Chinese Online Nearly Equal US Population

[skiboo]

"At the end of 2008, the number of net users in China, which has a population of 1.3 billion, was almost the same as the entire population of the United States."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7827765.stm

[lonewolf]

Many languages have more or fewer, but a manageable number, of alphabetic symbols than English but this raises a question. What does a Chinese/Japanese keyboard look like? How can they have hundreds, (thousands?) of characters?

[skiboo]

What does a Chinese/Japanese keyboard look like? How can they have hundreds, (thousands?) of characters?

Interesting point. Maybe an internet cafe in Chinatown would yield a clue or two. Better yet, perhaps some reader from Hong Kong can tell us.

I want to ask a question but am slightly worried it will sound dumb, here goes anyway: How many people can be online worldwide, or in China? Are there physical limits to these things that could be reached in a few years? does ipv6 have anything to do with fitting more people online?

[guru]

What does a Chinese/Japanese keyboard look like? How can they have hundreds, (thousands?) of characters?

Interesting point. Maybe an internet cafe in Chinatown would yield a clue or two. Better yet, perhaps some reader from Hong Kong can tell us.

http://www.datacal.com/s_images/chinese ... -usb_l.jpg

[lonewolf]

Uhhhhh?????, thanks,guru. Now, how does it work? Are combinations of characters necessary to create a word? Do you type in English and it is translated into Chinese characters? Or vice versa?
How do you teach a printer to work from upper right down instead of upper left across?
Why do I even care?

[skiboo]

sorry lonewolf, but I thought guru's post was on the far side of hilarious.... :lol:

so was your response....

I just knew I'd seen one of those things in a net cafe.