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Four New Inventions
The term ''Four new inventions'' () is a slogan promoted by Chinese state media, drawing inspiration from the ''Four Great Inventions'' of ancient China. In 2017, Chinese state media began asserting that mainland China "invented" high-speed rail, mobile payment, e-commerce, and bike-sharing. However, none of these "four new inventions" were originally invented in mainland China. High-speed rail High-speed rail is a type of rail transport that operates significantly faster than traditional rail systems, utilizing an integrated system of specialized rolling stock and dedicated tracks. The European Union defines "high-speed" as a minimum of 250 km/h on new tracks and 200 km/h on older tracks. The world's first high-speed train, the ''Tōkaidō Shinkansen'' in Japan, began service in 1964 with a maximum speed of 210 km/h. In mainland China, "high-speed" is defined as a design speed of at least 250 km/h, with a minimum operational speed of 200 km/h during i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State Media
State media are typically understood as media outlets that are owned, operated, or significantly influenced by the government. They are distinguished from public service media, which are designed to serve the public interest, operate independently of government control, and are financed through a combination of public funding, licensing fees, and sometimes advertising. The crucial difference lies in the level of independence from government influence and the commitment to serving a broad public interest rather than the interests of a specific political party or government agenda. State media serve as tools for public diplomacy and narrative shaping. These media outlets can broadcast via television, radio, print, and increasingly on social media, to convey government viewpoints to domestic and international audiences. The approach to using state media can vary, focusing on positive narratives, adjusting narratives retroactively, or spreading misinformation through sophisticated so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NetMarket
NetMarket is an online marketplace owned by Trilegiant that sells various goods ranging from electronics to jewelry. It was founded in 1994 by Dan Kohn and Roger Lee, both former London School of Economics students, and by Guy H. T. Haskin and Eiji Hirai from Swarthmore College. ''The New York Times'' has credited the company with performing the first secure retail transaction on the Internet. History NetMarket was initially conceived by Dan Kohn while he was studying at the London School of Economics after finishing an honors degree in economics from Swarthmore College. He recruited classmate and Yale graduate Roger Lee to become president of the company. The company's management team was rounded out by Guy H. T. Haskin and Eiji Hirai, both from Swarthmore and both hired for their technical skills. The firm's initial headquarters was a house in Nashua, New Hampshire. It started out selling goods such as CDs and books for various offline stores using non-digital payments. O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mobike
Mobike ( zh, s=摩拜单车, p=mó bài dān chē), also known as Meituanbike, founded by Beijing Mobike Technology Co., Ltd. ( zh, s=北京摩拜科技有限公司), is a fully station-less bicycle-sharing system headquartered in Beijing, China. It is, by the number of bicycles, the world's largest shared (for hire) bicycle operator, making Shanghai the world's largest bike-share city in December 2016. In April 2018, it was acquired by a Chinese web company Meituan-Dianping for US$2.7 billion. History In 2015, Mobike was established by a former journalist Hu Weiwei. Co-founder Wang Xiaofeng, the general manager for the Shanghai office of Uber also known by his English name Davis Wang, became Mobike's CEO. Not being able to purchase bikes from suppliers to the preferred specifications, the company built its own bikes which were rolled out from April 2016. In December 2016, the company made Shanghai the world's largest bike-share city. In June 2017, Mobike raised $600 millio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, '' Bloomberg Businessweek'', '' Bloomberg Markets'', Bloomberg.com, and Bloomberg's mobile platforms. Since 2015, John Micklethwait has been editor-in-chief. History Bloomberg News was founded by Michael Bloomberg and Matthew Winkler in 1990 to deliver financial news reporting to Bloomberg Terminal subscribers. The agency was established in 1990 with a team of six people. Winkler was first editor-in-chief. In 2010, Bloomberg News included more than 2,300 editors and reporters in 72 countries and 146 news bureaus worldwide. Beginnings (1990–1995) Bloomberg Business News was created to expand the services offered through the terminals. According to Matthew Winkler, then a writer for ''The Wall Street Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ofo (company)
ofo () was a Beijing-based bicycle sharing company founded in 2014. It used a dockless system with a smartphone app to unlock and locate nearby bicycles, charging an hourly rate for use. In 2017, the ofo company had deployed over 10 million bicycles in 250 cities and 20 countries. The company was valued at up to US$2 billion and had over 62.7 million monthly active users. In 2018, ofo announced massive reduction in operations, including withdrawing from most US cities and from several entire countries. By 2020, facing a large amount of unpayable debt, the company was no longer operating bike rentals. History 2014–2016: Founding in China The company was founded in 2014 by five members of the Peking University cycling club as a project that initially focused on bicycle tourism before deciding on bicycle sharing. It was named "ofo" due to the word's resemblance to a cyclist on a bicycle. ofo was launched in June 2015 in Beijing, gaining 20,000 users and 2,000 bicycles by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Region of Amsterdam, urban area and 2,480,394 in the Amsterdam metropolitan area, metropolitan area. Located in the Provinces of the Netherlands, Dutch province of North Holland, Amsterdam is colloquially referred to as the "Venice of the North", for its canals of Amsterdam, large number of canals, now a World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Amsterdam was founded at the mouth of the Amstel River, which was dammed to control flooding. Originally a small fishing village in the 12th century, Amsterdam became a major world port during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, when the Netherlands was an economic powerhouse. Amsterdam was the leading centre for finance and trade, as well as a hub of secular art production. In the 19th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WeChat Pay
WeChat Pay, officially referred to as Weixin Pay ( zh, c=微信支付, p=Wēixìn Zhīfù) in China, is a mobile payment and digital wallet service by WeChat based in China that allows users to make mobile payments and online transactions. As of March 2016, WeChat Pay had over 300 million users. WeChat Pay reached 1.133 billion active users in 2023. WeChat Pay's main competitor in China and the market leader in online payments is Alibaba Group's Alipay. Alibaba company founder Jack Ma considered the red envelope feature to be a "Pearl Harbor moment", as it began to erode Alipay's historic dominance in the online payments industry in China, especially in peer-to-peer money transfer. The success prompted Alibaba to launch its own version of virtual red envelopes in its competing Laiwang service. Other competitors, Baidu Wallet and Sina Weibo, also launched similar features. Service Users who have provided their bank account information can utilize the app for various financial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alipay
Alipay () is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company Ant Financial remains Hangzhou-based. Alipay overtook PayPal as the world's largest mobile (digital) payment platform in 2013. As of June 2020, Alipay serves over 1.3 billion users and 80 million merchants. According to the statistics of the fourth quarter of 2018, Alipay has a 55.32% share of the third-party payment market in mainland China, and it continues to grow. Along with WeChat, Alipay has been described to be China's super-app with a wide range of functionalities including ridesharing, travel booking and medical appointments. History The service was first launched in 2003, by Taobao. The People's Bank of China, China's central bank, issued licensing regulations in June 2010 for third-party payment providers. It also issued ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, opposite Estonia. Finland has a population of 5.6 million. Its capital and largest city is Helsinki. The majority of the population are Finns, ethnic Finns. The official languages are Finnish language, Finnish and Swedish language, Swedish; 84.1 percent of the population speak the first as their mother tongue and 5.1 percent the latter. Finland's climate varies from humid continental climate, humid continental in the south to boreal climate, boreal in the north. The land cover is predominantly boreal forest biome, with List of lakes of Finland, more than 180,000 recorded lakes. Finland was first settled around 9000 BC after the Last Glacial Period, last Ice Age. During the Stone Age, various cultures emerged, distinguished by differen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mobile Payment
Mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cash, cheque, or credit card, a consumer can use a payment app on a mobile device to pay for a wide range of services and digital or hard goods. Although the concept of using non-coin-based currency systems has a long history, it is only in the 21st century that the technology to support such systems has become widely available. Mobile payments began adoption in Japan in the 2000s and later all over the world in different ways. The first patent exclusively defined "Mobile Payment System" was filed in 2000. In a developing country, mobile payment solutions can be deployed as a means of extending services of financial institutions to the community known as the "unbanked" or " underbanked", which is estimated to be as much as 50 percent of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taobao
Taobao is a Chinese online shopping platform. It is headquartered in Hangzhou and is owned by Alibaba. According to Alexa rank, it was the eighth most-visited website globally in 2021. Taobao.com was registered on April 21, 2003 by Alibaba Cloud Computing (Beijing) Co., Ltd. Taobao Marketplace facilitates consumer-to-consumer retail by providing a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online stores that mainly cater to consumers in Chinese-speaking regions (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...) and abroad, which is made payable by online accounts. Its stores usually offer an express delivery service. Sellers are able to post goods for sale either through a fixed price or an auction. Auction ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Ma
Ma Yun (; born 10 September 1964), or more commonly referred as Jack Ma, is a Chinese businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder of the Jack Ma Foundation, and co-founder of Alibaba Group and Yunfeng Capital. As of May 2025, Ma's net worth was estimated at 27.2 billion. After taking the '' gaokao'' three times, Ma earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Hangzhou Normal University in 1988 and was assigned as an English and international trade lecturer at Hangzhou Dianzi University. Interested in internet entrepreneurship since the 1980s, he founded his first business, Hangzhou Hope Translation Agency, in 1994. The following year, he created the agency’s website and then resigned from the university to establish Hangzhou Hope Computer Services Co., Ltd., one of China’s earliest internet startups, which operated an online yellow pages service for Chinese companies. In 1996, Ma’s company was acquired by China Telecommunications Corporation. Following an unsa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
