Goretex + more news

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Goretex

Gore-Tex Under Siege from Waterproof Fabric Newcomers | OutsideOnline.com – interesting how Goretex waterproof fabric stranglehold mirrors Microsoft’s position in the technology sector. Goretex was historically under threat from a number of systems that had varying degrees of impact. Hipora is a silicon coating structure invented by Korean firm Kolon, Schoeller’s C change which has temperature dependent venting, SympaTex commonly used when you see ‘no brand’ 3-layer laminate, usually lower price products that would lose margin paying for Goretex licensing. Lowe Alpine’s ceramic coated triple point fabric, but managed Goretex to survive and Lowe Alpine didn’t. There are other competitor products including I suspect that the other fabrics will become niche pieces unless they sort their marketing out. Goretex is primarily a branding exercise, that sets minimum standards such as taped seals. Much of Goretex intellectual property has been voided or circumvented.

Marketing is where the Goretex difference lies now, but it is known for a confrontational relationship with partners.

China

Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing among world’s top cities for super rich: Shanghaiist

Chinese Firm Surpasses Exxon in Oil Production; Now Largest Publicly-Traded Oil Producer | Business | TIME.com

What Make Chinese Go Shopping Online? | China Internet Watch

As China awakes, the world order shakes | Irish Examiner

The Revenge of Wen Jiabao – By John Garnaut | Foreign Policy

Consumer behaviour

Brand names matter in China | Warc.com

The Biggest Relevance Challenge Ever? Why Millennials Aren’t Buying Cars | Aaker on Brands | Prophet – remember seeing this about Japanese youth first

Teens, Smartphones & Texting | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

The Way We Read Now – NYTimes.com

Do E-Books Make It Harder to Remember What You Just Read? | TIME.com – ebooks are bad for content that you are trying to retain in your memory

Design

Why I am letting my Google IO invitation expire – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report – great example of the user experience and online marketing FAIL

Finance

8 Securities, Asia’s First Socially Networked Trading Portal Launches in Hong Kong | TechNode

An Apple you can Bank on? – mobile banking

Google reportedly pushing devs to use Google Wallet | CNET News – interesting move, I can see why they are doing it but it could raise antitrust questions

FMCG

P&G sees licensing success: Warc.com

Germany

Munich saves a fortune switching to Linux – Saves a third on IT spending | TechEye

Hong Kong

Kwok brothers arrested by HK watchdog – FT.com – Sun Hung Kai is Hong Kong’s largest property company. Surprising that they are involved as the big firms there generally keep their noses clean (paywall)

How to

How to Prevent your Blogger Blog from Redirecting to Country Domains

Supercharge PDFs on Tablets via Uberflip’s HTML5 $29.95 Answer | Uberflip – PDF to HTML5 publishing

Ideas

Science fiction and fantasy when the awesome has become ordinary | The Verge

U.S. Simulation Forecasts Perils of an Israeli Strike at Iran – NYTimes.com

The “Mad Men” Reading List | The New York Public Library – a good list for reading material inspiration

Bloomberg Says Social Media Can Hurt Governing – NYTimes.com – short-termism promoted by concern about what the social web says

Insight: Samsung: fast executioner seeks killer design | Reuters

Innovation

Thermal cloak’ to dissipate heat in electronics

Akustica develops two-chip analog MEMS microphone

AT&T Reinvents the Steering Wheel – Technology Review – interesting use of haptics in the steering wheel

Panel ponders many-core ICs tripping ‘the singularity’

Ireland

Ireland hits record trade surplus | Irish Examiner

Japan

Numbers of young scientists declining in Japan : Nature

Korea

Mobile phone makers, carriers fined for price rigging – Korea Times – not terribly surprised

Luxury

After Targeting Luxury Cars, Chinese Government Mulls High-End Booze Ban « Jing Daily

China to cut import duties on goods

Luxury automakers face China challenge: Warc.com

ChinaFile: Do’s and Don’ts for Launching Your Fashion Label in China – WWD.com

Marketing

Two Bing Marketers Fired for Violating Procurement Policy | Advertising Age

IKEA China: Build a Loyal Following Through Customer Engagement Online | The China Observer

Media

The Guardian’s Google Revenue Fantasy – And the Future of Newsrooms | SiliconANGLE

Anti-piracy group sues professor for defamation – Promusicae in reputational train wreck by going legal

Hotfile researcher discredits MPAA-funded piracy study

Google and Twitter may struggle to resist UK censors — GigaOM – the challenge is that this is the thin end of a wedge. The Olympics

‘Pottermore’ Breaks All Retailers and Rules (Except Apple’s and Region Restrictions) | Wired.com

Only Content Industries Can Create Content People Want, Says MPAA’s Attaway | paidContent – this reminds me of where Microsoft was with the open source movement circa 2001

Why Facebook is Really Hiring Advertising Agency Creatives – Advertising Age

Defining Property – Paul Graham on the content industries

Nearly 3 out of 4 Ad Campaigns Deliver Ads Adjacent to Brand Inappropriate Content – opportunity for owned media?

Pew: Twitter, Facebook Aren’t Moving As Much News As You Think | mocoNews

Apple Antitrust Suit Would Aid Amazon Book Monopoly – Bloomberg

HTC rumored to have bought MOG — Tech News and Analysis

Meme

The Hottest App On The Planet, Draw Something, Has Suddenly Stopped Growing – Draw Something like Angry Birds is the classic example of app as meme. It has a brief but glorious shelf life that will spawn less successful imitators

Online

Breaking, Pony Ma Confirms that Tencent’s Weixin Has Reached 100 Million Users | TechNode

Google Hasn’t Explained Why Users Would Want a Unified Online Identity – AllThingsD

Daily Dot | A Pinterest spammer tells all

New search tool to unlock Wikipedia – New Scientist – interesting new development in search (paywall)

Exclusive: Kevin Rose Will Join Google – AllThingsD – interesting move to stock up on social talent and geek kudos by Google

Yahoo-Facebook patent fight: more than meets the eye | Tech News and Analysis  – great summary on why Facebook Connect is pure poison

FTC Subpoenas Apple in Google Antitrust Probe – AllThingsD

I Hope Yahoo Crushes Facebook in its Patent Suit « blog maverick

Meet The 10 Patents Yahoo Is Using To Sue Facebook | paidContent

The Potential Problems of Consumer Cloud Storage in China | Tech in Asia

Yahoo reportedly has a license to patents Facebook just bought from IBM | The Verge

百度搜索风云榜 – Baidu’s equivalent of the old Yahoo! Buzz and Google’s Zeitgeist tool

Retailing

U.S. Stores Learn the Ropes of Shipping to Foreign Shoppers – NYTimes.com

Security

Anatomy of an Attack – The RSA Blog and Podcast – RSA’s own tale

New Trojans Use Old Tricks to Infiltrate Macs

MasterCard, VISA Warn of Processor Breach — Krebs on Security

Dell buys SonicWALL

It’s Not All About You: What Privacy Advocates Don’t Get About Data Tracking on the Web – The Atlantic

Firefox To Use Google Secure Search By Default; Expect More “Not Provided” Keywords To Follow

Meet The Hackers Who Sell Spies The Tools To Crack Your PC (And Get Paid Six-Figure Fees) – Forbes

Cameras at U.K. gas stations will block uninsured drivers from refueling | The Sideshow – Yahoo! News

Software

Chinese Android Apps Are Bypassing Google’s Play Store | mocoNews

iOS wins over more new smartphone buyers as Android holds steady

Microsoft files restraining order, offers $300M bond in Motorola patent case

Blackberry: focus more on mobile shopping and less on trying to be cool

Fragmentation bomb wounds Android in developer war • The Register

Android reunited with mainline Linux – Rethink Wireless

Nokia’s Redesign of the Windows Phone UI – shame that Nokia are not looking to alter anything. It’s a shame that all Nokia’s HCI smarts is going to waste

Angry Birds Space Game Skips Windows Phone in Blow to Nokia – Bloomberg

Communities Dominate Brands: Brutal Truth about Lumia – cannot sustain even 1 to 1 replacement of Symbian: Windows Phone strategy doomed for Nokia

Spain

Spain Shows Highest Growth in Smartphone News Audience Across EU5

Taiwan

Apple supplier Foxconn cuts working hours, workers ask why | Reuters

Technology

I, Cringely » Lessons from Redmond – Amazon going ‘Microsoft’ on businesses built using AWS

Teardown slideshow: Inside the third-generation iPad – great analysis by EETimes

50% of Connected TVs Aren’t Connected – ‘Connected TV’ Hype Seamlessly Replaces 3D TV Hype | DSLReports.com

Telecoms

New TechNet Study: On Two-Year Anniversary of National Broadband Plan, U.S. Adoption Rates Level Off | TechNet

ExtremeTech » $1.5 billion: The cost of cutting London-Toyko latency by 60ms

Look! It’s yet another effort to save DSL — Broadband News and Analysis

Web of no web

Communities Dominate Brands: Elop, Nokia, Tablets, Location Based Services and Product Line

Wireless

Communities Dominate Brands: The ‘Cliff Theory’ ie How Handset Makers Die, why in Mobile Phones do Companies Collapse so Rapidly (Siemens, Motorola, Palm, Nokia, Blackberry and Windows Mobile)

RIM to give up | asymco

Apple Invents a Killer 3D Imaging Camera for iOS Devices – Patently Apple

46% of American adults now own a smartphone of some kind, up from 35% in May 2011; Smartphone owners now outnumber users of more basic phones | Pew Internet & American Life Project

Communities Dominate Brands: Previewing Year 2012 in Smartphone Bloodbath – Year 3 is the Digital Jamboree

China Mobile says aims to add 30 million 3G users this year | Reuters

Motorola, HTC, Samsung among those facing new antitrust suit | InfoWorld

Report: Nokia paying AT&T for exclusive employee use of the Lumia 900 | wpcentral – interesting that AT&T is doubling down behind Nokia on this. Would be interesting to see how profitability of handset and usage net out

Nice Try: Motorola Wanted to License Every One of Apple’s Patents – AllThingsD

Data now 85% of mobile traffic, but 39% of revenue – what gives? — GigaOM

Communities Dominate Brands: The CEO Insane – How To Rescue Nokia

Battle looms over the future of the SIM card | ExtremeTech