing Google, a company offering many products but built on a web search engine that trolls for information, gathers it and ranks it for users. Schmidt asked rhetorically how, for instance, Google might be able to rank a user's individual tweets. Schmidt spoke at the Gartner Symposium/Itxpo at the Walt Disney World Dolphin and Swan Hotel. The four-day conference ends on Thursday local time.