Sohu founder and CEO Charles Zhang is, by the standards of most tech entrepreneurs, doing very well. His startup has long since blossomed into a full-blown tech giant, and success has brought him both prestige and heaps of money. Yet in a recent interview on Yang Lan One-on-One, Zhang told the host that he is actually miserable:

I think there’s something wrong with me. I truly have everything, and yet I am so miserable. Happiness is totally unrelated to how much money you have.

Zhang has reportedly removed himself from the day-to-day operations of the company and has stayed out of the public limelight (for the most part) over the past year. In the Yang Lan interview, he revealed that this was because his anxiety was making it impossible for him to work. He also said that he had found his success was changing him:

Successful people often have this need to do things their own way. [After I became successful] I became more of a perfectionist; I wanted to control the outcome of everything, and even felt that I could live to the age of 150.

More details and quotes from the interview are here for those who can read Chinese, but instead of speculating about Zhang’s mental state, I just want to highlight a couple of the things we can learn from this interview.

Many of us are entrepreneurs searching for that big breakthrough or investors working hard to turn money into more money, and Zhang’s reminder that money cannot buy happiness might be cliche, but it’s important to remember. Of course, that’s not to say that having lots of money isn’t nice (or at least I imagine it’s nice; if anyone wants to send me a huge sum of money I’d be happy to give that lifestyle a try and review it here). But if money is your endgame, it’s possible you’ll end up like Zhang, standing at the top of a pyramid and wondering why bothered to climb it in the first place.

The other thing Zhang’s interview reminds is that success can and does change people. Maybe Zhang’s issues are deeper than that and maybe they aren’t — I’m not qualified to speculate on anyone’s mental state one way or the other. But it’s important to keep an eye on your own psyche as you move through the entrepreneurship process and make sure that you’re OK with any changes that are happening. Becoming more of a perfectionist might be a good thing to some people, but others may want to avoid becoming a domineering control freak (and let’s be honest, there are plenty of startup founders who fit that description even before they’re successful).

We wish Zhang the best, as we do to all entrepreneurs at every stage of the game from bootstrappers to billionaires. At the same time, though, I wish that everyone in the startup scene would spend a little more time thinking about their own definitions of happiness and the effects being an entrepreneur can have on their psyche. We spend so much time talking about what technology is innovative, and yet many of us are chasing the exact same goal: make a globally relevant product and get rich. Perhaps sometimes we should approach our own thinking patterns with the same spirit of disruption and innovation we bring to hackathons and tech conferences.

(image source)

The post ‘Despite All the Money, I’m Not Happy.’ Startup Lessons from Sohu CEO Charles Zhang appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Blizzard Entertainment has launched its StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm expansion to thousands of fans around the globe tonight. If you’re locked out of SimCity, the always-connected game with connection problems, you might just be moving on to Heart of the Swarm.

The real-time strategy sci-fi game has millions of fans, and now they’re gathering at midnight store openings as sales go live. Twitch, the live game streaming channel, broadcast a big event (pictured above) where fans gathered to watch live tournaments played by professional games. Altogether, Twitch planned to stay on the air for 21 hours in a row, with a broadcast hosted by eSports personalities Sean “Day[9]” Plott and Mike “Husky” Lamond.

The launch events are taking place in the U.S., France, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico. They started in the early evening and lasted until the stroke of midnight. Thousands of stores opened at midnight, and Blizzard held nine official launch events. Blizzard executives attended a launch event in the Irvine Spectrum Mall, just down the street from the company’s headquarters in Irvine, Calif. Prizes

The expansion title picks up the story where StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty ended. Sarah Kerrigan, a former Terran ghost warrior turned into Zerg Swarm commander, seeks to reunited the Swarm and take revenge on Arcturus Mengsk. In the game, players join Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, in her quest to reunited the Zerg Swarm. The standard edition of Heart of the Swarm costs $40, and the collector’s edition goes for $80. The collector’s edition includes a soundtrack CD, behind-the-scenes video, and a 144-page art book. the game itself has 20 campaign missions and features multiplayer combat. The game has a bunch of new weapons such as Terran Hellbats, Zerg Swarm Hosts, and Protoss Tempests.

Heart of the Swarm will be hot on the eSports circuit, giving a lot of competition to Riot Games’ League of Legends. The Blizzard game will be featured at the upcoming Major League Gaming Winter Championship in Dallas.

Filed under: Games

This technology, once it is fully developed and widely affordable, is likely to be so life-changing that it’s difficult for us to fully imagine or predict the ways in which it might change things. One of the more widely-heard predictions is that 3D printing could severely disrupt China’s manufacturing sector, especially in industries that produce small plastic objects (buttons, coat hangers, cups, combs, and on and on) that could be easily replaced by 3D printed objects once 3D printers are affordable enough to be widespread.

That’s certainly possible, although China is already moving towards a consumer economy and may prove to have dodged this bullet completely depending on how fast 3D printing catches on once prices go down and how quickly China’s economy can move. But manufacturing changes are just one possible repercussion of 3D printing.

Among other things, if 3D printing catches on in China, it is likely to lead new regulations and probably tighter internet controls to regulate what people are allowed to print out. 3D printing enthusiasts have already figured out how to print working lower thirds for firearms like this semi-automatic rifle. When the technology has developed further, it might even be possible to print out other parts of both guns and their ammunition, making the the construction of DIY guns a realistic possibility. Knives and containers for explosives are also a possibility in the long-term. Since many of those things are illegal in China, 3D printer design models will have to be tightly controlled to ensure people can’t build their own guns at home. (Read more about buying guns online in China).

But 3D printing is likely to change more than just where people get their cheap plastic crap and whether or not they can build guns at home. It could change everything from car repair (imagine printing out your own replacement parts) to medical prosthetics (imagine if everyone could quickly print custom prosthetics made specifically for themselves). It’s also likely to destroy a lot of industries, especially if China’s controls on intellectual property for 3D models prove to be as lax as they have been for entirely digital content like movies and music. If you can download a bittorrent file full of 3D printer models for free, all kinds of industries (and not just industries in China) are going to be in trouble.

Of course, how big a thing you can print out out depends on how big your printer is, and at the moment most printers can only use one material to print. I don’t imagine it’s likely that many Chinese are going to purchase bulky 3D printers for their homes even after prices drop; rather, I would imagine that 3D printing might be integrated into the services of the local print shops that now offer scanning and photocopying services. Imagine realizing you need a new bottle opener and, instead of going to the supermarket or a department store, running to the local print shop to print one out.

Rogue gun makers aside, it all sounds pretty cool, and as a Star Trek fan, I applaud any technology that takes us closer to becoming the Federation (next step: warp drives and holodecks). But I can’t help but feel like I’m suffering from a lack of imagination here. So I put the question to you: how is the 3D printing revolution likely to change China (or Asia in general)?

(image source)

The post How Will 3D Printing Change China? appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Remember the Indonesian folklore-themed app that we looked at a while back? Called the Adventure of Wanara: Garuda Riders, it combines gaming and a comic book series and was released back in November. Now the second episode, Garuda Riders Vol 2: The Chosen One, is now out on Android and it promises even more fun this time.

The Garuda Riders series is built jointly by Indonesian digital art studio Mechanimotion Entertainment and game developer Elven Games. We talked with the game studio’s CEO Mahdi Basroni Rizal about what the latest episode has to offer better and why it’s not a free app this time.

Acting as a sequel, The Chosen One tells the story of protagonist teenager Naradja who aspires to become a bonafide garuda rider. Though his father forbade him to be one because it risked the family’s well-being, the teen Naradja spontaneously runs after a garuda on the loose. This is where Naradja’s new adventure begins. I love that the story is rich with Indonesian characteristics like the Balinese traditional music put inside. It’s about time local developers start promoting Indonesia’s cool heritage and folktales in this way.

Mahdi says that the studio planned to use the first episode as a preview of their entire Garuda Riders series of games. The team gathered lots of feedback from its users and implemented some of those ideas into the following episodes. These new elements stalled the second episode’s release by a few months.

More music, more languages

How improved is the second episode now? Mahdi explained that, story-wise, there aren’t too many differences. But there are things like more story pages, more of the Garuda Riders musical soundtrack, and overall improvement of user experience as requested by the gamers.

The Chosen One comes in two languages: Indonesian and English. Mahdi tells us that there will be a Korean and Japanese version of the app released in the coming months. Garuda Riders’ first episode now has a Japanese version on iOS thanks to cooperation with Japanese software developer Deluizon. The first episode has racked up around 3,800 downloads so far. This decision to push into the Korean and Japanese markets makes a lot of sense too, seeing that developers can seriously monetize their apps there.

The iPhone version of the two episodes’ international versions will arrive in the coming months. You can download Garuda Riders’ latest episode on Google Play for US$0.99 or the Telkom Store for US$1.12.

The post Indonesian Digital Comic Game Wanara’s Second Episode is now Out on Android appeared first on Tech in Asia.

According to Telecommunications Industry Net, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) recently held a closed meeting to discuss telecom operator subsidies to help the companies cope with the cost of Over-The-Top (OTT) services like Tencent’s WeChat. China Mobile and China Unicom reportedly both sent representatives to the meeting, but apparently were unable to agree on a path forward.

The dispute apparently centers around China Unicom’s concern that large subsidies would provide a greater benefit to China Mobile, increasing that company’s competitive advantage. With its relatively smaller network, China Unicom is less affected by the massive bandwidth WeChat users eat up, and apparently that’s enough reason for Unicom to be opposed to high subsidies.

In the long term, it remains to be seen how China’s regulators and telecom industry will handle WeChat’s growing user base and the bandwidth it eats up. In fairness to Tencent, WeChat is also probably driving some customers to upgrade to 3G wireless subscriptions so that they can do voice and video chat from anywhere, but even so, telecom operators will need to find a way to deal with the way that OTT services like WeChat leach customers away from their own more profitable telephone and SMS messaging services.

(Telecommunications Industry Net via Sina Tech, image source)

The post China Mobile and China Unicom Agree WeChat is a Threat, But Can’t Agree on How to Fix It appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Until today.

Cody Wilson, a law student at University of Texas and founder of a nonprofit organization called Defense Distributed, spoke today about his process for 3-D printing guns at home. He appeared on stage alone, and used slides to show some of his arsenal.

Only a smattering of conference attendees sat in the ballroom. Many more were at another, concurrent session — a showcase for Google Glass.

But Wilson, who has been profiled in recent months by Forbes, the New York Times and Ars Technica, made his message clear to those in attendance: 3-D guns are a real thing, and he doesn’t plan to stop making them.

“If you’ve been listening to all the press, you would think 3-D printing is just about making cupcakes, or lawn gnomes,” he said. “But if 3-D printing is going to be a meaningful technology, printing guns is going to be a part of that.”

Wilson went on to say that 3-D gun printing isn’t just about making hardware, but also the software. Defense Distributed has an online repository of around 100 3-D design files, he said, which have been downloaded more than 400,000 times since the end of December.

In early March, Wilson released a video that showed an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle firing off 600 rounds. The important part of that story is that the “lower” had been 3-D printed by Wilson and fellow members of Defense Distributed, using durable plastic.

Wilson has been quoted as saying that parts made with lower-quality materials can be built for as little as $50. His projects, which are funded through direct contributions after crowdsourcing site IndieGogo rejected Wilson, have already been the subject of much scrutiny.

And, as the aforementioned stories make clear, he isn’t the only person using 3-D printing to create parts for firearms.

Reports of 3-D-printed guns spurred New York Representative Steve Israel (D-Huntington) in January to seek the renewal of an act that bans 3-D-printed ammunition magazines. The existing ban expires this year.

Wilson addressed this directly, saying, “He [Israel] thinks this is how we’re all going to rid ourselves of Wiki-weapons, and that’s false. We’ve applied for a federal firearms manufacturing license,” he added.

Toward the end of the session, audience members asked Wilson about his larger goals with Distributed Defense, his positions on gun control not only in the U.S. but in other countries, and whether he’d be willing to compromise on his 3-D printing beliefs or work with the government to try to avoid another Sandy Hook.

“I’m not soliciting help from the government. I’m not looking for shelter protection. We are trying to follow the law as it is now and be good citizens. But we’re maintaining a freedom of speech.”

“I don’t view government as a benign institution,” Wilson concluded.

Until today.

Cody Wilson, a law student at University of Texas and founder of a nonprofit organization called Defense Distributed, spoke today about his process for 3-D printing guns at home. He appeared on stage alone, and used slides to show some of his arsenal.

Only a smattering of conference attendees sat in the ballroom. Many more were at another, concurrent session — a showcase for Google Glass.

But Wilson, who has been profiled in recent months by Forbes, the New York Times and Ars Technica, made his message clear to those in attendance: 3-D guns are a real thing, and he doesn’t plan to stop making them.

“If you’ve been listening to all the press, you would think 3-D printing is just about making cupcakes, or lawn gnomes,” he said. “But if 3-D printing is going to be a meaningful technology, printing guns is going to be a part of that.”

Wilson went on to say that 3-D gun printing isn’t just about making hardware, but also the software. Defense Distributed has an online repository of around 100 3-D design files, he said, which have been downloaded more than 400,000 times since the end of December.

In early March, Wilson released a video that showed an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle firing off 600 rounds. The important part of that story is that the “lower” had been 3-D printed by Wilson and fellow members of Defense Distributed, using durable plastic.

Wilson has been quoted as saying that parts made with lower-quality materials can be built for as little as $50. His projects, which are funded through direct contributions after crowdsourcing site IndieGogo rejected Wilson, have already been the subject of much scrutiny.

And, as the aforementioned stories make clear, he isn’t the only person using 3-D printing to create parts for firearms.

Reports of 3-D-printed guns spurred New York Representative Steve Israel (D-Huntington) in January to seek the renewal of an act that bans 3-D-printed ammunition magazines. The existing ban expires this year.

Wilson addressed this directly, saying, “He [Israel] thinks this is how we’re all going to rid ourselves of Wiki-weapons, and that’s false. We’ve applied for a federal firearms manufacturing license,” he added.

Toward the end of the session, audience members asked Wilson about his larger goals with Distributed Defense, his positions on gun control not only in the U.S. but in other countries, and whether he’d be willing to compromise on his 3-D printing beliefs or work with the government to try to avoid another Sandy Hook.

“I’m not soliciting help from the government. I’m not looking for shelter protection. We are trying to follow the law as it is now and be good citizens. But we’re maintaining a freedom of speech.”

“I don’t view government as a benign institution,” Wilson concluded.

Until today.

Cody Wilson, a law student at University of Texas and founder of a non-profit organization called Defense Distributed, spoke today about his process for 3-D printing guns at home. He appeared on stage alone, and used slides to show some of his arsenal.

Only a smattering of conference attendees sat in the ballroom. Many more were at another, concurrent session, a showcase for Google Glass.

But Wilson, who has been profiled in recent months by Forbes, the New York Times and Ars Technica, made his message clear to those in attendance: 3-D guns are a real thing, and he doesn’t plan to stop making them.

“If you’ve been listening to all the press, you would think, 3-D printing is just about making cupcakes, or lawn gnomes,” he said. “But if 3-D printing is going to be a meaningful technology, printing guns is going to be a part of that.”

Wilson went on to say that 3-D gun printing isn’t just about making hardware, but also the software. Defense Distributed has an online repository of around 100 3-D design files, he said, which have been downloaded over 400,000 times since the end of December.

In early March, Wilson released a video that showed an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle firing off 600 rounds. The important part of that story is that the “lower” had been 3-D printed by Wilson and fellow members of Defense Distributed, using durable plastic.

Wilson has been quoted as saying that parts made with lower-quality materials can be built for as little as $50. His projects, which are funded through direct contributions after crowdsourcing site IndieGogo rejected Wilson, have already been the subject of much scrutiny.

And, as the aforementioned stories make clear, he isn’t the only person using 3-D printing to create parts for firearms.

Reports of 3-D-printed guns spurred New York Representative Steve Israel (D-Huntington) in January to seek the renewal of an act that bans 3-D-printed ammunition magazines. The existing ban expires this year.

Wilson addressed this directly, saying, “He [Israel] thinks this is how we’re all going to rid ourselves of Wiki-weapons, and that’s false. We’ve applied for a federal firearms manufacturing license,” he added.

Toward the end of the session, audience members asked Wilson about his larger goals with Distributed Defense, his positions on gun control not only in the U.S. but in other countries and whether he’d be willing to compromise on his 3-D printing beliefs or work with the government to try to avoid another Sandy Hook.

“I’m not soliciting help from the government. I’m not looking for shelter protection. We are trying to follow the law as it is now and be good citizens. But we’re maintaining a freedom of speech.

“I don’t view government as a benign institution,” Wilson concluded.

Until today.

Cody Wilson, a law student at University of Texas and founder of a non-profit organization called Defense Distributed, spoke today about his process for 3-D printing guns at home. He appeared on stage alone, and used slides to show some of his arsenal.

Only a smattering of conference attendees sat in the ballroom. Many more were at another, concurrent session, a showcase for Google Glass.

But Wilson, who has been profiled in recent months by Forbes, the New York Times and Ars Technica, made his message clear to those in attendance: 3-D guns are a real thing, and he doesn’t plan to stop making them.

“If you’ve been listening to all the press, you would think, 3-D printing is just about making cupcakes, or lawn gnomes,” he said. “But if 3-D printing is going to be a meaningful technology, printing guns is going to be a part of that.”

Wilson went on to say that 3-D gun printing isn’t just about making hardware, but also the software. Defense Distributed has an online repository of around 100 3-D design files, he said, which have been downloaded over 400,000 times since the end of December.

In early March, Wilson released a video that showed an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle firing off 600 rounds. The important part of that story is that the “lower” had been 3-D printed by Wilson and fellow members of Defense Distributed, using durable plastic.

Wilson has been quoted as saying that parts made with lower-quality materials can be built for as little as $50. His projects, which are funded through direct contributions after crowdsourcing site IndieGogo rejected Wilson, have already been the subject of much scrutiny.

And, as the aforementioned stories make clear, he isn’t the only person using 3-D printing to create parts for firearms.

Reports of 3-D-printed guns spurred New York Representative Steve Israel (D-Huntington) in January to seek the renewal of an act that bans 3-D-printed ammunition magazines. The existing ban expires this year.

Wilson addressed this directly, saying, “He [Israel] thinks this is how we’re all going to rid ourselves of Wiki-weapons, and that’s false. We’ve applied for a federal firearms manufacturing license,” he added.

Toward the end of the session, audience members asked Wilson about his larger goals with Distributed Defense, his positions on gun control not only in the U.S. but in other countries and whether he’d be willing to compromise on his 3-D printing beliefs or work with the government to try to avoid another Sandy Hook.

“I’m not soliciting help from the government. I’m not looking for shelter protection. We are trying to follow the law as it is now and be good citizens. But we’re maintaining a freedom of speech.

“I don’t view government as a benign institution,” Wilson concluded.

After all, the online TV and movie distributor has, on occasion, used up to a third of all bandwidth in North America singlehandedly. And Netflix’s 33 million customers currently stream more than a billion hours of TV and movies every single month.

So the streaming media company has put out a “Netflix ISP Index,” giving you insight into which internet service providers are the fastest.

In the U.S., that list starts with Google, which is running a high-speed fiber experiment in Kansas and sports an average download speed of 3.35 megabits per second. Cox comes in fourth, followed closely by Verizon FIOS, but long-time incumbents AT&T, Time Warner, and ClearWire languish well in the rear:

1. Google Fiber – 3.35 Mbps
2. Cablevision – Optimum - 2.35 Mbps
3. SuddenLink - 2.19 Mbps
4. Cox - 2.12 Mbps
5. Verizon-FIOS - 2.10 Mbps
6. Charter - 2.08 Mbps
7. Comcast - 2.06 Mbps
8. Mediacom - 2.04 Mbps
9. Time Warner Cable - 2.04 Mbps
10. Bright House - 2.02 Mbps
11. AT&T U-Verse - 1.91 Mbps
12. Centurylink - 1.68 Mbps
13. Windstream - 1.61 Mbps
14. Frontier - 1.54 Mbps
15. AT&T DSL - 1.43 Mbps
16. Verizon DSL - 1.37 Mbps
17. Clearwire - 1.25 Mbps

The results are average velocity, so peak velocity can be much higher.

They’re useful for choosing an ISP, or negotiating with your current service provider. And, perhaps, from Netflix’ point of view, for shooting a cannon across the bow of ISPs that might be tempted to “packet-shape,” or slow down traffic from media companies that don’t pay extra.

Globally, Netflix members in Finland have the highest average speed, while Mexican Netflix subscribers have the lowest. And all ISPs in Denmark, Sweden and Finland delivered better than a 2Mbps download speed.

You can check your results here.

photo credit: DigiDreamGrafix.com via photopin cc

Filed under: Business, Cloud, Lifestyle, Media, VentureBeat