The designs range from the batshit-crazy (but, yes, I want one):

to the *cough* aspirational:

to the only-slightly-bizarre:

to the really rather useful. (The Big Thunder is intended for farmers, who might need to work a hundred meters away from wherever they left their phone, rather than teenagers on the bus, I’m hoping).

There is also a semi serious point here.

One of the big ideas raised is that these crazy phones just don’t appear in the West. Manufacturing is so expensive here that only big, serious players can get started. However, in China, these devices can be built to order in tiny batches for a little as $40 a unit; and then sold for $150.

Innovation in product design is really expensive here in the West, and so a lot of would-be inventors have turned to the Web instead as a platform for their creativity. Hence the whole Web 2.0 thing has been a magnet for startups. In China, though, as mad as some of these products may appear, they reflect a raw creativity and inventiveness that we just don’t see here when it comes to the design of electronic devices. Many of these models will, of course, sink without a trace. But how much higher are their chances of coming up with a formula that genuinely catches people’s imagination and meets needs that no-one anticipated? The people behind these phones are rightly described as “hacker entrepreneurs”: next Dysons of the world.

This is not to write off Western phone designers, of course. Our phones are — on almost all measures — ‘better’ than these devices. But the products we have demanded and the market we’re in make this spirit of carefree, creative experimentation (without a care for focus groups, brand continuity or err… electrocution hazards) unlikely to happen very frequently.

(via. Mobile Monday)

The BBC quotes Fred Tipson, MS’ senior policy counsel, who says:

“Things are getting bad… and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there,” he told a conference in Athens.

“We have to decide if the persecuting of bloggers reaches a point that it’s unacceptable to do business there.”

“We try to define those levels and the trends are not good there at the moment. It’s a moving target.“

I’m interested in this, of course, because Google and Yahoo! have previously defended their decision to remain in China on the grounds that their presence is more likely to precipitate change and improvements than staying away. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft do indeed act against China, and if this propels action from other companies.

So sad, though, that it’s left to major corporations to take the moral stands our governments should be taking.

Here’s what a company spokesperson told me:

“Yahoo! opposes the punishment of any person on the grounds of what may be called free speech. We firmly oppose that. However, we have to abide by the local laws of whatever country we operate in. If we did not, it could lead to the imprisonment of our own employees. These are legal demands. We don’t give out any information except to accredited legal authorities. Also, they don’t typically tell us what the information is for. They have a warrant and we have to comply.”

So why operate in China, then, if it might lead to morally precarious actions?

“We believe that Chinese people are better off with Yahoo! than they would be otherwise. The benefits of having better access to the internet and the spread of knowledge that implies outweigh these concerns. But we have to obey the laws of the countries that we operate in.”

So what legal obligations are you under in China?

“You’d have to ask Alibaba about that. They have operated Yahoo! China since 2005. We have policies about what we will do, but we don’t know the exact restrictions.”

Satisfied? Sure you are…