1) Open Source just taking off in China.
- Joined the WTO, cracking down on software piracy
- Drupal.org just started in Chinese - http://www.drupalchina.org/
- RCS has a mandate to grow Drupal and open source presence in China… will be organizing event and training.

2)Raincity has gotten involved by bringing unconferences to China
- first barcamp in China - barcamp shanghai 2006
- this year did barcamp shanghai 2007 and barcamp beijing 2007
- movement growing on it’s own now… have attended UrbanCamp and Web 2.0 camp (not organized by Raincity)

3) Raincity is opening a development office in China.
- rented an office. hired first employees
- (great pic for this point)

http://barcampshanghai.org
http://barcampbeijing.org

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1302371070&size=l
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1806124927&size=l

Getting your multimedia files from point A to point B used to require trucking a hard drive with you but over the last few years there have been a number of multimedia streaming gadgets introduced…with varying results. Here are a few of the newest products designed to stream your media from one place to another.
Slingbox Solo
www.slingbox.com
$180
The new Slingbox Solo is designed to do what previous generations of the Slingbox did – take content from your home theatre and stream it to your computer. The Solo supports HD content in addition to old-school content, up to 1080i. The back of the Slingbox features component, composite and S-Video inputs, and each loops through to your home theatre setup, so you won’t lose the ability to view your content when you’re actually at home. The Slingbox Solo comes with an IR transmitter cable with two ends, allowing you to control two different devices.

There’s a Slingbox client available for both Windows and Mac, allowing you to view your content no matter what your computer preference. As you’d expect over the network, there’s a bit of a delay in sending the remote control codes back to your home theatre setup, and not all of the electronics in the world are part of the database, which might mean you have to spend some time programming the IR commands yourself if you want to use a non-common gadget as part of your streaming setup. There’s a list of compatible gadgets at the SlingMedia site, if you want to check compatibility before dropping the cash.

Slingbox Turbo
www.slingbox.com
$90
The big downside of the Slingbox is that it requires a wired network connection, and you may not always have your network equipment right next to your home theatre equipment. If you don’t want to run a wire across your living room, you can get the Slingbox Turbo accessory pack – it’s two powerline networking adapters dressed up in Slingbox clothing, allowing you to connect your Slingbox to your router using your home’s own electrical grid for the network cable. One warning though: they won’t work through power bars.

D-Link Medialounge DSM-520
www.dlink.com
$249
The Medialounge series from D-Link is designed to fit in with the rest of your home theatre components – it even takes on the same form factor as a typical DVD player, in fact. The difference is that the DSM-520 has a wireless antenna on the back, and pulls your multimedia files from a shared folder or a media server located elsewhere in your home. It connects to the television via component, composite or HDMI outputs, and in addition to the stereo analogue audio, there’s also digital SPDIF and digital optical outputs.

While the DSM-520 comes with software for setting up a Windows machine to act as a media server, it can also pull data from other third-party servers, too, and you can select between servers on the fly using the remote control. Streamed content looks very good when it’s streaming, but as always your ultimate performance is susceptible to other traffic on your network and the type of encoding on the original files. And in case you don’t have any local file servers handy, you can also stream directly from a USB key (there’s a port on the front), or go online and stream directly from compatible sites on the net. You can even use the menu system to download things to your PC for later use.

MediaGate MG-350HD
www.mediagateusa.com
$225
If you want to stream multimedia from sources around the house, but you’d also like to play back content that’s located right on the streaming device, take a look at the MediaGate MG-350HD, which also accommodates an internal hard drive. You’ll have to supply the hard drive yourself, which will add to the cost of the unit, but you can add whatever size drive you can find in IDE format. You can use the MG-350HD either while hooked to the TV or while connected to a computer as a remote drive (you have to be able to connect content to the internal drive, after all).

The big complaint here is that aesthetically, it’s not very refined, either on the outside or on the menu system…it’s got a very raw feel to the product, and as such it will probably appeal more to the enthusiast than to the general consumer market. But if you’re willing to overlook the fact that it’s a bit rough around the edges, you’ll get a player that’s capable of playing back content in high definition via the DVI or component output.