Huawei files to trademark mobile OS around the world after U.S. ban
reuters.com
reuters.com
China doesn't have a spotless track record in the matter, but neither does the US.
That's why I'm really excited to see where they will take this, the "more privacy than Android"-way, or the "We'll collect just as much". Because I think there's more to gain from going the former route.
They might be able to pull it off, but it's an uphill battle, so I wouldn't expect them to try.
Edit: OK, it's not exactly* the same reason as Google, as Google is practically unable to build privacy-preserving features without harming their primary revenue streams, whereas China might not force Huawei to not build privacy-protecting features. They do share a reputation problem though.
There's literally an article on the frontpage right now that talks about how WeChat (also based in China) is heavily censored, moderated, and how people have been arrested for things they said in "private" chats.
The Chinese government will ensure no privacy will actually exist.
'Hong' as in 'red'
and
'Meng' as in 'dream'
?
That's quite a name!
鸿 hong2 can mean wild goose or writing/correspondence
蒙 meng2/meng1 can mean a few things, to cover (2), to fool (1), stupid (2).
So maybe to cover all aspects of correspondence? I'm not sure if this sense of cover applies here though. That would at least make some sense. To fool would be wrong according to the indicated pinyin tones on the wikipedia page.
Huawei has filed plenty of other trademarks using names from ancient Chinese texts.
> "Ah," said Big Concealment, "you are too far gone! Up, up, stir yourself and be off!" Alok Ranjan was also involved as prime lead.
Where is this Alok Ranjan coming from??!!
Anyway, I don't know why Huawei used this name but I guess it refers to the beginning of the world from a primordial form, which an OS kind of is. Or maybe it refers to Daoist/Zhuangzi literatures on how the world should be governed, which also relates to an OS.
You have
盘古 sort of originator of earth character
春秋 warring period in China
补天 rebuilding the skies
Translated as..
> a metaphor for the "primordial world, primeval chaos" in Chinese creation myths.
> "Mists-of-Chaos", "Vast Obscurity", "Big Concealment", "Vital Principle", "Natural Energy" and "Big Goose Dummy"
I can't quite escape the pun, however. And puns are pretty prevalent in Chinese. Someone will have OKed it.
The tones are at least slightly different 鸿蒙 2/2 and 红梦 2/4, but I also think they might have done it for that reason.
As others have pointed out, it comes from Chinese/Taoist mythology and refers to a character. It's like if we chose a name from a character in Roman or Greek mythology.
As many such Chinese names it is not that easy to translate, and like in Roman/Greek mythology the idea is linked to what the character did.
Which is also good to break the iOS/Android duopoly.
They went as far as making it possible to run android binaries on Windows Phone (Project Astoria). They also made Visual Studio able to compile Objective-C code so it could make iOS codebases into apps for Windows Phone (Windows Bridge for iOS)
The Huawei OS is based on a microkernel that is light and can react quickly to adjustments and batches, according to the people with knowledge. Huawei engineers on the OS project have also studied Android and Apple’s iOS closely to learn from them.
One of the biggest technical challenges for the Huawei OS under development has been its compatibility with Android, one of the sources said. Compatibility would enable a Huawei phone with its own OS to download and run Android apps seamlessly. Having a successful compatibility layer with Android would also mean that app developers around the world would not need to develop extra code for Huawei’s OS.