china-compulsory-certificate
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PS3 passes safety certification in China, valid to 2016
The PlayStation 3 received regulatory approval in China via the China Compulsory Certificate, which outlines safety requirements for participation in the Chinese market. Sony was granted the Certificate in July and it is valid through 2016.Consoles in general have been banned in China since 2000, though customers are able to purchase them as grey market imports – this means the consoles are legally bought and sold, though the transactions stem from third parties not affiliated with console manufacturers. Other consoles, such as China's own Eedoo, can be sold under the label of "home entertainment devices."Last we heard of Sony scoping out the Chinese PS3 market, it signed a letter of intent to implement training and R & D buildings in Guangzhou province, and hinted at developing games in the region. July's Certificate doesn't guarantee PS3 sales in China, but it's certainly a step toward a console incursion in the Asian mainland.
Next-gen Xiaomi Phone outed by certifications ahead of launch, will again come in three variants (updated)
Having seen the next-gen Xiaomi Phone's more colorful yet rejected designs, we're rather baffled by these dull-looking certification images of the real deal. According to a filing from the good old TENAA, this new device from Xiaomi goes by the codename "2012051" and packs WCDMA radio, but that's pretty much it in terms of specs. Eagle-eyed readers may have already spotted the striking resemblance to the original Xiaomi Phone (aka MI-One Plus), but it appears to be getting an extra front-facing camera and, for some reason, a smaller speaker grill on the back. But wait, there's more! We dug up two additional models in the China Compulsory Certificate database: there's the "2012052" also with WCDMA radio, plus the "2012053" with CDMA2000/WCDMA dual radio. Bearing in mind that the current Xiaomi Phone has three variants, our guess is that its successor will follow a similar pattern: the WCDMA flavor may again have a 1.5GHz version followed by a slower and cheaper version (much like what the Youth Edition aka MI-One is to the MI-One Plus); and depending on Xiaomi's arrangements with China Unicom and China Telecom, the CDMA flavor for the latter may or may not be launched alongside its WCDMA cousin. Let's hope for the best when this alleged quad-core phone gets announced next Thursday. Update: Another possibility is that the design pictured above only applies to the lower-end model, which may just pack a dual-core chip (hopefully a Snapdragon S4). We shall see.
