3 minutes estimated reading time
Jet set
A great documentary on the transient lives of the jet set. A lot of perceptions about the jet set come from the golden age of air travel. The jet set reality is all the glamour of being a truck driver.
Culture
The Fantastic World of Professor Tolkien | New Republic – great review of Tolkien and his works
Design
Apple in talks with luxury carmaker McLaren – FT.com – could be interesting from a wider manufacturing and systems point-of-view. Less convinced about complete cars, hence the McLaren denial
The Infinite Jukebox – amazing
FMCG
WSJ City – Unilever Buys ‘Green’ Products Maker Seventh Generation – Unilever is getting into the market for sustainable products
Gadgets
Snapchat’s 10 second video glasses are real and cost $130 – TechCrunch – Feels like something they picked in the Brando catalog but not quite as douchey as Google Glass, more sad hipster
New Synths & Pianos at Roland’s ‘909 Day’ 24-Hour Product Launch Event | KeyboardMag – amazing global around the clock launch by Roland complete with activations cascading around the world in a 24-hour period
Hasselblad unveils slick and modular V1D concept camera – ok so its a computer render, but a rather nice computer render
Japan
poweredby.tokyo | The Essence of Tokyo. Illustrated by Those Who Embody it. – impressed the hell out of me as I was laid up with illness
Anime girls will keep you company as you eat your instant ramen with new AR promotion | RocketNews24 – interesting augmented reality technology, creepy execution but shows the way for bots and virtual friends
Korea
Wolf Richter: Why Hanjin’s Zombie Collapse Won’t Be the Last One | naked capitalism – more shakeout expected in the global market for container shipping
Luxury
Burberry goes digital | The Economist – good read despite being four years old
Marketing
Study: Texting is the Most Preferred Channel for Two-Way Business-to- Millennial Communications – Mobile Marketing Watch – the study is self-serving but interesting. SMS is the lowest common denominator of OTT messaging service for marketing communications and two-factor authentication
Media
Facebook Overestimated Key Video Metric For Two Years – WSJ – Ad buying agency Publicis Media was told by Facebook that the earlier counting method likely overestimated average time spent watching videos by between 60% and 80%, according to a late August letter Publicis Media sent to clients that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal
Inside ‘Stranger Things’: The Duffer Bros. on How They Made the TV Hit of the Summer – The Daily Beast – will need to check out Elfen Lied anime
Viceland UK opening night ratings – Business Insider – things can only get better
Online
Bot wars – Marginal REVOLUTION – fascinating, maybe there won’t be the production uplift that one would have thought of
Snapchat storytelling – YouTube – via Matt
Security
Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency to get 40 percent more spies: BBC says | Reuters – probably for Brexit trade negotiations as well as terrorism
iOS 10: Security Weakness Discovered, Backup Passwords Much Easier to Break « Advanced Password Cracking – Insight – I wonder if this was added as a US legal requirement, a la the San Bernardino case?
Software
macOS 10.12 Sierra: The Ars Technica review | Ars Technica – great review and detailed write up
Google’s new Trips app takes the stress out of planning vacations | TheNextWeb – bit of a threat to Foursquare
Technology
ARM Launches New Chip Design for Automotive, Health and Robotics – Bloomberg – surely this would be of interest for servers as well?
Web of no web
Xperia™ Ear – Official Website – Sony Mobile (Global UK English) – looking forwards to this finally launching
Wireless
Everyone in Europe is getting free roaming—except Brits | Quartz – Europeans will be able to make calls, use data, and send texts without any additional roaming charges anywhere in the European Union once new rules come into force next June