Carbon nanotubes & other news

2 minutes estimated reading time

Carbon nanotubes

IBM betting carbon nanotubes can restore Moore’s Law by 2020 | ExtremeTech – interesting, IBM research has been at the leading edge of a lot of semiconductor manufacturing techniques including:

  • Copper interconnects
  • RISC architecture design
  • Multi-core design
  • Strained silicon substrates

Carbon nanotubes may join particularly as there is so much speculation about the state and future of IBM’s chip business as management moves towards a software and services based future. Is IBM preparing to sell the chip manufacturing business to the highest bidder?

Business

Amazon China chief replaced with another expat | WantChinaTimes – the back story is that Amazon has about 2 per cent of the e-commerce market in China

Design

Waterproof CD player with vocal removal function | AkihabaraNews – interesting thinking about context. Japan is still a big physical media market (they still have Tower Records) and people love to sing in the shower

Economics

HK’s retail sales fell in May | RTHK – its all about valuable gifts: watches, bags etc dropping by 25%

Ideas

The Future of the Workforce May Be Part-Time, Says Google CEO Larry Page | Re/code – utopian spin on zero-hour contracts?

Korea

S Korea to break away from Windows by 2020 | WantChinaTimes – interesting move: Windows 8 partly to blame, I suspect also the security decisions made around Active X made Koreans think twice before attaching themselves to Microsoft

Online

An Online Shift in China Muffles an Open Forum – NYTimes.com – “This is a new phase for social media in China,” said Hu Yong, a journalism professor at Peking University. “It is the decline of the first large-scale forum for information in China and the rise of something more narrowly focused.” – the authors have positioned this as a Chinese -specific move yet it is mirrored in the west with the rise of Whatsapp, Telegram and other OTT messenger services

Google bans porn from its ad network | CNBC – Google obviously doesn’t need the revenue, which bodes well for ongoing quarterly number going forwards

UK’s Porn Filter Triggers Widespread Internet Censorship | TorrentFreakThe results of ORG’s new tool show that what started as a “porn filter” has turned into something much bigger. Under the guise of “protecting the children” tens of thousands of sites are now caught up in overbroad filters, which is a worrying development to say the least – interesting that some are blocking the Open Rights Group and open source software sites

Thanks To “Right To Be Forgotten,” Google Now Censors The Press In The EU | Marketingland – once you take the 1st amendment driven angst viewpoint out of this, its a great summary of things by Danny Sullivan

Tencent Opening Up API for Wechat Login — China Internet Watch – expect WeChat’s app constellation to mushroom outside the Tencent family. More on WeChat here.

Security

3 Real Security Risks Threatening Your Smart TV Entertainment | Make Use Of – make mine a dumb TV

Technology

CHART OF THE DAY: Apple Is Invading The Enterprise – Business Insider – there is also a credibility issue, go to a developer conference and there is a sea of silver lids, this will knock on into the enterprise

Telecoms

I, Cringely The Secret of Google X – I, Cringely – I think untethered balloons aren’t a smart move either