WikiLeaks: China is Lightyears Ahead in Tech Innovation

WikiLeaks: China is Lightyears Ahead in Tech*Innovation - InHardFocus - InHardFocus.com

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Hidden among several hundred thousand government cables leaked by WikiLeaks last week comes fascinating insight into China's amazing technology research.
In the biometrics field, Chinese researchers are developing technology that can identify an individual by their footsteps:

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The Chinese Academy of Science Institute of Intelligent Machines ... has developed a biometrics device that uses a person’s pace to identify them. The device measure weight and two-dimensional sheer forces applied by a person’s foot during walking to create a uniquely identifiable biometrics profile.

The device can be covertly installed in a floor and is able to collect biometrics data on individuals covertly without their knowledge. When questioned about the device’s potential applications, IIM officials stated the device was being used by “secret” customers and was not available on the commercial market.

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In other news, a cable reveals that Chinese researchers are chasing the holy grail of energy: fusion power. And in 2009, they made significant progress by successfully maintaining a 10-million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for 400 seconds. (European researchers have maxed their device out at five seconds.)

Finally, another cable indicated that officials in China are aggressively chasing quantum teleportation and cryptography with the hopes of achieving "totally secure communication." (And, probably, the ability to hack it.)

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Wow...Fusion Power...the Power of the SUN...

Surprisingly this leak has not received much press... (o_O)

Chinese are smart people, and they lack the sophistication and bureaucracy-lead procedures that both European countries, USA and Japan have. Furthermore, their research is mostly funded by the government and not as an internal R&D project in a multibillion dollar company, so there is not much of a ROI goal.
They can also make HUGE mistakes and still move on, because the media is so controlled that no one will know if a lab with 1500 people blew up.
So, given their highly trained, smart citizens, their non-capitalist (can't think of a better term) approach to research, the secrecy involved, the decades long reverse engineering experience, and the government's interest in outpacing any "developed" world power, it is not surprisingly that they can take huge steps at a time, since the development of new technologies is not mean to be a product or service that can be successfully marketed (initially at least).

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In the biometrics field, Chinese researchers are developing technology that can identify an individual by their footsteps:

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so that would be like spying/monitoring/tracking in a hidden way, but how about doing the same in plain sight for everyone to see, being able not only to do it openly but also in such way that those spied on/monitored/tracked actually 'love it' - thats what the rfid-related advances are attempting to do and which will likely succeed as well - seems more advanced than this chinese scenario though

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reveals that Chinese researchers are chasing the holy grail of energy: fusion power

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the west is doing that as well, in at least 3 promising projects - interestingly enough, the one project (by eric lerner) that seems the most advanced and affordable done by independent researchers is also the most marginalized, whereas governmental-sponsored one(s) get the most support even if they seem not too advanced and even when their projected price/cost range is quite similar to that of the current energy technologies already available/used (wouldn't want the next generation of energy-producing monopolists to earn less than the current ones, eh?)

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China are aggressively chasing quantum teleportation and cryptography with the hopes of achieving "totally secure communication." (And, probably, the ability to hack it.)

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lol @ teleportation (perhaps a lesser lol regarding inanimate objects)
as for the other one, they might as well have the most advanced system in the world, but if no one else will use it there is no profit from it, or if they get isolated there is little usefulness in it, or it could be simply pointed out how there is no such thing as 'totally secure communication' nor will there ever be one

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Originally Posted by desodorante

their non-capitalist (can't think of a better term) approach to research

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here's an adequate one:

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Originally Posted by wiki: State capitalism

Most current Communist groups descended from the Maoist ideological tradition still hold to the description of both China and the Soviet Union as being ‘state-capitalist’ from a certain point in their history onwards — most commonly, the Soviet Union from 1956 to its collapse in 1991, and China from 1976 to the present day. Maoists and ‘anti-revisionists’ also sometimes employ the term ‘Social-imperialism’ to describe socialist states that they consider to actually be capitalist in essence — their phrase, "socialist in words, imperialist in deeds" denotes this.

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Originally Posted by desodorante

Furthermore, their research is mostly funded by the government and not as an internal R&D project in a multibillion dollar company, so there is not much of a ROI goal.

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here's a somewhat adequate one ;) :

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Originally Posted by Ian Bremmer

the ultimate motive is not economic (maximising growth) but political (maximising the state’s power and the leadership’s chances of survival).

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its amazing how clever they are over there, their miles ahead of the whole world in technology and they always will be.