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Can anyone summarize this? Got hit by the paywall

w1ntermute 13y ago
Some Chinese "researchers" reskinned Android, then released it without the source and claimed that it's a new OS they developed from the ground up. Nothing interesting.
- fharper1961 13y ago
  I think what's interesting, is if the Chinese consumers will buy it in large numbers, or not. The future of Android will be very different depending on what happens in China.
  - w1ntermute 13y ago
    I don't think it will be that big of a deal. "Android" doesn't really exist in China. All those Chinese Android users are really using AOSP with all the Google apps and services replaced by Chinese equivalents. The phones aren't branded as Android, they don't have access to the Play Store, etc.
- shubb 13y ago
  Why are people incredulous that China could produce an operating system? They have the skilled labor to do it. I can get incredulity that they would want to - a chinese certified security inspected android/linux would do what is needed for less money. The US have security checked versions of opensource projects, and it would seem the best way to go. But government mandated projects produce not invented here solutions from time to time. I write the above, but I think this isn't an argument about whether China could code an OS, or whether they would code it from scratch rather than basing it on opensource components. I think a lot of Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of China designing what it manufactures, because 'what would we do'. Inevitably, as number of scientists and engineers in China, India, etc increases, more of this kind of work will be done elsewhere, but that doesn't mean the amount done in America has to decrease. The world can just do twice as much inventing, and the speed of progress can double. Or, y'know, you guys could pivot to Asia, and we can have a 3rd world war. I've seen fox news a couple times, so I'll be in my basement checking my water reserves.
  - riffraff 13y ago
    I am not from the US but even for me: if it runs angry birds it seems way more likely this is a reskinned android than a ground up compatible rewrite.
  - weland 13y ago
    I'm rather incredulous that they built something which can run Java (they either have a Linux compatibility layer for it, or they built a JVM from scratch) and display HTML5. The skilled labour to do it they definitely have, it's time that I doubt they have. That being said, I've seen enough Chinese-made products to know that the Made in China meme doesn't do all of them justice. Some of the things they build are remarkable; they have very good people doing microelectronics, RF and high-speed digital designs.
3pt14159 13y ago
Chinese researchers have developed a new mobile operating system intended to break the dominance in China of systems produced by Google, Apple and Microsoft. At a ceremony in Beijing on Wednesday, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shanghai-based Liantong Network Communications Technology unveiled the domestically produced China Operating System, or COS, designed for use on many devices including smartphones and personal computers. The Chinese Academy of Sciences called COS a strategic product for national security, urgently needed following revelations regarding United States surveillance and Microsoft Windows ending further support of its XP system, the state-run Global Times newspaper reported. The COS is “completely” independently developed, from the basic coding to the user interface, said an article posted on the Chinese Academy of Sciences website. It said existing open-source operating systems pose security risks, and foreign-made systems have “acclimatization” difficulties in China, problems that COS addresses. Li Mingshu, director of the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said Wednesday that the researchers intend to continue making improvements to COS and match or even overtake other systems that dominate the Chinese market today. Chen Feili, the deputy general manager of Liantong Network Communications Technology, told C114, a Chinese communications news website, that the Chinese telecom giants China Mobile and China Telecom have been testing phones based on COS over the past three months. There’s already “a certain consensus” about bringing a commercial version of COS to market, Mr. Chen said. He said that discussions about business models and compatibility issues were already underway. Though he declined to mention the names of the manufacturers, Mr. Chen said that there are already four smartphone models that use COS. COS can run Java applications, and supports HTML 5 web applications and games, the C114 article said. It is currently compatible with over 100,000 applications, it said. The state broadcaster CCTV showed COS in action on Thursday, in a news segment in which a reporter demonstrated that people could play popular games, including “Cut the Rope” and “Angry Birds” on an unbranded black mobile phone. Mr. Chen said he has high ambitions for COS, saying the “ultimate goal” is to make it the main operating system in China. This is a lofty goal. According to the American market researcher International Data Corporation, China’s smartphone market is dominated by Android with nearly 90 percent of phones in 2013 running on the Google system. COS is not the only domestically produced operating system to make headlines recently. On Jan. 9, the Chinese technology company Coship Electronics announced that it had produced the country’s first smartphone operating system with independent intellectual property rights. The company’s chairman, Yuan Ming, said that the system, called 960 OS, took 15 years to develop. How long COS was under development and the costs of research and development were not disclosed. Although the state-run People’s Daily praised COS on Thursday as the “realization of the Chinese Dream in the field of operating systems,” the online reaction from Chinese consumers was more scathing. “Its full name should be Copy Other System,” said one user with the handle “byxu,” in one of the most upvoted comments on Sina weibo. “It’s not open source because they’re terrified that others will see that the source code is the same as Android, and accuse them of cheating the government out of money.”
fiatmoney 13y ago
For future reference, you can just open it in a private browsing window.
slurry 13y ago
No commercial release yet, no source release ever. Bureaucrats quoted as praising it seem to be mid-level at best. Either vaporware, or reskinned Linux/Android, or most likely both.
tarblog 13y ago
You can circumvent the paywall by googling the name of the article and clicking the NYT article that comes up. If that doesn't work, try again in an incognito window.

Some Chinese "researchers" reskinned Android, then released it without the source and claimed that it's a new OS they developed from the ground up. Nothing interesting.

fharper1961 13y ago
I think what's interesting, is if the Chinese consumers will buy it in large numbers, or not. The future of Android will be very different depending on what happens in China.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  I don't think it will be that big of a deal. "Android" doesn't really exist in China. All those Chinese Android users are really using AOSP with all the Google apps and services replaced by Chinese equivalents. The phones aren't branded as Android, they don't have access to the Play Store, etc.
shubb 13y ago
Why are people incredulous that China could produce an operating system? They have the skilled labor to do it. I can get incredulity that they would want to - a chinese certified security inspected android/linux would do what is needed for less money. The US have security checked versions of opensource projects, and it would seem the best way to go. But government mandated projects produce not invented here solutions from time to time. I write the above, but I think this isn't an argument about whether China could code an OS, or whether they would code it from scratch rather than basing it on opensource components. I think a lot of Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of China designing what it manufactures, because 'what would we do'. Inevitably, as number of scientists and engineers in China, India, etc increases, more of this kind of work will be done elsewhere, but that doesn't mean the amount done in America has to decrease. The world can just do twice as much inventing, and the speed of progress can double. Or, y'know, you guys could pivot to Asia, and we can have a 3rd world war. I've seen fox news a couple times, so I'll be in my basement checking my water reserves.
- riffraff 13y ago
  I am not from the US but even for me: if it runs angry birds it seems way more likely this is a reskinned android than a ground up compatible rewrite.
- weland 13y ago
  I'm rather incredulous that they built something which can run Java (they either have a Linux compatibility layer for it, or they built a JVM from scratch) and display HTML5. The skilled labour to do it they definitely have, it's time that I doubt they have. That being said, I've seen enough Chinese-made products to know that the Made in China meme doesn't do all of them justice. Some of the things they build are remarkable; they have very good people doing microelectronics, RF and high-speed digital designs.

3pt14159 13y ago

Chinese researchers have developed a new mobile operating system intended to break the dominance in China of systems produced by Google, Apple and Microsoft. At a ceremony in Beijing on Wednesday, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shanghai-based Liantong Network Communications Technology unveiled the domestically produced China Operating System, or COS, designed for use on many devices including smartphones and personal computers. The Chinese Academy of Sciences called COS a strategic product for national security, urgently needed following revelations regarding United States surveillance and Microsoft Windows ending further support of its XP system, the state-run Global Times newspaper reported. The COS is “completely” independently developed, from the basic coding to the user interface, said an article posted on the Chinese Academy of Sciences website. It said existing open-source operating systems pose security risks, and foreign-made systems have “acclimatization” difficulties in China, problems that COS addresses. Li Mingshu, director of the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said Wednesday that the researchers intend to continue making improvements to COS and match or even overtake other systems that dominate the Chinese market today. Chen Feili, the deputy general manager of Liantong Network Communications Technology, told C114, a Chinese communications news website, that the Chinese telecom giants China Mobile and China Telecom have been testing phones based on COS over the past three months. There’s already “a certain consensus” about bringing a commercial version of COS to market, Mr. Chen said. He said that discussions about business models and compatibility issues were already underway. Though he declined to mention the names of the manufacturers, Mr. Chen said that there are already four smartphone models that use COS. COS can run Java applications, and supports HTML 5 web applications and games, the C114 article said. It is currently compatible with over 100,000 applications, it said. The state broadcaster CCTV showed COS in action on Thursday, in a news segment in which a reporter demonstrated that people could play popular games, including “Cut the Rope” and “Angry Birds” on an unbranded black mobile phone. Mr. Chen said he has high ambitions for COS, saying the “ultimate goal” is to make it the main operating system in China. This is a lofty goal. According to the American market researcher International Data Corporation, China’s smartphone market is dominated by Android with nearly 90 percent of phones in 2013 running on the Google system. COS is not the only domestically produced operating system to make headlines recently. On Jan. 9, the Chinese technology company Coship Electronics announced that it had produced the country’s first smartphone operating system with independent intellectual property rights. The company’s chairman, Yuan Ming, said that the system, called 960 OS, took 15 years to develop. How long COS was under development and the costs of research and development were not disclosed. Although the state-run People’s Daily praised COS on Thursday as the “realization of the Chinese Dream in the field of operating systems,” the online reaction from Chinese consumers was more scathing. “Its full name should be Copy Other System,” said one user with the handle “byxu,” in one of the most upvoted comments on Sina weibo. “It’s not open source because they’re terrified that others will see that the source code is the same as Android, and accuse them of cheating the government out of money.”

fiatmoney 13y ago

For future reference, you can just open it in a private browsing window.

slurry 13y ago

No commercial release yet, no source release ever. Bureaucrats quoted as praising it seem to be mid-level at best. Either vaporware, or reskinned Linux/Android, or most likely both.

tarblog 13y ago

You can circumvent the paywall by googling the name of the article and clicking the NYT article that comes up. If that doesn't work, try again in an incognito window.