Pearl river delta
China slowdown: feeling the pain in the Pearl River Delta | beyondbrics – it is really interesting that China’s slowdown isn’t only being felt in the traditional rust belt in the North East, but also in the Pearl river delta. Hong Kong sits at the end of the Pearl river delta as does Shenzhen. The Pearl river delta is about 7,500 square km. It goes from Guangzhou in the north to the Macau Special Administrative Region in the south. The Pearl river delta is a maze of streams and canals between small rice paddies that, because of the 12-month growing season, commonly support three rice crops annually. It is one of the most crowded areas of China, where modern industry and agriculture have been rapidly developed since the 1980s.
Business
August trend report examines emergence of Chinese brands on global stage | JWT Intelligence – westerners like China: people and heritage. However they are down on Chinese products and brands. If you did that poll at the end of the 19th century, the respondents would have said the same thing about Germany
China: mapping the territory – PMLiVE
Standard Chartered eyes joint deal after backing down in U.S.| Reuters
China
China disappointed with medals haul – FT.com – a sign of western imperalist hegemony trying to usurp China’s journey to the world ? The swift doping accusations against teenage gold medalist Ye Shiwen is fuel to this world view in China (paywall)
“China’s Afghan Game Plan” by Shlomo Ben-Ami | Project Syndicate – opportunity for natural resources including copper, oil and gas
Nobody special | SCMP.com – reality stars in China; great overview (pay wall)
Culture
Meet the Swedes Who Love Classic Cars and Elvis | VICE – great article on Sweden’s raggare sub-culture. Noticed this in Norway as well
How rave music conquered America | The Guardian – ironic given that rave came out of house music a small sub-culture from Chicago and one of the biggest players in the early rave seen was New York DJs Tommy Musto and Frankie Bones
Economics
Tricky customers – FT.com – Pier Luigi Sigismondi, Unilever’s chief supply chain officer. “While middle cases in the emerging world are aspiring to so-called western standards of living … western Europe is starting to see an economy that’s taking us to the developing market dynamics, which is quite concerning.”
Fund file: why China’s cash pile is not enough | beyondbrics
Immigration: Going the distance | The Economist
German Companies Disappoint with Quarterly Earnings Reports – SPIEGEL ONLINE – not terribly surprising given that so many of its trading partners are hurting
Finance
Visa branded ‘cynical’ as it bans rival cards from the Olympics | Mail Online
Switzerland: Julius Bär To Buy Merrill Lynch’s International Arm Eurasia Review
FMCG
Cruelty free policies ditched | SCMP.com – compliance with local regulations are undermining the previous gains my the animal welfare lobby (paywall)
How to maximise reach in Hong Kong’s fragmented digital market: P&G study – Campaign Asia-Pacific
McDonald’s Is Going For American Fast Food’s Last Unconquered Frontier
Germany
Germany Reopens Facebook Privacy Inquiry – NYTimes.com
How to
Multilingual professional lorem ipsum generator for typographers – includes kanji and Chinese characters
Ideas
A Bookfuturist Manifesto – Tim Carmody – The Atlantic
Innovation
Mazda cars losing weight? Try 220 pounds. – CSMonitor.com – interesting times for new materials
Ireland
Ireland’s prosecution of Anglo-Irish CEO Sean FitzPatrick sets example for US – The Boston Globe
Japan
Sharp Corp running out of options ‹ Japan Today – it is the harbinger of things to come with the formerly mighty Japanese consumer electronics brands? I hope not, but suspect it is likely to be the case
Decline of entrepreneurship blamed for Japan woes
Luxury
Altagamma – interesting luxury industry study done in June 2012
China’s Young Rich: Not Top Students – WSJ
What’s up with those Qataris? | Material World – investing in luxury brands
What NASA has to do with New York Fashion Week | Material World – inspiration
Marketing
Don’t Ignore Boomers – The Most Valuable Generation | Nielsen Wire – because they have the assets
Media
Monocolumn – Olympic ticket guilt [Monocle] – or how the Olympics screwed over London
BBC’s Mark Thompson moves to New York Times. Crikey – Telegraph Blogs – the most interesting thing for me about this is what it says about the changing media landscape.
Generation Y Leads in Book Buying, Says Industry’s Most Comprehensive Report – PRNewswire
The Dandy faces possible closure after 75-years – I guess for crudely drawn artwork like Desperate Dan digital doesn’t matter so much
Interview: How China’s giant Tencent makes users pay — paidContent
Are China and Hong Kong TV Shows Stealing Their Ideas From the U.S.? – China Real Time Report – WSJ – when is an idea original though, particularly in TV or film?
MPAA / RIAA Want U.S. to Help Quash The Pirate Bay | TorrentFreak
Washington Post’s TruthTeller project hopes to birth real-time fact-checking | Poynter.
New Era for Video-on-Demand Websites in China : China Law Update – interesting moves to mature the media sector
Twitter and the law: 10 legal risks in tweeting from or to the UK
News Corp writes $2.8 billion off its publishing activities — paidContent
The Media Business: NBC’s Olympic Coverage Shows Audience Expectations Aren’t in Its Cross Media Strategy – as a corporate entity don’t be a dick
Facebook advertisers are told vet user comments | The Wall Blog – Australia first, but I could see it rolling out internationally as best practice
San Francisco sports website Bleacher Report sells for reported $175 million – SiliconValley.com – interesting comparison to rivals.com
MPAA leak: O’Dwyer, TVShack.net case “isn’t about Internet freedom.” | Ars Technica
How Cosmo Conquered the World – NYTimes.com – interesting that the print version is such a status symbol
Online
Matt Cutts: Google Updates Will Be Jarring For A While | WebProNews
Facebook, Cringely, and the devolution of the web ~ I, Cringely – keep an eye on what Bob does
Retailing
Here’s The Real Reason Groupon’s Stock Just Crashed – Business Insider
All night book store in Hong Kong | SCMP.com – makes me realise how much I miss the former Borders branch on Oxford Street (paywall)
Lane Crawford breaks out | Material World
Caltech STUDY: What you see is what you buy | EyeQuant Blog – how a simple design trick affects consumer choices
Behavioral Differences Between Men and Women Influence Shopping | Practical eCommerce
Security
Bath Salts in the Wound | VICE – shocking portrayal of synthetic drug abuse in working-class American communities
The iPhone Has Passed a Key Security Threshold – Technology Review
Stratfor emails reveal secret, widespread TrapWire surveillance system — RT
Black Hat hacker lays waste to Android and Meego using NFC exploits | ExtremeTech – I guess NFC payments may not be a great idea
Attack against Microsoft scheme puts hundreds of crypto apps at risk | Ars Technica
Mac malware spies on infected users through video and audio capture | Naked Security
Software
Mobile app startups are failing like it’s 1999 | @andrewchen
The ‘experts’ who never see BBM will never understand RIM • The Register – interesting contrarian take on RIM by Andrew Orlowski. Much of it is correct, I think that the issue however is one of investor, banker and carrier confidence. I hope Orlowski is right
Nokia to Sell App Unit Amid Increasing Microsoft Reliance – Businessweek
Microsoft’s Massive Metro Mistake | PCMag.com – interesting analysis
Technology
VCs’ Strange, Instinctual Need to Replace Founders – Harvard Business Review
Infosys Sued For Visa Fraud: Another Big Blow to Outsourcing Market | ServicesANGLE – the thin end of the wedge, I suspect that the reality of outsourcing means that visa fraud is a challenge rather like traffic violations are to a courier company
Why Apple Won’t Sue Microsoft Over Surface
How Big Data Became So Big – NYTimes.com
Smelling blood, IBM may aim to buy RIM’s enterprise services unit | VentureBeat
comScore TabLens: Today’s US Tablet Owner Revealed
A belt and suspenders for your cloud storage ~ I, Cringely
Ericsson buys parallel processing firm – Rethink Wireless
Apple and Microsoft to team up for Kodak’s patents? | Politics and Law – CNET News
Telecoms
Huawei: The company that spooked the world | The Economist
Big Fat Pipes: Google’s Underappreciated Tech Edge – Atlantic
Hong Kong’s Hutchison says profit drops 78% – RTÉ News
Web of no web
CSR Debuts First SiRFstarV™ Chip Optimised for Mobile Devices – Selected by LG Electronics for New Flagship Smartphone – GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Compass system capabilities
Wireless
Samsung’s Wang was up 22 hours a day, had no time to copy Apple • The Register – is it just me or has Samsung’s lawyers just made Samsung management sound hateful for making a young mother only get two hours sleep a night?
Apple scores courtroom wins in Motorola FRAND case | CNET News
Vodafone and O2 face UK regulatory hurdles – Rethink Wireless
Motorola to Cut 20% of Work Force, Part of Sweeping Change – NYTimes.com
Q2 2012 U.S. smartphone market share: Apple dominates, Samsung trails
Korea gets world’s first VoLTE services – Rethink Wireless – finally voice on 4G services rather than working across 3G for voice
iPhone Caused “Crisis of Design” at Samsung (Memo) – AllThingsD
Saving Private Research in Motion, RIM, Blackberry | Monday Note – no obvious path back
Here’s why tablets (yes, tablets!) will replace the smartphone | GigaOM
Generation App: 62% of Mobile Users 25-34 own Smartphones | Nielsen Wire
EE Times Confidential | Multi-screen wars: MediaTek/Mstar vs. Qualcomm, Marvell, Nvidia – going head to head for the converged entertainment space
Apple Claims Google Warned Samsung Against Copying iPhone, iPad – AllThingsD
RIM No Longer Dominates BYOD Trend, Apple Makes Serious Gains | SiliconANGLE