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U.S., Japan Ask Sony To Not Outsource PS2 To Taiwan 169

Posted by timothy from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.
Payp points to this Digitimes story which says: "Japanese and U.S. governments have asked Sony to stop outsourcing Playstation 2 manufacturing to 2 Taiwanese companies, Asustek and Acer, in fear that they would do the manufacturing in factories in China, which would give the Chinese government opportunies to gain access to the DVD techonology. (I thought some DVD players are already manufactured in China.) Sony originally planned to use the Taiwanese companies to manufacture PS2 to prepare for Microsoft XBox's arrival, the manufacturing of which is also outsourced to some Taiwanese companies."
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U.S., Japan Ask Sony To Not Outsource PS2 To Taiwan More

U.S., Japan Ask Sony To Not Outsource PS2 To Taiwan

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  • It's Not the DVD technology, you dolts! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's the fact that the entire platform is really a high-powered computer system, with enough processing power that it can be used in the research for weapons of mass destruction.

    And, yes, before anyone asks, the PRC already does have nukes. What we fear is that China will (1) use this technolgy for designing better launch technologies (read: ICBM's pointed at you and me) and (2) that they'll also sell this processing technology to rogue nations like Iraq or Iran for their own terrorist weapons programs.

  • The Real Headline (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Microsoft demands USA block Sony from Competing against X-BOX"

  • Manufacturing capacity not technology (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    People are missing the point...

    The problem is not the DVD technology. The problem is that the United States is worried about building up the PRC's capacity for manufacturing chips. Chip foundries intended to produce PS/2 chips could be used to produce other chips in a crisis, and if it were the case that the United States is dependent on the PRC for chip production, this would render any U.S. threats to use military force against the PRC non-credible, in that the PRC could shut down the United States high-tech industry if pushed.

    Even at this level I don't think that it will work.

  • Protecting DVD Tech my arse (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08, 2001 @01:06PM (#99616)
    There are tons of articles all over the place on the web DVD technology - I doubt thats what they are trying to protect. What I think they really fear is access to the PS2's emotion chip technology, which the Japanese said is powerful enough to control weapons such as guided missles [slashdot.org].

    Cheap ruse, try again.
  • mine is lower... =)
  • Your "low" SlashID is for ponces.

    (*grin)
    --
  • I accept that the emotion engine may have sufficient mflops for scientific application, but it's hardwired into a device that can do nothing but play games and its interface is a custom-built gamepad. How does one turn this into a weapon or weapons research device? Can anyone outline how, in theory, one would use a PS2 to do this?

  • I know all that. But those Z80s were bought on the commodity parts market and they have an open spec. How can I take this proprietary chip, whose info is available only to licensees, rip it out of the custom-built hardware that supports it, and get it to process your own programs?

  • Hmm.. If China doesn't have DVD hardware and software, how did my Chinese brand (Konka) DVD player get produced?

    Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)

  • This is bad, Mr. President... (Score:3)

    by jjohn ( 2991 ) on Monday July 09, 2001 @01:49AM (#99622) Homepage Journal

    It appears the "DVD Club" has a new member: China.

    I'm afraid the Chinese now have the DVD. This means that they can natively produce and watch pr0n, totally bypassing the Japo-American Pr0n Syndicate. Although details are sketchy, it appears China stole this technology via Sony manufacting plants in Taiwan.

    China now has access to the world's most potent encrypting scheme: CSS. We have our cryto boys working around the clock to break that cypher, but it could take years.

    Our only option is to flood the Chinese market with Barney and Raffy DVDs. With luck, the Chinese consumer will be so disgusted with those shows that they'll abandon DVD altogether.

    A world in which China has DVD tech isn't a world I want to live in.

  • Outsourcing production to Taiwanese companies is definitely a nice way to bring the price of the PS2 boxes down.

    Paranoid scenario #1:
    Maybe the real reason the US government is doing this is to give Microsoft an advantage competing against Sony.... giving their own corporations a helping hand against foreign companies sure ain't a new thing.

    Time to harass your local US embassy/consulate and demand that they subsidise you buying a PS2.


  • Funny.

    Not long ago, George W. Bush was showing how much he cares for Taiwan, so much so that he prepared to go to war against China - risking the lives of THOUSANDS of American GIs - just to protect that little island nation.

    And now, it seems that George W. Bush isn't that cozy with Taiwan anymore.

    C'mon. This is only DVD we're talking about. It ain't some StarWar technology, or stealth, or other super-hi-tech, spy-spy stuffs.

    Sometimes I really wonder if those who are working for us, in the States department and the spy agancies, do know what the hell they are doing?

  • That said, this may have bigger implications if the ban is against higher-end computers (P4's, Athlons, G3's) but I've never heard of such a thing.

    Yeah. Consider that many P4 and Athlon motherboards and chipsets are actually manufactored in Taiwan/China...

  • Yeah, you have to buy a remote. Also Xbox is a consumer PC bascily with nForce audio and video. PS2 emotion engine is a MP MIPS machine ( Versions of MIPS run everything from toasters to clusters. They're also better suited for military applications for certian reasons... I'm sorry I can't say why the merikan SS is knocking on my door... )
  • The main points are:
    * PS2 is multi processor MIPS ( vector processors )
    * It's easy to embed
    * It has a small form factor
    * Xbox is a consumer uniprocessor PC
    * Xbox is well... a huge box
    Thank you, drive thru

  • Jeez, these people are much too late. They want to stop the Chinese from getting DVD technology? I think they already had it long ago. If the PRC can steal U.S. Government nuclear secrets I think getting DVD technology trade secrets would be child's play for their equivalent of the KGB. There has to be some other reason, I think, or else these people in the U.S. and Japanese governments have either completely lost their mind or are under the influence of some controlled substance.

  • Might there be a chip on the PS2 that has some form of US Defense encryption.
    So they don't mind if people in Russia, China, or where ever else buy the PS2, but they don't wnat them manufacturing it and finding out about this strange chip.
    Did anyone ever find out what was really in that blob of epoxy in Furbies? ;-)
  • Now, if it was China asking Sony to stop making PS2s in Taiwan, for fear of giving Chinese people access to DVDs... it would almost make sense (but only just)
  • [...] in fear that they would do the manufacturing in factories in China, which would give the Chinese government opportunies to gain access to the DVD techonology.
    They're afraid that the Chinese will make regionless DVD players???

    --

  • Sony's Japanes, Microsoft American.

    And like any successful American company, it saves money by producing goods in low-cost countries: The Xbox apparently will be manufactured in Taiwan.

  • Except that a large part of the Asian market uses VCD. To pirate DVD images to VCD you'd need to rip the content with the encryption keys, right?

  • Re:And in other news.... (Score:3)

    by elmegil ( 12001 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @01:30PM (#99634) Homepage Journal
    The only possible way I can see this as a sensible ban is if the manufacture of PS2 units requires revealing the encryption keys for DVD to Chinese, and the concern is that someone unscrupulous will use them for pirating.

    Which is not to say that this is or isn't a reasonable concern, but I'd be surprised if Sony hadn't already considered that, being a media giant and all.....

  • they already do..
    and their dvd player has been the best.. seriously... if u have the access, buy a chinese dvd player.. it is cheap.. below 100, because of the exchange rate.. and it has the best error correction tech in the market.. since their players r suppose to play copyrighted dvds and vcds.

    that article is just hilarious.. it is so retarded..
  • The new Tomahawk (Tactical Tomahawk) uses a 300MHz PowerPC 603.

    FYI and all that.
  • I'd love to see some Chinese politicians exact revenge and puke all over Dubya!

    Mike
  • "China wishes to bring Japan under its economic guidance, while Japan wishes to remain its own independent unit."

    Ummm, no, I think you are thinking Taiwan here.
  • What's the worst the Chinese military could use the DVD app for, showing training videos?

    The Chinese could decode ultra-secure CSS encoded video orders to US submarines transmitted via the ELF antennas [navy.mil] in Michigan and Wisconsin.

    (Now, to see who is smart enough to figure out what is wrong with the above.)

    (OT: I wish slashdot would allow the <small> tag)



    --
  • Many people seem to forget that anything can be gotten, for a price. If China wants the specs on the PS2, well, there are plenty of free dev sites out there, and it's not terribly hard to get an official PS2 dev kit. If they want a bunch of EE chips, they hire the mafia to steal a truckload of them. And it's not like there already aren't a billion pirated DVDs coming out of China. I took a trip to Mexico about a month ago, and the black market was full of Chinese bootleg DVDs. Not just copies of retail DVDs, but they had reel capture DVDs of current movies. I picked up a few, the quality is just as good as hollywood DVDs, except I paid $5 each and they came in CD jewel cases. My point? If the Chinese want to do it, they will, and if not, they won't. There's not much the US or Japan can do to stop them.
  • that churns out millions of bootleg DVDs and VCDs? I don't really understand what technology they are missing, it seams like they have pretty much streamlined the process of making fake DVDs. My neighborhood video store has all four Star Wars movies on DVD (not VCD).

    --
  • You clearly haven't played xtux, have you ? Those disks can be pretty deadly, you know ! If the MSCPs, bugs, Borgs etc. that crossed my path were still alive, they'd tell you...
  • Sweet Christ, two years ago, the US government sold the Chinese MISSILE GUIDANCE SOFTWARE...and we're worried about a fucking game console?

    Stop the world. I want to get off.
  • Except that how is Iran a "rogue nation" ? They don't have a nuclear weapons programme, they sell oil to western nations, and have democracy.

    Besides, the PS2 doesnt have _that much_ power in it. The AMD K7-1400 is a tad more powerful... not to mention G4 chips, etc.

    You sound like a middle-american who knows nothing of the world except what they're told by their government. Get a clue.
  • buy a new computer, i hear pentiums are really cheap now.....
  • amen brother... you got it.

    *sigh* uncultured women... makes me sick.
  • i have to ask, what is up with 'iranians' and all that shit? thats old hat, old history guy. The threat will _not_ be coming from iran. Hell, France built a nuclear research facility in iraq and sold them the nuclear materials for 3 years. Iran claims they do not support terrorism anymore (at least not offically, which is alot better than before). They sell oil to the western world. I mean comeone.

    Your real threats are from small non-country groups, such as Bin Laden and his band of FREAKS and so on and so forth.

  • Re:Officials Fear That Which They Do Not Understan (Score:3)

    by garver ( 30881 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @03:28PM (#99648)

    One small nit: right-wingers do not have a monopoly on fearing that which they do not understand.

    Unfortunately, it's human nature and happens in any country, race, religious group, social group, ethnicity, or caste, you can come up with.

    When people don't know how to deal with something, they try not to. They ignore it if they can. If they can't, they try to get rid of it by ridiculing it. If that doesn't work, they attempt to destroy it. Of course, the sensible and responsible thing to do is learn to understand what they fear. Perhaps there is no reason to fear it after all, or perhaps there is a way to fix it without destroying it.

    Don't fall into this trap. Before writing your right-wing classmates off as a group about to fuck up the US, try to understand them instead of ridiculing them. As long as you are ridiculing them without understanding them, you are no better than them.

  • Sweet Christ, two years ago, the US government sold the Chinese MISSILE GUIDANCE SOFTWARE...and we're worried about a fucking game console?

    >This kind of thing is just nonsensical with a consumer product. If the Chinese government wants to get them they can simply buy them. What next Sony demand that anywhere selling this console must first expell any Chinese diplomats.
  • Tracking a target also usually means that you're telling the aircraft 'Here I am, and I'm looking at you' which also means that the target will do some countermeasures.

    Worst it can easily mean that you are telling your enemy an awful lot about your radar system. Rather useful for anti-radar missile systems or aircraft with a lower RCS than the one being tracked.
  • Not meant to be a troll or anything, but it seems to me that this high-tech hysteria is pretty meaningless when they (especially the Arab nations) have millions upon millions of fanatics that would gladly become a martyr in the never-ending battle against Truth, Justice and Freedom (aka The Great Satan)

    Much the same applies to missile defence systems.
    When a kamikazi bomber can get to a target far more effectivily. The most recent successful attack against a US warship used an infaltable boat...
  • China already manufactures rockets which are almost carbon copies of American Titan II boosters.

    You can't simply buy a Titan II rocket, nor will one fit in a diplomatic bag even if you could.
    There is simply no way to control distribution of a consumer product.

  • Dang commies! (Score:4)

    by BassHombre ( 55726 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @01:00PM (#99653)
    If China gets a hold of our DVD technology, they might find even more illeagal uses for it. The nerve of people thinking they have the right to *watch* the movies they buy! Dang commies! God bless America!
  • Ignoring the absurd idea that they can't already copy dvds in China, what's to keep the evil Chinese pirating triad from flying to the US, buying 5 or 6 PS2 units, and flying them back to China to analyze them. Or even just going to Hong Kong and buying them off the street.

    I can just imagine what U.S. customs might say: "Uh no sir, you may not export these video game systems, they are weapons of mass destruction. Here, why don't you take this used Pong machine instead."
  • ...that they are worried that China may gain access to the CSS encryption technology that the MPAA relies on to protect its profits. They probably figure that piracy will run rampant if China gets a hold of this. To address your point about Acer, I guess the DVD-ROM drives themselves don't do the decryption, otherwise DeCSS wouldn't have any significance whatsoever.

    Of course, if they think that no one in China has managed to get his/her hands on DeCSS by now, they're kidding themselves.
  • You're right, of course they already can and do
    download software off the net to do that for them.
    "divx" copies of asian stuff is already passed around a lot on the internet and is often made into a vcd.

  • Re:Protecting DVD Tech my arse (Score:4)

    by BlueUnderwear ( 73957 ) on Monday July 09, 2001 @06:36AM (#99657)
    > Well, we didn't care where we landed on the moon exactly. On the other hand, with missiles, you need very precise guidance

    ...and up to date maps ;-) The Chinese should know, having lost an embassy that way...

  • In most cases, you are correct. What I was referring to is the recent obsession with "hit-to-kill" technology. Specifically, Patriot (PAC-3) and THAAD missiles are kinetic-kill rather than explosive. This means that they actually have to slam into the target to make a kill. That is one of the reasons that making THAAD usable is so difficult! Amazing how technology goes backwards, sometimes...

    Well, trying to hit a quite small warhead coming from above at mach 10 is probably easier with a kinetic-kill weapon than explosive. I think this is the reason why they try this approach.

    You are also right about the doctrine that states "shoot everything down" - the SA-X range even have nuclear options to make sure that you hit the target. (Small nukes, so really not as dramatic as it sounds - but still an impressive hit radius).

    The US have actually developed a nuclear air-to-air missile called Genie, and I think it was France who had an nuclear surface-to-air missile (check the "Worst Weapon System"-thread in the sci.military.moderated newsgroup. :)
  • (This is probably waaay off-topic :)

    You said "Admittedly, part of their success may be attributed to a willingness to detonate an explosive near the target - rather than just trying to hit it, but their systems are very advanced."

    In case you didn't know, this is how all air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles work. Hey, even flak from WW2 didn't need a direct hit. Some even had proximity fuses which made the shells go off when an aircraft was nearby instead of using a timer.

    But Russia do have some kick-ass long range air defence systems, but the problem such systems is target identification. What's the point in shooting down a target far away if you don't know if it's a friend or foe? Another problems is detection vs tracking. To be able to detect an aircraft at a long range doesn't mean that you can track it, and tracking is needed to be able get a good shot. I'm not sure if the double-digit russian SA-systems (NATO classification) uses active or semi-active radar in the missiles (semi-active requires an illumination radar to paint the target, active means that the missile got a radar of it's own), but in either case you have to get reliable targeting data when you're shooting. Unless the missile got some kind of mid-course update (the missile get updated target info from the radar while flying towards the target (the AMRAAM-missile (by Raytheon) got this), shooting at a long range means that the target has plenty of time doing some countermeasures, like turning in another direction. Tracking a target also usually means that you're telling the aircraft 'Here I am, and I'm looking at you' which also means that the target will do some countermeasures. However, the russian military doctrine may allow shooting down targets which just may be hostile. This may work when defending Mother Russia from bombers coming from all directions, but todays battlefield is much more complex.
  • actually, i just got back from China and I can safely say that they've found ways to pirate DVDs.

    While in Beijing, my girlfriend brought me to the "cd cafes"... a whole strip of cafes where you order a drink and people that work in the cafe ask you if you'd like any dvds, cds, or vcds. So I said "dvd's please". They returned with trashbags full of dvd's in plastic envelopes. Then my girlfriend told me how much they cost... 15 kuai (approx. $2 US). Of course I checked for the right international encoding so that I could play them on my player at home.

    Just in case, when I got home, I tested them on my computer. A few had problems with syncing the audio/video, and I told my girlfriend this. She's like "no worries, you can take em back and exchange em for new ones".

    Now if only they had "cd cafes" in NYC...

    btw, this is a completely true story. if you want directions to the places in Beijing, you'll figure out how to get in touch with me.

  • Re:More than just a CD player (Score:4)

    by mclearn ( 86140 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @01:35PM (#99661) Homepage

    There's more to DVDs than layers - most DVDs are single-layered anyway.

    At first glance, I read this as "There's more to DVDs than lawyers..."
  • Very Simple answer.....

    DVD technology is guarded by the US Government therefore its a billion times more secure :)

    net use g: \\nukes.whitehouse.gov\topsecret\newestwarhead.pdf

    Hehe oh i crack my self up :)

  • XBox DVD not an issue? (Score:3)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot&keirstead,org> on Sunday July 08, 2001 @01:01PM (#99663)
    And why is the govenment only focusing on Sony then? Or is the XBox not going to support DVD anymore, as it was originally spec'ed to do?
  • The motherboard isn't where most of the technology lies, it's in the processor itself. And those aren't being made in Taiwan, that's for sure.
  • Well, we didn't care where we landed on the moon exactly. On the other hand, with missiles, you need very precise guidance == fast processors (for terrain recognition, for example) and accurate sensors too.

    For nukes, precision is less of a problem, but still it's much more difficult than what we faced in the moon missions.

  • Manufacturing vs assembly -- BIG DIFFERENCE (Score:5)

    by Ryu2 ( 89645 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @02:46PM (#99666) Homepage Journal
    Most of the "manufacturing" going on in China and Taiwan is actually ASSEMBLY of components into a final product, not actual MANUFATURE of components themselves (eg, semiconductors or DVD readers), which themselves come from US or Japan.

    Perhaps if Sony wanted China/Taiwan to actually fab the chips, then there might be danger of intellectual property being stolen.

    To assemble stuff requires far less advanced technology (soldering, etc) than actually making the raw components. So, in order to get any useful technology, the Chinese would have to take the chip apart or use other methods of reverse engineering, and I don't see how not letting China/Taiwan handle the assembly would stop this anyways.

  • Re:What am I missing here? (Score:4)

    by Punto ( 100573 ) <puntobNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday July 08, 2001 @03:40PM (#99667) Homepage
    But an Athlon can merrily perform all the same functions, if not a bit more!

    Sure, they can have their little encrypted communications, and develop their misiles with an athlon, but DVD technology will give them access to something even worse: illegal DVD copies!! (wich I'm sure they are alredy producing anyway). We can't allow that.

    Remember: When you buy a Play Station 2, you are buying COMUNISM !!!

    --

  • why do you need to bother with terrain recognition? you could do the same thing for a lot cheaper, and more accuratly using GPS.
    =\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\ =\=\=\

  • this has to be a hoax (Score:4)

    by egomaniac ( 105476 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @08:45PM (#99669) Homepage
    Hasn't anyone considered the possibility that this is a hoax? I've read four or five articles saying this exact same thing for the past few weeks, and not one has been more specific than "according to our sources".

    "According to our sources"? What, like our government would make a silly request like this and then refuse to talk to the press about it? Which branch of the government or military made the request? Which committee debated doing this? Who was ultimately responsible for the decision? What experts solemnly related their opinions that DVD technology is somehow dangerous? Are DVD-ROM drives banned in China? How about DVD players?

    The complete lack of such details in any of these articles makes me very, very suspicious of their veracity. Especially when you consider the fact that a lot of people were actually dumb enough to think that Saddam Hussein was somehow interested in PS2 technology for military use -- haven't we heard this story before?
  • OK, the article says "the DVD application of the console's chip could be used for military purposes", though the military uses for an MPEG-2 decoder are limited, to say the least. Others have suggested that it's actually our buddies at MPAA who're trying to block this, but we've already got DeCSS and China and Taiwan already produce DVD players, so this isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference.

    Well, perhaps they want that Emotion chip that Saddam was after. Thing is, Iraq is subject to trade restrictions and doesn't really have the industry to make it's own high-end processors. Taiwan, though, has the resources to make it's own processors if it really wanted, and it has access to Pentiums, Athlons etc as freely as most of us do - so what's the point blocking this one chip in the PS2?

    There's been plenty of media coverage about these issues, so the government should be aware. So what's the real danger here (other than giving jobs to people in other countries)? I can't see how the PS2 will provide China with any technology that isn't already freely available to them.

  • My APEX player, with loopholes, was made in China. Actually, APEX got in a lot of trouble with MPAA over the loopholes menu. They claimed that the Chinese left it open ;)
  • This seems utterly rediculous to me. I mean, for every insane human rights violation story on the Chinese there's on the US doing some completely idiotic piece of foriegn policy. When did the idiot at my high school start running the government?

    This is almost as retarded as that time the US didn't want to allow someone to ship some supercomputers over to China because they would be able to do hyper accurate predictions of the weather, and make their missile more accurate. If they can make hyper accurate predictions of the weather, how come the weather people here can't tell if it's going to rain or not? That doesn't seem to need a "hyper accurate" level of computing to me.

    This all feels like a game of Civ2...where Abraham Lincoln coms knocking on Sony's door backed with the threat of nuclear weapons demanding that Sony doesn't give the Chinese the secret of Pottery or something.

    Oh no, they've got DVDs...now they can make those guns from Beverly Hills Cop 3 with the microwaves, stereo systems, and DVD playback.

    I think the US Government's idea of what the Chinese tech level at is a bit skewed. Has anyone ever seen some of the recent HK movies out? There's a CG production group over there named Centro that can basically do anything any major Hollywood studio can do, and sometimes better. Check out "Wind & Cloud" and "A Man Called Hero" for some exmaples of their work.

    On top of that, if they could take apart the PS2, and rig it up to do military operations, would it stand to reason that they probably ALREADY make chips of similar technical complexity, instead of just stealing everyone else's work? How about giving some non-US nations some credit?
  • I'll be honest. I've never heard of digitimes.com. When I hit the link to the article, I immediately thought it was amateur-looking and the "we'll customize our news for you" blurb was a little strange. Maybe that's due to the english-speaking ability of the writer. (Insert /. editor joke here.)

    The fact that it is a Taiwan web page made my suspicious mind wonder even more about propaganda. It may be true, but it could also could have been taken way out of context.

    Your "according to our sources" explanation could be a good one too. Or maybe they want to generate hits a la ZDNet's often uninformative articles.

    --
    dman123 forever!

  • Um, they have more than enough techno know-how to build a missile control system, or any weapon of mass destruction they choose. And any other nation can simply buy it, or send some students to universities here to learn it.

    What is this American obsession with "secret" missle and nuke tech? It isn't secret. Everyone has it. Knowledge, no matter what the Intellectual Property groupies want to believe, breaks free and roams in the wild fairly quickly. The whole point of the Internet was to distribute information!

    Point: this fear of killer missiles is a holdover from the '50's. Let the fear go. It's dumb. We have over 10,000 warheads - no sane nation will ever launch a nuke on a missile at us. They'd be destroyed in days. Game over.

    A nuke, should it come, will be in a U-Haul parked in front of the Smithsonian Institution. It may happen. We'll survive it. Terrorists can't detonate hundreds of nukes to get all of our assets, and no matter what they do, we and the rest of the world would hunt the mad dogs down in REALLY short order. It's self-preservation!

    The commies got the bomb, the Iranians (probably) have the bomb, the South Africans have the bomb -- think about it. The bloody bomb is useless! What the hell can you do with it, other than promise to use it if someone bombs you?

    The Eighties reconstituted the Bomb scare of the Fifties, and we will be a long time getting rid of the notion of commie nukes raining from the sky.

    Wanna be scared? Think of HIV-like genetic material inserted into a common cold virus. Think of the "fleshing-eating" bacteria's code installed into some innocuous bacterium. Think of plagues keyed to common genetic markers, say, like those females may possess (think Herbert's "White Plague"). THOSE are weapons of mass destruction. They make nukes look like annoying sunburn agents.

    End of Pleasant Thought For Today.

  • Well, don't you think China has an effective enough intelligence agency to aquire DVD technology without having to 'capture' it from another nation? - I really feel that the US must be somewhat naievely underestimating China.

    Lets face it, China already manufactures rockets which are almost carbon copies of American Titan II boosters.Why doesn't the USA (how come they control this anyway?) just add another 'region' for China and let them make DVD's to their hearts content.

    Communist they may be - but these days the Chinese live in the most Capitalistic communist regime ever ;)

    Just a thought: Would China invade Taiwan just to aquire DVD technoloy?
  • I'm from the UK, maybe we should get another empire going again? :P
  • Hey, DVD technology is an issue of National Security! This is no laughing matter.

    Just think what could happen if the Chinese Red Army had training videos with the same image quality as those we might someday use to train our troops. Remember, the main advantage the US armed forces has is technological!

  • about the fact that the U.S. is trying to deny China high technology, which seems to be the PRC's only hope for democracy.

    I've been in Beijing on an exchange program for four months. Every media source is controlled. When a provincial paper accidentally printed a joke about a high level official, it was shut down, and the editor was driven into hiding.

    The only unrestricted method of communication, the only outlet for the REAL political opinions of the Chinese people is, no surprise, the Internet (and piracy...the government has no way to restrict pirated media...Red Alert is prohibited because it portrays Communism as 'bad', but you can get it pirated).

    I think the U.S. should be promoting the distribution of high tech throughout the world, not suppressing it. Especially for something has harmless as DVD.
    If Uncle Sam wants to keep military tech out of the PRC's hands, then it should worry about more important things, like keeping state-of-the-art spyplanes from falling into China.
  • Yeah, we went through all this crap with the 68000 from Megadrives and Amigas; worrying about whether Iraq would get them. Pretty funny, seeing as they got everything else from the west. Who does this stuff fool?
  • This all boils down to economic warfare from the U.S. against China. How difficult would it be fore ANY government to get it's hands on a massive amount of any consumer product? The sooner China (or someone, anyone!) blows the Americans off the face of the earth the better for all of us.

  • Re:Chinese DVD players? Mustek V300 .. Yup. (Score:3)

    by Terri416 ( 131871 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @01:21PM (#99681)
    My Mustuk V300 with region-code busting loophole menu :) says "Made in China" plain as day on the back of the unit, so it seems the US and Japanese Govs are up to something that they don't want made public.
  • Asustek already manufactures GeForce3 video cards [asus.com], whether it is manufactured in China or not, I do not know... but I've never heard of any similar news of the US government urging nVidia not to liscence or sell their chips to Asustek. I think I can safely say that the GeForce3 is more powerful than Sony's Emotion Engine.
  • which would give the Chinese government opportunies to gain access to the DVD techonology.

    Yes, we sure wouldn't want those Chinese watching our high quality American blockbusters now would we?
    What if they were to tell the world how to crack the encryption on DVD's?? That would just be awful!

    But seriously, what is the big threat to allowing the Chinese information on DVD technology? What is so special about a DVD player? I thought it was merely an over-glorified CD player that could differentiate the different colours from the different DVD layers. Obviously the CSS encryption isn't the issue either since that's been known for quite some time now. So what is it in the DVD technology that the Chinese can't have access to?

    The only issue I could see is China wanting to keep DVD's out of thier country so the people would not exposed to other cultures and ideas (much like how the have moderated net access) but what does this have to do with any other country?
  • Not to mention which, ELF must be cooler than I thought if it can send signals from Michigan and Wisconsin through 1500 miles of dirt and rock to the oceans for submarines to hear ;-)
  • How could they possibly worry about China getting DVD encyption keys? That cat is already out of the bag.
  • I'm not sure GPS would work on a vehicle traveling as fast as a missle.


    Refrag
  • Wait a minute. From what I understood, the DVD copy controll sytem (CSS) was broken wide open and as a result all of the secret keys are now public knowledge. Once the Xing (sp?) player was cracked, it allowed the rest of the players to be cracked as well.

    So, um, what technology might they obtain? The DVD cryptosystem? Remind me again why anyone should care?

    --

  • China does have it's own region. That's why this whole thing is so surreal. I think they are talking about PS2's earmarked for US and Japanese markets that would contain encoding for those regions. Still, I don't get it.

    --

  • There's more to DVDs than layers - most DVDs are single-layered anyway. DVD readers use a higher frequency laser than CD players do, which means it has a smaller wavelength. They also have a different and more sophisticated aiming system. This allows the little pits that the laser reads to be smaller and closer together. Hence, more data. It's analogous to hard drives going from 72 MB to 72 GB in less than 10 years - better control sytems and more sensitive read heads let you pack the data closer together on the platters, and thus you get more capacity. Wow.

    On the other hand, it's pretty much the same technology, just implemented with current methods and techniques, and after ~20 years of experience making CDs and CD players. The only remarkable thing about DVD players is the content control, and that's not especially impressive.

    --

  • HA! Well, if I'd said that, I'd have been wrong, wouldn't I?

    --

  • I would think that the emotion engine processor would be more of a liability than would the MPEG-2 decoding chip.

    They come up, blank look.
    Ask dumb question about disk drive.
    Told, they will return.

  • Re:This makes no sense (Score:3)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @01:35PM (#99710) Journal
    I believe they are worried about pirates and generic dvd players. I know this sounds a little illogical but remember Japan and the US are the most corrupt nations in terms ff campaign finiancing on Earth. I bet a few ignorant hollywood executives and shareholders would be afriad that some cheap chinese electronics company could produce a player without giving them royalities! Ohh the horror!

    Or that somehow a pirate would reverse engineer the ps2 and make another decss to steal movies. Ohhh bad ( picture an executive at hollywood freaking out at the moment). The taiwanese company would produce them would have the blue prints and specs and a chinese company would go nuts for this. I am sure they are worth gold in the black market. Think about. The dvd constorium makes money for each unit and each disc sold. A chinese one would always have a competitive advantage. Perhaps they may make one without region encoding so hollywood's css would go down the tubes. The military could also produce these and sell them oversea's for funding.

    Its all about greed and ignorance. Of course it would be easier for a pirate to find a warez site and take decss and write an extenstion to write discs but perhaps a few lobbyists don't know this or even care. They just want to tell other people what to do with the power of allmightly uncle sam so they can make more money. I love corporate america.

  • Xbox does not support DVD movie playback.
  • They are just hyping the Playstation, by suggesting its sooooo powerful that should be prevented from obtaining the technology in it.

    Sony's PR people did the same thing when they said Iraq were trying to buy up PS2s for use as Supercomputers.
    Same hype, different enemy of the day.

  • Strong encryption (Score:4)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @12:59PM (#99724) Homepage Journal
    the DVD application of the console's chip could be used for military purposes

    Must be the extremely complex encryption code used in DVD players that the government's so worried about. What's the worst the Chinese military could use the DVD app for, showing training videos?

    ---
  • ..as the Chinese populace finds out how freakin' good a golfer the Dalai Lama is.
  • 'Cause MS is owns the government. Then these commie linux bastards will take over!

  • Re:What am I missing here? (Score:3)

    by TGK ( 262438 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @06:52PM (#99731) Homepage Journal
    I'm still trying to figgure out how this matters.... I mean, these are Tiawanese companies right? I wasn't aware that the PRC and the ROC were on speaking terms. Tiawan is the place we were considering selling the new AEGIS cruisers to right? The 7th fleet is parked off their coast right? It is there to defend Tiawan from the PRC? This is confusing.

    This has been another useless post from....
  • China does not get on too well with Japan following the Japaneese invasion of China. Nor is China too impressed with the US since the US helped the Japaneese with their occupation. One of those little facts that the US would throw a hissy fit over every now and then if the facts were the other way and it was the Chineese who left them out of the schoolbooks.

    China was also unimpressed by the British who fought the opium wars against China to keep the opium trade going... The Brits do mention the Opium wars in their schoolbooks, mainly because they won them.

    Taiwan is a much more complex situation that the US press gives credit for. Not only does mainland China claim sovereignty over Taiwan, Taiwan claims sovereignty over mainland China! That is why they used to call themselves the Republic of China.

    The US is upset about China for the simple reason that at current rates of growth China will be the largest world economy by about 2015.

    Stoping them from getting playstations is not going to keep the US in place as world superpower. In fact if the US govt had any brains they would give the Chineese as many playstations as they want. The more time they spend playing games the less time they will have to outbuild the US economy.

  • You're oversimplifying many of your facts.

    Yeah like you can fit the entire history of China in one Slashdot post.

    You are also somewhat selective. The US 'Open Door' policy began in the nineteenth century under Teddy Roosevelt. The name is misleading, the policy essentially meant that the US would demand the 'right' to trade on its own terms and back the demand with guns.

    Your dates for the Japaneese occupation are misleading. Japan had reduced large areas of china to subordinate status long before. US sources prefer to present the overthrow of the puppet regime as a major event since it co-incides with the rise of the rivalry between the US and Japan.

    Looking at the US/China relationship from the China side is very different from that popular amongst right wing kooks in the US.

  • (This is probably waaay off-topic :) Yup, but I'll bite. :-)

    In case you didn't know, this is how all air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles work.

    In most cases, you are correct. What I was referring to is the recent obsession with "hit-to-kill" technology. Specifically, Patriot (PAC-3) and THAAD missiles are kinetic-kill rather than explosive. This means that they actually have to slam into the target to make a kill. That is one of the reasons that making THAAD usable is so difficult! Amazing how technology goes backwards, sometimes...

    But Russia do have some kick-ass long range air defence systems, but the problem such systems is target identification.

    True - witness the difficulty their second-line equipment had in both Bosnia and the Gulf War. (Although they have made a LOT of progress since then).

    What's the point in shooting down a target far away if you don't know if it's a friend or foe?

    Depends upon the target, but I agree in general. :-)

    I'm not sure if the double-digit russian SA-systems (NATO classification) uses active or semi-active radar in the missiles (semi-active requires an illumination radar to paint the target,

    Depends upon whom you ask. :-p Seriously, a lot of former-Soviet technology was pretty seriously misreported (even overstated), so often figuring out exactly what it does can be difficult. I'd probably guess that there are some active missiles in the SA range - probably with all-aspect acquisition.

    You are also right about the doctrine that states "shoot everything down" - the SA-X range even have nuclear options to make sure that you hit the target. (Small nukes, so really not as dramatic as it sounds - but still an impressive hit radius).

  • When I was studying in Springfield, MO (at the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies [smsu.edu]) many of the right-wing psychopaths there would like to rant and rail about this type of deal. You may remember the fuss that was made about Iraq (and by default, the US's then-favourite bugbear, Saddam Hussein) obtaining PS2s, and using them in weapons guidance systems. At the time, it was evident from talking to them that most of them hadn't the faintest idea what these "super computers" they had read about would be used for, but "because they were super computers" it was obviously bad. The sad thing is, this was the prevalent attitude amongst guest speakers (including several well-positioned Washington aides); they didn't understand it, but it was high technology, and therefore not to reach "bad guys". Many of the people with whom I graduated (the aforementioned Right Wing Psychopaths!) now work for the Bush administration, so won't be at all surprised to see this sort of thing become more prominent.

    The funny part of this is that there are several military areas in which Russia - and friends (China, in particular) have always done better than the West. In particular, missile defence, SAM systems and similar. Admittedly, part of their success may be attributed to a willingness to detonate an explosive near the target - rather than just trying to hit it, but their systems are very advanced. The really funny part is that old Macs (68k and some early PowerPC), old PCs (386s, 486s) are readily available in so-called "rogue states" - in fact, the United States has led the way in giving old PCs to Russia! 3/486s may be a little slow, but they are still significantly more advanced than the chips that guided the original MX missile. They are also a well-established, well-understood technology - and therefore attractive to militaries. (What do you think they are using in Internet Cafes in Iran?)

    Personally, I always thought that the "Iraq wants PS2s" argument was a subtle ad-campaign for Sony. While the Emotion Engine is powerful, it is focussed pretty heavily on 3D rendering. While I can think of some uses for it, I'd much rather develop systems on readily available PC parts!

  • So can a 386 chip. Hell, if we can send someone on the moon with the processing power of a calculator, they can sure send a missile to the USA just by using a calculator processing chip.

  • Your history needs a bit of clarification... (Score:3)

    by chyn ( 321272 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @11:22PM (#99744)
    You're oversimplifying many of your facts.

    Taiwan, (which still is officially) the Republic of China, renounced sovereignty over Mainland China in the late 80s (can't recall the actual date of the law). It also renounced its provincial status in the late 90s by doing away with the provincial government structure (which always had implied that it was part of China, just like Rhode Island has the same political status as California, but both belong to the United States).

    I can't say whether or not the Opium Wars are written on Mainland Chinese textbooks, but the historical experience is written on Chinese history books in Taiwan, and many historians consider it as what brought about China's relative decline to the West. This war and many other wars fought with western nations at the time, lead to the growth of Chinese nationalism as well as anti-West sentiments.

    China and Japan have traditionally been rivals with one another. Much of the Chinese resentment began after the Sino-Japanese War in which China under the Qing Dynasty lost decisively and had to cede territory (for instance, Taiwan). However, Japan was also host to thousands of Chinese overseas students during the early part of the 1900s, because intellectuals and revolutionaries who overthrew the Qing Dynasty believed that China could learn from the Japanese on how to modernize.

    Chinese resentment against Japan turned into national hatred as the result of the atrocities caused during the Japanese occupation from 1937 to 1945. Japanese troops massacred hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, used Chinese POWs and entire villages for chemical and biological weapons research, enslaved women for use as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers. To this day, the Japanese government never formally apologized for the actions, which furthers much of the Chinese resentment.

    I can't recall the U.S. helping Japan with the occupation of China, but U.S. did help the KMT government re-establish control of major Chinese cities after Japan's defeat and withdrawal by airlifting nearly a million Chinese troops from southwestern China. This was done to prevent the Chinese Communists from taking control.

  • Probably right, but the article is not so clear. When the PS2 appeared, Sony had problems getting a permission to export it at all. See this slashdot new [slashdot.org]. This is probably only a continuation of the same problem.

    --

  • I'm going to assume it's a bad translation ("Our news is a selection from Chinese, Japanese and Korean publications and we can change the selection to suit your needs.").

    That said, this may have bigger implications if the ban is against higher-end computers (P4's, Athlons, G3's) but I've never heard of such a thing. Does anyone know if there are export restrictions/tarrifs against China/Taiwan for strong computers (I guess similar to the restrictions in place for encryption?)

  • And in other news.... (Score:4)

    by basit ( 454875 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @01:01PM (#99762) Homepage
    Japanese and US governments have asked Circuit City, Best Buy, and Sony not to sell any PS2 units or DVD players to Chinese citizens, as this would give the dangerous technology of DVD to China. QUEL HORRUER! The Chinese will now be able to watch the Caddyshack double DVD set! This must be stopped at all expense!

  • Controllin' them thar nukes, a hyuh (Score:3)

    by Vidmaster_Steve ( 455301 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @04:52PM (#99764) Homepage
    Why all the concern over the PS2's Emotion Engine chip and its so ability to control nuclear delivery devices?
    Last time I checked, the ~25 year old Tomahawk cruise missile ran on a 512khz microproccessor that would operate its terrain-following radar setup and also fly the missile at treetop level for hundreds of miles to its target.
    Not to mention that my dinky little wristwatch has more computing power than the entire Apollo Command Module, but that's a different story altogether.

    So why should we care about these stupid little PS2 boxes getting into Chinese, Indian, Pakistani or Iraqi hands, when they could easliy totally wipe us out by loading a briefcase nuke into a child's backpack, and have him just hop off of a boat, wander into the center of one of our big coastal cities and then have it remote detonated via internation cell phone call or something?
    We don't need to worry about the Chinese reverse engineering a stupid little playstation to build a delivery device, they already have a billion of 'em.

    Not meant to be a troll or anything, but it seems to me that this high-tech hysteria is pretty meaningless when they (especially the Arab nations) have millions upon millions of fanatics that would gladly become a martyr in the never-ending battle against Truth, Justice and Freedom (aka The Great Satan)

    Or have I missed the point entirely, and should be shaking my fist at the MPAA and their Fascistic ways. You're wily ones, you MPAA bastards, wily indeed!

  • I bought a DVD player last year, it's made in China, it also plays CD, VCD and MP3 discs. Works swell.What this report says doesn't make any sense to me.

  • What am I missing here? (Score:5)

    by Jennifer E. Elaan ( 463827 ) on Sunday July 08, 2001 @01:09PM (#99775) Homepage
    I'm just wondering what I'm missing. Is this the "Acer" that makes DVD-ROM drives? I'm confused.

    And Asus? Huh? They're not worried about the dangers of K7 motherboards, but an MPEG-2 decoder chip is dangerous? But an Athlon can merrily perform all the same functions, if not a bit more!

    I think these "sources" sound like a couple teenage kids with a little too much [favorite drug here] on their brains.

    Wouldn't it be more dangerous if China got ahold of just one or two well-trained EE's from around here?

    -- Blore's Razor:
  • Taiwan is a much more complex situation that the US press gives credit for. Not only does mainland China claim sovereignty over Taiwan, Taiwan claims sovereignty over mainland China! That is why they used to call themselves the Republic of China.

    For those of you not up on your Chinese/Taiwanese history, this comes from the fact that Taiwan is where the remaining Chinese government officials fled to when Mao and his army kicked their butts out of Beijing. Technically, the government in Taipei is China. However, technicalities mean squat when you're dealing with things on this kind of level. Might makes right, and the PRC is certainly the mightier of the two, so they're "China."

    As far as I know, the Taipei government doesn't claim sovereignty over the PRC. They'd be hideously stupid if they actually said anything to that effect, and you can't afford to be stupid when you're in the position Taiwan is in.

  • This article made me chuckle. Living in Beijing for four years now, I've owned a DVD player for two. They've been on the market for as long as they've been in most other countries and became popular before the US market did. Previous to that, I owned a VCD player (be careful the miliatry apps for this device are so dangerous that the Chinese government is making sure it doesn't get produced on American soil, thus many of you American mainlanders may have never seen/heard of this secret Chinese technology)

    I have no idea of the potential 'military applications' for the PS2's, but at minimum Sony has other problems to worry about than this. Once they start producing in Southern China, you can bet the black market versions of the PS2 will be spread throughout the major cities on the mainland in short order.

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