Baidu unveils app platform in China

The Box Computing Open Platform, which opened for business Wednesday evening, invites programmers to develop games, videos, electronic books and other applications to be used by the site's tens of millions of users.

The service is accessible from any device or personal computer connected to the internet and it works with any browser, including Apple's Safari.

Software developers can get paid through user donations, advertising revenue shared with Baidu, or by charging users with a 30 per cent commission paid to Baidu.