I am Laokang, thanks for visiting. I began to study Chinese at age 22, and have lived and worked in China over 25 years.
In pursuit of my mission, "May millions master Mandarin," I create unique tools which allow students of Chinese to develop much better skills with much less effort than through traditional methods alone, AND demonstrate the results via standardized tests for each key skill.
The chosen platform at present is Apple iOS devices, because they provide the best available combination of interactivity and accessibility; in other words, this platform not only works best, it can be reached instantly around the world at low cost.
The first three areas of focus are tones, pinyin and character components, with apps under development due to arrive in the app store one by one between September 2011 and June, 2012.
You can read more background and check on the status of the mission on my blog: http://news.laokang.net Your comments are most welcome. You may contact me at laokang@laokang.net.