Why 'Iron Man' Robert Downey Jr. Is on Sina Weibo But Not Twitter

Gwynn Guilford for Quartz 2013-05-03 23:01:45 UTC

Iron Man 3 opens today in North America, but it’s been playing in Chinese theaters since the May Day holiday and has already made a killing, bringing in a record-breaking $21.2 million on its first day alone.

And it’s not just records: Marvel and its Chinese partner, DMG, are setting new standards for foreign movies looking to earn government clearance in China. To curry favor, the company added four minutes of footage just for the mainland, including throwaway parts for Chinese A-list actors Fan Bingbing and Wang Xueqi, and a ham-handed milk drink product placement.

Also new is the aggressive outreach to Chinese audiences by Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr. Not only did he visit China for the first time in his life to talk up the film, but Downey also set up a personal account on Sina Weibo:

Mind you, Downey doesn’t even have a Twitter account (or if he does, he doesn’t use it). He does use his Weibo account, however.

His account was opened on April 24, and 10 minutes after a quick “Hello China” post, Downey offered his condolences to earthquake victims, a post that was forwarded more than 11,500 times. And though he doesn’t post often, he knows how to play to the crowd. “People who know me back in America know that I’m very interested in all things Chinese,” he wrote the other day.

On one hand, Downey’s Weibo pander is of a piece with the aggressive marketing blitz in China mounted by Marvel and DMG, in which Downey figured heavily. But his online outreach also an increasingly common way for Western stars to connect with Chinese audiences, as this excellent Reuters piece highlights. The article flags marketing company China Branding Group, which runs Fanstang, a service that manages Weibo and other Chinese social media sites for Western celebs, including Downey.

Though Fanstang—which combines “fans” with the Chinese word “tang,” meaning “hall”—didn’t respond to a request for comment, the service appears to translate into Chinese whatever their customers write in English. For instance, the Weibo accounts of Ian Somerhalder, star of Vampire Diaries, and basketballer Dwyane Wade simply translate what the stars post on Twitter.

Obviously, neither Somerhalder nor Wade need to sell movie tickets in China. In fact, the vast majority of Fanstang’s foreign luminary Weibo customers aren’t huge movie stars like Downey.

That’s why it will be interesting to see if Downey’s Weibo persona keeps up its awkward flattery of traditional Chinese culture after Iron Man 3 leaves the screens. We’re already seeing studios rewriting whole plotlines to please the Chinese government and the country’s audiences. To studios increasingly looking to China to drive revenue, actors with a ready-made Chinese fanbase will be all the more valuable.

Image via Mike Marsland/Getty Images

This article originally published at Quartz here

Topics: Entertainment, Film, iron man, Iron Man 3, sina weibo, Twitter Quartz is a Mashable publishing partner that is a new kind of global business news outlet.

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Become an 'Iron Man' Expert in 30 GIFs

By Bob Al-Greene2013-05-03 17:36:24 UTC

The latest big Marvel movie, Iron Man 3, opens today. It's getting decent reviews, but it might have a tiny technical impairment holding it back: With two prior movies, plus a little tie-in called The Avengers, how can everyone stay up to speed on the hero's story?

We're here to help the nerd-challenged among you catch up in the best way we know how — through the teaching power of GIFs.

So strap on up your repulsor boots and suit up. All systems are go.

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Facebook 'Trusted Contacts' Needlessly Complicates Security

By Samantha Murphy2013-05-03 20:44:15 UTC

Facebook announced earlier this week a new feature called "trusted contacts" to help you get back into your account when locked out. Although it's intended to make life easier by leaning on a few friends when you're in need of re-entry (think lending out your spare house keys), the concept is a handful. In fact, you'll need a special code from each of your trust contacts (about three to five people) to get back into your account.

In theory, this sounds like a strong way to triple-lock your account and prevent anyone from entering, but how is this any better than remembering the answer to a few security questions or using Facebook's existing two-factor authentication feature?

First, here's a rundown of how "trusted contacts" works: If you're ever locked out of your account, Facebook will send a code to your chosen list of three to five friends. To gain access to the account again, you need to enter at least three of those codes into a prompt. Theoretically, this will prevent hackers from breaking in. With that in mind, Facebook actually recommends calling these friends to get the codes because you wouldn't want an impersonator sweeping in via email or chat to access your account.

But there are a few problems. To start, you're banking on the ever-accessibility of your friends. What if one of your trusted contacts is out of town for the weekend or is otherwise unreachable? The beauty of the Internet — and now storage in the cloud — is the fact that you can retrieve information without relying on anything or anyone else. Sure, giving a set of keys to a trusted neighbor is good practice if you're ever locked out, but in this increasingly connected and digital world, don't you just wish you could securely unlock the front door remotely and not have to involve the neighbors (or the whole neighborhood, for that matter) to get back in?

In this case, Facebook is blending old-school methods of relying on friends with digital security. But not only is this an inconvenience to your closest friends — at least three, in fact — there's also the problem of getting in touch with someone who might not be around when you need them.

"While you may trust your friend from pre-school who is on sabbatical in Borneo, it might be a better choice to select the people you know that you'll be able to reach," Facebook told me.

"While you may trust your friend from pre-school who is on sabbatical in Borneo, it might be a better choice to select the people you know that you'll be able to reach," Facebook told me.

Does this mean each time a trusted contact goes out of town, they need to let you know or you should just pick friends that just don't get out much? And what if you lose touch with a friend or they even die? Facebook says you'll need to report the issue with the site and select a new contact. Again, more legwork on your part.

Keep in mind this is just an option. You can still answer security questions and thankfully, use two-factor authentication. Facebook rolled out two-factor authentication — an increasingly popular security method, which adds an extra layer of security to an account besides a password. If you log onto an account from a device the service doesn't recognize, it will then send you a text or voice message with a code that needs to be entered before access is granted, just to make sure it's actually you.

What's surprising about this secure method, however, is that many people aren't aware Facebook even has two-factor authentication. You would think the company would spend time informing users about how to sign up rather than rolling out "trusted contacts," which seems like more of a hassle and involves way too many people. Instead, Facebook should focus its efforts more on its more reliable, proven two-factor method, rather than an entire new system which makes users jump through hoops.

Twitter users have long asked for two-factor authentication to come to the micro-blogging site, which has experienced a series of high-profile hacks in the past year. Facebook should make the most of the feature that many other services need.

What do you think about the feature? Should Facebook look for ways to ramp up two-factor authentication and focus less on trusted contacts? Let us know in the comments.

Mashable composite, image via iStockphoto, RUSSELLTATEdotCOM

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Knicks Star's Wife Tweets to Rival: 'You on the Bench for a Reason'

By Sam Laird2013-05-03 17:28:37 UTC

Vines, subtweets and over-the-line insults. This Knicks-Celtics NBA playoffs series was made for the Internet.

Players talking trash on the court, or even Twitter, is obviously not unheard of. But players wives talking smack to opponents via Twitter? That's next level.

Here's our dramatis personae for this entertaining bit of beef between the Knicks and Celtics, who meet again for the sixth game of their series on Friday night:

Carmelo Anthony: Knicks star. Big ego.

La La Vazquez: Anthony's wife. MTV personality and reality star.

Jordan Crawford: Celtics benchwarmer. His ego outpaces his talent.

Kevin Garnett: Aging Celtics star. Fierce competitor and major trash talker.

At the end of Friday night's Game 5, Crawford and Anthony got into a little dustup and had to be separated by teammates. Crawford, by all appearances, said something rhyming with "that mothertrucker pucked your wife," and Anthony tried to go after him. Here's a Vine of the situation, taken by Sean Dutton:

Crawford was, of course, referring to Vazquez, who then on Thursday morning responded with a stinging subtweet that belittled his lack of playing time (The Instagram reads, "Strong women only intimidate weak men."):

Try again. You on the bench for a reason. instagram.com/p/Y0QM3-xjT5/

— LA LA(@lala) May 2, 2013

And because this is the NBA, where amazing happens, the little tiff gets even better once you're filled in on the backstory. The "He" Crawford was (apparently) referring to was Garnett. Anthony and Garnett nearly fought during a January Knicks-Celtics matchup, then Anthony tried to confront Garnett in front of the Celtics bus post-game, after Garnett reportedly talked some out-of-bounds trash during the game. Vazquez, Garnett apparently told Anthony, "tastes like Honey Nut Cheerios."

Yes, Honey Nut Cheerios.

So ... yeah. Friday night's Game 6 should be highly entertaining.

Photo by Donald Bowers/Getty Images for Samsung Galaxy S III

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Pentagon: North Korea Likely to Seek Foreign Help With Cyberwarfare

Aliya Sternstein for Nextgov 2013-05-03 17:01:49 UTC

North Korea is expected to mooch off other nations for cyber offensive tools because it is not plugged into the global web, according to the Defense Department’s first report to Congress on the regime's military might.

These are some of the spare details describing Pyongyang’ network operations found amidst a larger discussion of the regime's antagonism with South Korea and pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"As a result of North Korea’s historical isolation from outside communications and influence, it is likely to employ Internet infrastructure from third-party nations," states the 26-page report, which Defense Department Secretary Chuck Hagel released on Thursday.

The unclassified 2012 assessment concludes the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea "probably" has the capability to carry out military computer network operations. Since 2009, the nation has been linked to cyber espionage campaigns and distributed denial of service attacks that externally flood websites with paralyzing traffic, according to the Pentagon.

Cybersecurity researchers speculated suppliers for North Korean cyber fights could range from Chinese telecommunications giants to unwitting nations with connectivity that is not hard for Pyongyang to steal.

“Two of the world's biggest Internet infrastructure suppliers are Huawei and ZTE and there's a good chance North Korea's Internet infrastructure relies heavily on their equipment,” Martyn Williams, editor of the North Korea Tech website, which chronicles the regime’s use of information technology, said in an email. “Chinese providers are really the only choice as the DPRK can't really interconnect with South Korean or Japanese providers.”

That said, it’s easy for commodity products to take a detour through a third country on their way to sanctioned destinations; that reportedly was the route censorship technology took to Syria. “If, for example, the North Koreans wanted Cisco routers it probably wouldn't be difficult to get them,” Williams added.

North Korea sends military youth to India and China for university training, so both Internet-enabled countries might offer resources, suggested Jeffrey Carr, a cyberwar analyst and author of Inside Cyberwarfare (O'Reilly Media 2009).  

And then there’s the atomic bargaining chip. North Koreans “also have a good relationship with Iran, which would certainly provide the DPRK with whatever they asked in exchange for the DPRK's help with nuclear fuel enrichment,” Carr said.

Congress in 2011 required Defense to produce annual classified and unclassified reports on military development in North Korea.

Pentagon officials informed lawmakers that the Seoul Central Prosecutor’s office reportedly implicated DPRK in 2011 cyber incidents affecting servers at South Korea's Nonghyup Bank. Remote "actors rendered the bank’s online services inaccessible and deleted numerous files concerning customer bank accounts while removing all evidence" of unauthorized activity on the servers, the Defense report states.

Several high-profile cyber events involving the regime are not mentioned. For instance, in March, experts worldwide accused North Korea of immobilizing computers at South Korea's key broadcasters and ATMs. This was one of a series of cyber spats between North Korean and South Korean supporters that began when the United Nations imposed sanctions on the northern nation for nuclear tests.

“The report is worded carefully,” Williams said. “You'll note it doesn't accuse North Korea of doing anything, but rather says the South Korean government or local newspapers have reported the DPRK is [behind] the attacks.”

The study indeed acknowledges that proving North Korea responsible for network abnormalities is difficult because of the web's inherent anonymity and distributed structure.

Williams added, "The evidence is growing that North Korea is behind at least some of these attacks, but everyone is still pretty much guessing."

Image via KNS/AFP/Getty Images

This article originally published at Nextgov here

Topics: cyberterrorism, cyberwar, department of homeland security, North Korea, Pentagon, Politics, U.S., US & World, World Nextgov is a Mashable publishing partner that is the all-day technology resource for federal decision makers, delivering news, analysis and a nationwide community of expert voices on how technology and innovation are transforming government. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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Google Maps Adds 'Seven Bridges' Imagery for Math Fanatics

By Samantha Murphy2013-05-03 15:59:57 UTC

OK math nerds, hold on to your protractors. Google Maps has just added Street View imagery of Russia's Seven Bridges of Köenigsberg — the landmark behind the classic mathematical problem that has had people scratching their heads for centuries.

As a part of an effort to roll out more map coverage of Russia, the Street View team landed in the seaport town of Kaliningrad (the the modern name for Köeningsberg). The town is home to seven bridges made famous in the 1700s by mathematician Leonhard Euler, who was recently featured in a Google Doodle.

Euler believed there was no possible way to go over each of the seven bridges once... and only once. Google sums up the challenge in a blog post: "find a route through Kaliningrad—which was once separated by the Pregel River—by crossing each of the seven bridges in town. The catch? One could only cross each bridge exactly once."

"This famous problem and Leonhard Euler’s nonresolution paved the way for important discoveries in the field of mathematics including graph theory and topology," Google adds.

In fact, some of his findings are even used to calculate optimal driving routes for Google's Street View cars.

"We use sophisticated algorithms, based on graph theory, to determine the best route through a city or town helping us capture all the images we need to make Google Maps comprehensive, in the shortest amount of time," Google said. "Though these algorithms are complex, in simple terms, it's equivalent to solving the problem of drawing a house without lifting your pen and never going over the same segment twice."

Although only five of the original bridges still remain — two were destroyed in World War II — Google Maps takes you over them and through town.

If you look close enough, you can see the engraved padlocks hanging on the sides of the bridges, which is considered tradition for newly married couples to add one to the collection.

Images via Google Maps and The MAA Mathematical Sciences Digital Library

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