9 Must-Read Tech Stories in China This Week

In China this week many people had time off for Qingming Festival, but there was still plenty of news going down. Here’s a quick rundown of some the notable stories we saw during the past seven days.

1. Guess What? Tencent Clones Zynga’s Draw Something [LEAKED PICTURES]

Tencent didn’t take long to get started on a clone of the popular Draw Something application. Check out these leaked photos of Guess What, a Chinese-language version the sketch-and-guess game. Strangely it looks like it uses pinyin (a romanized spelling of Chinese characters), but it still seems kind of fun!

2. Decoding Sina Weibo’s Real-Name Strategy

Charlie wasted no time this week delving into the confusion surrounding China’s real-name regulation for microblogs. He outlines three reasons why Sina Weibo may have purposefully pushed their luck a little further than the authorities in Beijing would have liked.

3. Now You, Too, Can Spy on Ai Weiwei

The always-provacative artist and activist Ai Weiwei has always been closely scrutinized by the Chinese government. In an effort to save his tails some work, or more likely to mark the anniversary of his detention a year back, Ai setup the WeiWei cam (at weiweicam.com) which includes camera feeds from his studio and home. Not surprisingly, the authorities ordered the removal of the webcams shortly after.

4. Instagram for Android Arrives, But Missing Sina Weibo Support

Android users everywhere were delighted to finally get an Instagram app this week. But regrettably, users in China found a strange omission in the app, as there’s no support to push your photos to the popular Sina Weibo microblog. We hope it comes along in a future update.

5. The Sina Weibo App is Very, Very Addictive!

Willis takes a closer look at the Sina Weibo app for iOS, and finds it to be a wonderful way to look at one of China’s most popular online networks.

6. New Rikai Browser Lets You Read Chinese with Ease

Speaking of reading Chinese on iOS, if you’re not a native speaker you might need a little help when reading Chinese on the net. The new Rikai Browser Chinese from Tokyo-based developer Long Weekend offers some assistance when you come across difficult words and phrases by providing pop-up translations when you need them.