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China Restricts Export of Drones, Supercomputers
- dzhiurgis 11y agoMac Pro achieves 7 teraflops. Also pictured in article are toy quadcopters.
- johansch 11y agoChina trying to get tech credibility by restricting exports of supercomputers made using Intel chips? Hilarious.
- igravious 11y agoI'm getting sick of the this sort of sardonic racism on HN, and it never gets called out. I'm from Europe and I can see what's happening. China starts making progress so US starts jeering every twist and turn. Give it a rest already. Same happened way back with Japan and all the jokes made back then. Here's a story from 2011 about the Chinese building a supercomputer based on its own tech. Name me how many countries have done that? So, can I just ask HN comment people to please stop with the comments like this, it's gone beyond tiresome to annoying. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/world/asia/china-unveils-supercomputer-based-on-its-own-microprocessor-chips.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/world/asia/china-unveils-s...
- Frozenlock 11y agoHow is that racism?
- sampo 11y agoIn Europe, compared to US, 'racism' can have a bit different meaning. (Not that its nuances aren't debated inside US as well.)
- ajross 11y agoOK, I'll bite. How is that racism in Europe?
- sampo 11y agoIn general, the left side of the political spectrum has a much stronger part in politics, and discussion, in Europe, compared to US. Continental Europe even more than UK. (Which can make it more difficult to follow the discussions, as it is mostly in other languages than in English.) Consequently, they also have more influence on the use and definition of words and concept used in political debate. To get to the the heart of this, you probably would need to find a European leftist to talk with. I am writing this under the assumption that /u/igravious is one. Or, he could just be a bit of a jerk.
- igravious 11y agoWhy shouldn't the largest economy in the world be able to produce high tech microprocessors? The suggestion that they'd be banning the export of Intel processors is dumb. The "Hilarious" is just icing. To me the whole comment smacks of racism. What would you call it? I knew I'd get down-voted for saying it, and I've held my tongue in the past. But it's nearly every article about China now. These sardonic off-the-cuff remarks. It's so accepted here, and it shouldn't be. So I'm calling it out.
- Frozenlock 11y ago
- joonoro 11y agoWhy would the country that currently holds the world record on computing speed need "tech credibility?"
- fspeech 11y agoThe parent post is rather ignorant in equating supercomputer with microprocessor.
- mapt 11y agoIf by "restrict" they mean "prohibit", then this unilateral action just destroyed most of the world's hobbyist & prosumer UAV trade flows, which were driven by Shenzhen factories big and small.
- mapt 11y agoLooking further, the problem isn't so extreme: http://www.suasnews.com/2015/08/37585/china-tightens-controls-on-drone-and-powerful-computer-exports/ http://www.suasnews.com/2015/08/37585/china-tightens-control... "From August 15, manufacturers of certain powerful drones and computers will have to give technical details to the authorities to obtain a licence prior to export, Xinhua news agency says. The new regulations from the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs are aimed in particular at drones which can fly for more than one hour and at heights of more than 15,420 metres." So basically, drones powered by internal combustion engines need to be design-certified.
- hrrsn 11y agoSo despite the article talking about DJI heavily, none of DJI's products will be impacted.
- zkhalique 11y agoWhat we should all be concerned about aren't the exports. It's the "imports" -- drones invading our airspace, built by no-name manufacturers and launched by anonymous people, for who knows what purposes. Even without nefarious goals, a drone can simply malfunction and drop on someone's head, which is already dangerous. But if 1 out of 1000 drones is programmed to do something malicious, how would our legal systems address it? Do we even have a system that could prevent something like that? We've never had to deal with autonomous robots roaming among people before. What I'm most afraid of is the arms race of drones. It will happen before the AI arms race that Hawking and Musk warn about: http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/27/artificially-assured-destruction/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/27/artificially-assured-destru...
- kenrikm 11y agoWow, I don't even know where to begin except.. [1] There are already millions of "drones" out in the world more then capable of doing all of the terrible things you can imagine and yet they don't because there are easier ways to do evil and people who have the desire to do bad things generally choose the easier route. I would also like to point out Cars kill 38k+ people per year in the US and could also be used for all sorts of bad things (like running people over) should we be worried about all of those imported cars too? Autonomous cars could be instructed to run over a lot of people! Ban Cars! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_mongering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_mongering
- zkhalique 11y agoOne word: autonomous. Cars aren't.
- dkarapetyan 11y agoThis is silly. They are not acting in their own best interests by doing this. The only thing this does is open up the opportunity for someone else to step in. It's not like they are leading in either drone or supercomputer technology. It would make sense if they were so ahead of the curve that everyone was clamoring to get the stuff and in which case the restrictions on the top end stuff would make sense but as it is I don't think they're in that kind of position. Manufacturing wise they might be but not in terms of R&D.
- hiou 11y agoAnd the race to build rockets in the US was only about going to space 50 years ago... You might want to read up a bit about the reasons for Chinese industrialization. It's a means to an end. I've yet to read anything talking about China wanting to join the global economy beyond it's internal goals. You seriously think China's end game is building cheap stuff for Western consumers?
- dkarapetyan 11y agoI didn't say anything about building cheap stuff for "western consumers", those are your words not mine. All I said was their manufacturing capabilities are currently unmatched but they are in no way leading in terms of the cutting edge stuff when it comes to either technology. It just seems counter-intuitive to me that being in that position they are limiting exports of supercomputers and drones. For that matter I'm really curious which countries are clamoring for Chinese supercomputers and drones? As for the history of Chinese industrialization I honestly don't see how that matters when it comes to setting export limits. It is purely a trade issue and usually when exports are limited in this fashion it is because the technology is perceived to provide some kind of advantage to whoever has it. Cryptography software comes to mind as a good example of something that the U.S. government tried to control with export laws for a long time. Carrying that analogy forward I don't see how supercomputers or drones provide any kind of advantage since most countries I can think of that could benefit from buying the technology from China do not pose a threat to it and those that wouldn't be buying from China and instead building things in-house are already equal to or beyond China's capabilities. The export limit in both instances is counter-intuitive because nobody wins from this arrangement.