6 minutes estimated reading time
911 restomod
Perfect Porsche? This British-built 911 restomod comes close : CityAM – the idea of the perfect Porsche is contextual and highly personal. I would prefer a car that looks like an early air-cooled car, with no aerodynamic spoiler or flared arches and Fuchs wheels. There are a number of vendors doing a restomod 911. US company Singer is probably the most famous with its muscular looking restomod 911 models. In the article, there is a particularly interesting bit is about the redistribution of parts and lightweight replacement parts in the 911 restomod by Theon Design.
China
EXCLUSIVE China’s Ant explores ways for Jack Ma to exit | Reuters – this looks as if its much more focused on Jack Ma and possibly his links to the Jiang Zemin faction. Ma may not be even keeping the money
Chinese censors take aim at former premier Wen Jiabao’s essay | Financial Times – really interesting that this appeared in a Macao publication, like it was designed to give it a few days out there. Wen was generally a bit more soft-hearted than Hu when the two were in the politburo. And Hu was moderated by the committee approach of the politburo. Xi had learned from Bo Xijlai that populism and nationalism worked and has a hawkish view that is untempered by the politburo.
Consumer behaviour
Siu mai or egg waffles? Hong Kong foodies cut through political divide to share reviews, photos in online ‘concern groups’ | South China Morning Post – it also reflects a deepening sense of localism in the community, but in a harmless way – food speech instead of free speech
China’s keyboard warriors like to fight . . . each other | Financial Times – China’s grassroots nationalist bloggers seem less like that unified “main force” than dispersed militias which argue with one another as much as they do with external enemies. “The difference between Chinese nationalist factions is probably bigger than the difference between all of them and an American patriot,” says one Beijing-based blogger who is researching a book on Chinese internet culture. And while the CCP’s professional trolls may generate reposts and likes, “volume is not influence”, he adds – interesting article. I keep thinking about how different red guard groups used to fight against each other during the cultural revolution
Design
Trapped on Technology’s Trailing Edge – IEEE Spectrum – Repairing the system entailed either redesigning a few circuit boards and replacing other obsolete integrated circuits for US $21 million, as the B-2 program officers chose to do, or spending $54 million to have the original contractor replace the whole system. The electronics, in essence, were fine—they just couldn’t easily be fixed if even the slightest thing went wrong. – which makes me wonder about the internet of things.
Luxury
Why Chow Tai Fook sees opportunity in rural China and lower-tier cities | Marketing | Campaign Asia – Surrey Pau, deputy general manager of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group, responsible for market expansion, explained how and why the brand intends to seize opportunities in China’s fourth-and-fifth-tier cities, despite a natural bias in the sector towards selling luxury items to tier-one markets. Charts comparing urban (blue) and rural (yellow) growth rates Growth in rural China “Some people believe that in rural areas you don’t have much of an income, that you rely heavily on agriculture and have a very simple economic structure,” Pau said. “However we believe that is just a myth.” Comparing household consumption and spending trends in rural and urban areas, Pau sees the countryside soon catching up with cities, helped by government support to rural areas. And along with higher incomes, the brand is seeing people shift to devoting more disposable spending to lifestyle improvements, including cosmetics and jewellery. The other macrotrend is the massive rise in ecommerce spending. And thanks to recent infrastructure investments in new networks, the digital playing field has been levelled to a great degree in China – I don’t think that there’s the growth in Chinese lower tier cities and rural areas that Chow Tai Fook thinks
Marketing
6 Elements Of Digital Brand Dominance | Branding Strategy Insider – The old adage “stick to your knitting,” for example, a colloquial version of “build on your core competence,” tends to narrow a company’s imagination. Yet a bold imagination is a requirement for leaders today. Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, and Google would not be what they are if their CEOs and executive teams had not imagined a future that did not yet exist. – but do these businesses also suffer from a lack of focus and a conglomerate discount at some point?
Media
Leaked ByteDance Memo Shows Blockbuster Revenue Projections – Bloomberg – convenient that this happened ahead of Hong Kong listing…
Myanmar
Activists have launched a pirate radio station out of secret safehouses in Myanmar – Rest of World – probably radio because of the disruption to the internet – Myanmar’s army is sending the country “back to the ’90s” – Rest of World
Online
Son’s SoftBank Vision Fund Profit Nears $30 Billion on Coupang – Bloomberg – of course Softbank needs to be able to cash out to realise the win
More than half of Instagram influencers ‘engaged in fraud’, with 45 per cent of accounts ‘fake’ | PR Week – Instagram mega-influencers and celebrities – those with more than one million followers – were the worst culprits, with two-thirds (66 per cent) of these accounts engaged in some form of fraudulent activity.
Nano-influencers – those with 1,000 to 5,000 followers – had the lowest proportion of fraud, occurring in 42 per cent of accounts. The most common tactics used included buying followers, likes and comments from click farms, buying story views, and engaging with comment pods – where a group of Instagram users get together and systematically engage with each other’s posts
Security
Huawei had unlimited access to millions of customer data from Telfort – NOS – translation of Dutch original, more here – Dutch telecoms firm KPN: no sign Huawei has improperly monitored users, Telecom News, ET Telecom
Technology
China’s Dystopian “New IP” Plan Shows Need for Renewed US Commitment to Internet Governance – Just Security – hinges around real ID and total surveillance
Arm Battle With China CEO Escalates, Complicating SoftBank Sale – Bloomberg – I wouldn’t be surprised if China was pushing this to wrestle control of the group as part of its ‘war by other means’. I wonder if this news is connected – UK Forces Delay in Nvidia’s ARM Takeover, Citing National Security Concerns – ExtremeTech
US and Japan to invest $4.5bn in next-gen 6G race with China – Nikkei Asia
Wireless
Lycamobile names CEO to lead digital push beyond expatriates | Financial Times – they’ve tried to do this previously. Lycamobile was usually the first SIM that EU migrants got to establish themselves in the UK. They then moved on to domestic aimed products. Brexit has made this move a life or death struggle now
Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile kill their cross-carrier RCS messaging plans | Ars Technica