FIRST CHINESE SINGER WINS GRAMMY AWARD

Pop singer Sun Nan—this years winner of China Star， a pop music TV show in China—received the Recording Academys Presidents Merit Award on February 16. Sun is the first Chinese pop singer to receive the title.

China Star was authorized by the Recording Academy， a U.S. organization of musicians， producers， recording engineers and other recording professionals known for putting on the annual Grammy Awards. The show was established in a bid to introduce the best Chinese musicians to the world and fostering Sino-U.S. musical and cultural exchanges.

Sun， 47， released his first album The Moon in 1990. He became popular for the song The Red Flag in 1996. He has performed at the widely watched China Central Television Spring Festival Gala multiple times and sung a main title song for the 1998 Chinese film Be There or Be Square.

Dilemma of Domestic Operating Systems

Oriental Outlook February 18

Windows operating systems （OSs） accounted for 94.25 percent of Chinas OS market last year， while domestic OSs accounted for no more than 5 percent， according to Tongji.baidu.com， search engine giant Baidus statistics service.

Microsofts monopoly in the OS market in China started to change last year when American computer maker Dell Inc. announced in September 2015 that 40 percent of its commercial computers sold in China—including laptops， desktops and workstations—were preinstalled with the homegrown Linux NeoKylin system.

Moreover， concerns over information security have prompted the government to ban the purchase of Windows systems for government departments and institutions. Additionally， domestically developed OSs are popular in key industries such as finance， electricity and oil refining， which have a high demand for OS stability and security.

However， despite lower prices and favorable policies， domestic OSs have just a tiny slice of the market share. One reason is that as domestic systems have few users， software companies are unwilling to develop products exclusively fit for such systems.

Another reason for the unpopularity of domestic OSs is that their producers are dispersed across the country， making it impossible for them to pool their strength to develop products together like other Internet companies.

Key Archaeological Zones

Outlook Weekly February 8

New archaeological results concerning Chinas prehistoric time period will be unveiled in March by a state-funded archaeological team that is trying to discover the origins of the Chinese civilization.