China Daily (Hong Kong)

Mobile game gets a grip on sustainabi­lity

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Disposable chopsticks are about as everyday as everyday gets. Who thinks twice about breaking them open, pinching up our sushi or noodles and tossing them out with the trash.

A young “green” entreprene­ur in England was grabbed by some statistics he came across.

China produces 80 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks a year, Xinhua News Agency reported. Bai Guangxin, chairman of Jilin Forestry Industry Group, estimates that amounts to 20 million 20-year-old trees.

According to The Huffington Post, based on 2004-09 statistics, it’s more like 57 billion a year, accounting for the destructio­n of 3.8 million trees.

Any way you stack it, the

This Day, That Year

ItemfromJu­ly10,1994,in ChinaDaily:China’slargest TVcomponen­tsmanufact­urerhassuc­ceededinde­veloping25-inchcolorp­icture tubes.

“Thismarkst­heendof China’sinability­toproduce large-screenTVs,”saidLi Liu’en,generalman­agerof theHenanAn­yangColorP­ictureTube­GlassBulbC­oLtd.

Thecompany­planstopro­duce20mill­ioncolortu­bes annuallyby­1997.

Technologi­cal developmen­t has changed our viewing habits, from cable numbers — and implicit deforestat­ion — are staggering. There has to be a better way.

London resident Tudor Finneran, 20, has decided to try and get the message out — to younger people in particular — through a mobile game app. Chopstick Champion is what he’s come up with.

“The basic idea is to educate users on the negative environmen­tal factors of wooden/one use or disposable chopsticks, from the demand of wood to the manufactur­ing process,” he said, “but through appealing and fun gameplay.”

Players are presented with a historical character (Confucius, Ghengis Khan, Ho Chi Minh, Katsumoto) who they have to feed. They select three dishes from a menu that includes delicacies like exotic caterpilla­rs and melon seeds. And the clock starts.

Using the two-finger zoom move on a pair of animated chopsticks to grab a piece of television to computers and mobile devices.

To meet the trend, many TV producers are working with internet giants to strengthen online content offerings.

In March, TCL Corp launched its first internet TV brand by working with Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings.

FFALCON, which targets young viewers, will integrate TCL’s capital, research and developmen­t, and supply chain with Alibaba and Tencent’s video content, including TV dramas, films, live food from the plate, players move the eats piece by piece to the character’s mouth.

The catch is that each character benefits most (more points) from dishes that are from their regional cuisine — so a little biographic­al research on the accompanyi­ng social media ups the rewards. So players learn about China’s history. There are 39 levels.

The app features pop-ups such as: “Environmen­tal Notice — Please think about the supply chains and production methods of all nonsustain­able and nonrenewab­le products.” So players learn about the environmen­t. (It’s in multiple languages too).

Stage One of Chopstick Champion, which is already available in Apple and Android stores, is in the process of being reviewed by Chinese authoritie­s to go in the iTunes store in China.

Finneran, who describes himself on LinkedIn as “the sports events, animation and documentar­ies.

The companies will also cooperate in the artificial intelligen­ce and cloud services sectors.

Chinese TV sales totaled 50.9 million units last year, up by 7.8 percent from 2015, with the value reaching 156 billion yuan ($22.6 billion), according to All View Cloud, a Beijing consultanc­y. hardest working person you’ ll ever meet,” is already looking ahead to Stage Two, “which will really focus on the case study of deforestat­ion due to non-reusable chopsticks.”

It’s his first app on the “market”, he said, but he is working on others over the next few months “to educate a massive audience on these problems and eventually lead to some positive change.

“Having a passion for the environmen­t and still not seeing the necessary changes that need to be made,” he said, “I am doing my best to utilize apps/tech to promote a necessary change and lay the foundation for my future business.”

That business? A full-time “eco-entreprene­ur” who leads “the world in the right direction through informativ­e gameplay or tech services.”

Contact the writer at chrisdavis@ chinadaily­usa.com

Industry insiders say that while the traditiona­l TV market is already saturated, internet TV is still growing.

They believe online TV will witness rapid growth in the next five years as the format has accumulate­d and cultivated a large number of users.

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