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Digital Asia links: Under the Dome, phones and gender, FireChat and more

Danielle Cave
Digital Asia links: Under the Dome, phones and gender, FireChat and more
Published 6 Mar 2015     Follow @DaniellesCave

The Asia Pacific is the most dynamic digital landscape in the world, home to the fastest adopters of new technologies and the largest concentration of mobile and social media users. An escalation in online activism, changing cyber dynamics, developments in digital diplomacy and the exploitation of big data are shaping the region's engagement with the world.

  • A new report investigating the gender disparities in mobile phone ownership in developing countries has found the largest gaps are in Southeast Asia, where women are 38% less likely to own a mobile phone than men.
  • President Obama has criticised China's plans for new restrictions on US tech companies, urging Beijing to change the policy if it wants to do business (h/t @BrendanTN_). China has dismissed the criticism and called for the US to 'treat this in a calm, objective and correct manner'.
  • The US is also putting up a fight in Indonesia against new rules requiring smartphone and tablet companies to produce 40% of their content locally from 1 January 2017. The US believes the 'made in Indonesia' rule will hamper the efforts of its tech companies, such as Apple, to capitalise on Indonesia's growing smartphone market.
  • Few 'mobile for development' programs reach Cambodia's poorest because they are unavailable in Khmer and aren't accessible to illiterate users. Local NGOs and the Government are getting around this with a free open-source platform that uses voice rather than text.
  • This blog post questions the hype around the FireChat mobile messenger app. Operable without phone reception or an internet connection, FireChat generated headlines last year during Hong Kong's 'Umbrella Revolution' (and before that during Taiwan's 'Sunflower Movement').
  • Why did a documentary about China's air pollution go viral in China this week? 'Under the Dome', self-financed by a former state TV journalist, has generated tens of thousands of comments on WeChat and been viewed more than 200 million times. It is now being censored but it is available here with English subtitles:

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