Baidu Translate
Rapheal Charlton
The holding company of the group is incorporated in the Cayman Islands.[2] Baidu was incorporated in January 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. Baidu has origins in RankDex, an earlier search engine developed by Robin Li in 1996, before he founded Baidu in 2000.[4]
Baidu Global Business Unit (GBU) is responsible for Baidu's international products and services for markets outside of China. Baidu GBU's product portfolio includes keyboard apps Simeji and Facemoji Keyboard, content recommendation platform popIn, augmented reality network OmniAR, Japanese smart projector popIn Aladdin, and ad platform MediaGo, which is focused on Chinese advertisers looking to reach overseas users. In 2017, Baidu GBU entered into a partnership with Snap Inc. to act as the company's official ad reseller for Snapchat in Greater China, South Korea, Japan and Singapore.[5] The partnership was extended in 2019.[6]
In 2018, Baidu divested the "Global DU business" portion of its overseas business, which developed a series of utility apps including ES File Explorer, DU Caller, Mobojoy, Photo Wonder and DU Recorder, etc.[7] This business now operates independently of Baidu under the name DO Global.[8]
In December 2007, Baidu became the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 index.[9] As of May 2018, Baidu's market cap rose to US$99 billion.[10][11][12] In October 2018, Baidu became the first Chinese firm to join the United States-based computer ethics consortium Partnership on AI.[13] During the 2020s, Baidu has increasingly focused on generative AI related products.[14]
In 1994, Robin Li (Li Yanhong, 李彦宏) joined IDD Information Services, a New Jersey division of Dow Jones and Company, where he helped develop software for the online edition of The Wall Street Journal.[16] He also worked on developing better algorithms for search engines and remained at IDD Information Services from May 1994 to June 1997.
In 1996, while at IDD, Li developed the RankDex site-scoring algorithm for search engines results page ranking[4][17][18] and received a US patent for the technology.[19] Launched in 1996,[4] RankDex was the first search engine that used hyperlinks to measure the quality of websites it was indexing.[20] Li referred to his search mechanism as "link analysis," which involved ranking the popularity of a web site based on how many other sites had linked to it.[21] It predated the similar PageRank algorithm used by Google two years later in 1998;[22] Google founder Larry Page referenced Li's work as a citation in some of his U.S. patents for PageRank.[4][22][23] Li later used his RankDex technology for the Baidu search engine.
Baidu was incorporated on 18 January 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu.[3] In 2001, Baidu allowed advertisers to bid for ad space then pay Baidu every time a customer clicked on an ad, predating Google's approach to advertising.[21] In 2003, Baidu launched a news search engine and picture search engine, adopting a special identification technology capable of identifying and grouping the articles.[24]
In April 2017, Baidu announced the launch of its Apollo project (Apolong), a self-driving vehicle platform, in a bid to help drive the development of autonomous cars including vehicle platform, hardware platform, open-source software platform and cloud data services.[32] Baidu plans to launch this project in July 2017, before gradually introducing fully autonomous driving capabilities on highways and open city roads by 2020.[33] In September 2017, Baidu launched a $1.5 billion autonomous driving fund to invest in as many as 100 autonomous driving projects over the ensuing three years.[34] At the same time, Apollo open-source software version 1.5 was also launched.[35]
In September 2017, Baidu rolled out a new portable talking translator that can listen and speak in several different languages. Smaller than a typical smartphone, the 140-gram translation device can also be used as a portable Wi-Fi router and is able to operate on networks in 80 countries. It is still under development. Baidu will also be inserting artificial intelligence (AI) technology into smartphones, through its deep learning platform.[37][38] At the same period, it has also led a joint investment of US$12 billion with Alibaba Group, Tencent, JD.com and Didi Chuxing, acquiring 35% of China Unicom's stakes.[39][40][41]
In October 2017, according to The Wall Street Journal, Baidu would launch self-driving buses in China in 2018.[42][43] In the same month, Baidu announced that its first annual Baidu World technology conference (Bring AI to Life) would be held and live-streamed on 16 November 2017, at China World Summit Wing and Kerry Hotel, bringing together Baidu executives, employees, partners, developers, and media to discuss the company's mission and strategy, technology breakthroughs, new product developments, and its open artificial-intelligence (AI) ecosystem.[44]
In August 2021 Baidu revealed a new Robocar concept said to be capable of Level 5 autonomous driving.[46] It also comes with the latest second-generation AI chip that can analyse the internal and external surroundings to provide predictive suggestions to proactively serve the needs of passengers.
In June 2022, Jidu Auto, an intelligent electric vehicle company originally backed by Baidu and Geely unveiled its first concept ROBO-01 in the form of a pre-production vehicle. The ROBO-01 rides on the Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA) platform, a modular electric vehicle platform developed by Geely Holding.[47]
On 12 January 2010, Baidu.com's DNS records in the United States were altered such that browsers to baidu.com were redirected to a website purporting to be the Iranian Cyber Army, thought to be behind the attack on Twitter during the 2009 Iranian election protests, making the proper site unusable for four hours.[50] Internet users were met with a page saying "This site has been attacked by Iranian Cyber Army".[51] Chinese hackers later responded by attacking Iranian websites and leaving messages.[52]Baidu later launched legal action against Register.com for gross negligence after it was revealed that Register.com's technical support staff changed the email address for Baidu.com on the request of an unnamed individual, despite failing security verification procedures. Once the address had been changed, the individual was able to use the forgotten password feature to have Baidu's domain passwords sent directly to them, allowing them to accomplish the domain hijacking.[53][54] The lawsuit was settled out of court under undisclosed terms after Register.com issued an apology.[55]
On 6 August 2012, the BBC reported that three employees of Baidu were arrested on suspicion that they accepted bribes. The bribes were allegedly paid for deleting posts from the forum service. Four people were fired in connection with these arrests.[56]
On 16 July 2013, Baidu announced its intention to purchase 91 Wireless from NetDragon. 91 Wireless is best known for its app store, but it has been reported that the app store faces privacy and other legal issues.[57] On 14 August 2013, Baidu announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Baidu (Hong Kong) Limited has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire 91 Wireless Web-soft Limited from NetDragon Web-soft Inc.[58] for $1.85 billion in what was reported to be the biggest deal ever in China's IT sector.[59]
Baidu offers several services[62] to locate information, products and services using Chinese-language search terms, such as, search by Chinese phonetics, advanced search, snapshots, spell checker, stock quotes, news, knows, postbar, images, video and space information, and weather, train and flight schedules and other local information. The user-agent string of Baidu search engine is Baiduspider.[63][64]
Baidu's primary advertising product is called Baidu Tuiguang and is similar to Google Ads and AdSense. It is a pay per click advertising platform that allows advertisers to have their ads shown in Baidu search results pages and on other websites that are part of Baidu Union. However, Baidu's search results are also based on payments by advertisers. This has prompted criticism and skepticism among Chinese users, with People's Daily commenting in 2018 on issues regarding reliability of Baidu results. Often as many as the first two pages of search results tend to be paid advertisers.[89]
Baidu sells its advertising products via a network of resellers.[90] Baidu's web administrative tools are all in Chinese, making it difficult for non-Chinese speakers to use. In 2012, a third-party company developed a tool with an interface in English for advertising on Baidu.[91][92] Advertisers on Baidu must have a registered business address either in China or in specified East Asian countries.[93]
Baidu focuses on generating revenues primarily from online marketing services. Baidu's pay for placement (P4P) platform enables its customers to reach users who search for information related to their products or services. Customers use automated online tools to create text-based descriptions of their web pages and bid on keywords that trigger the display of their webpage information and link. Baidu's P4P platform features an automated online sign-up process that customers use to activate their accounts at any time. The P4P platform is an online marketplace that introduces Internet search users to customers who bid for priority placement in the search results. Baidu also uses third-party distributors to sell some of its online marketing services to end customers and offers discounts to these distributors in consideration of their services.
Baidu offers consultative services, such as keyword suggestions, account management and performance reporting. Baidu suggests synonyms and associated phrases to use as keywords or text in search listings. These suggestions can improve clickthrough rates of the customer's listing and increase the likelihood that a user will enter into a transaction with the customer. Baidu also provides online daily reports of the number of clickthroughs, clicked keywords and the total costs incurred, as well as statistical reports organized by geographic region.[citation needed]
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