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"According to various reports, Apple is in talks to buy Chinese game developer Handseeing Information Technology Co., a company that develops rich Internet applications for mobile multiplayer games. The company helped update the backend and user-facing features for the Tianya Online social network.\nThe GlobalTimes prices the rumored acquisition at $1 billion yuan, or $148 millions USD; the company's VP of Operations tells Reuters a deal could be finalized in the next 1-2 months. If it comes to fruition, this would be one of Apple's first major non-manufacturing investments in China. However, as Mac Rumors notes, what Apple stands to gain from the acquisition is not very clear.\nHandseeing worked with Sun Microsystems on the Tianya Online project (see a PDF overview of the partnership) and built out its tools in Java. However, Apple's iOS, unlike the mobile phones predominately used in China, does not support Java (unless you jailbreak your device). Of course, this doesn't mean that Handseeing doesn't have some products or tools that are really well-suited for a large-scale, international mobile gaming network, a la Game Center.\nMore than just games, the social networking aspects that Handseeing built into Tianya may factor into some of Apple's patents for device-side social networks like iGroups and iTickets. \nWe've reached out to Apple for comment on this story but have not received a response. We'll update this post as more details become available."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/08/06/apple-handseeing/>