3 minutes estimated reading time
EUV lithography
ASML fire hits EUV lithography production | EE News Europe – EUV lithography is used to provide the latest semiconductor manufacturing processes. ASML is world’s only provider of EUV lithography equipment, so the fire is of concern. EUV or extreme ultra violet light is important to provide ever smaller silicon chips. YouTuber Asianometry provides a few good video explanations of EUV lithography and its importance for the technology industry.
China
Evergrande shares suspended after report it was told to destroy buildings | Financial Times
Star China investor Boyu seeks to navigate Xi Jinping’s tech crackdown | Financial Times – Liu Tianran, son of vice-premier Liu He, a confidante of Xi Jinping, established Skycus Capital in late 2016. Skycus has invested in units of Chinese technology giants Tencent and JD.com, which are Ant and Alibaba’s biggest rivals. Wen Yunsong, the son of former premier Wen Jiabao, founded the New Horizon investment fund in 2005, when his father was in power.
Consumer behaviour
The White Vote and Educational Polarization – Split Ticket
Economics
Japan pays a high price as it goes down market – Asia Times
China’s business crackdown threatens growth and innovation | Financial Times – It would not be a surprise if China returned to a version of the joint private-state ownership model adopted under the leadership of Mao Zedong in the 1950s. This would amount to a de facto nationalisation of private companies — at least those in sectors such as data collection, national cyber security and financial services
Finance
The EU vs the City of London: a slow puncture | Financial Times
Apple Should Develop Checking Accounts, Debit Card, Stock Trading Tools – Bloomberg
How Signal is playing with fire – by Casey Newton – concern about Signal idea to build anonymous private payments
Hong Kong
SCMP | Hong Kong chief executive election 2022: why this year’s leadership race is unusual – the narrowed political spectrum which he said would prevent any non-pro-establishment hopeful from entering the arena. “Whoever is running, they will hold very similar political visions … There won’t be much to fight over. The competition will be just like Omicron versus Delta,” he said, referring to variants of the coronavirus.
How to
How a super reader gets through 52 books a year | Financial Times – Skim non-fiction. Fiction demands a close, word-for-word reading. But it’s more important to understand, not read most non-fiction, says US author and consultant, Peter Bregman. This can mostly be done by confining yourself to the table of contents, introduction, conclusion, and a few pages of each chapter.
Ideas
The best and the brightest | Financial Times – well worth reading. This is so much of this happening in the digitisation of marketing
The WELL: State of the World 2022 – well worth reading this
Is your dog bilingual? New study suggests their brains can tell languages apart : NPR
Innovation
Intel’s technology trends | EE Times
Master planner | Science magazine – interesting how China is using systems planning
Japan developing railguns as neighbors test hypersonic missiles – The Mainichi
Luxury
What 2022 holds in store for luxury | Financial Times
Myanmar
Telenor to divest Wave Money, exit Myanmar mobile banking – Nikkei Asia
Retailing
Nike and Adidas’ China Growth Stalls as Native Footwear Brands Grow – Footwear News – interesting as the data seems to be a variant of data reported by the FT, the big exception being the impact on New Balance which Footwear News views in a far more favourable light
Security
China tech: those who control the algorithms control the future | Financial Times
Swiss army backs home-grown IM service amid privacy concerns | AP News
Taiwan
Taiwan should destroy chip infrastructure if China invades: paper – Nikkei Asia – seems to forget that Taiwan has symbolic experience for the Chinese communist party
Web of no web
Facebook Hosted Three Huge Concerts in the Metaverse and They Seriously Flopped
Toyota to launch own operating system, vying with Tesla and VW – Nikkei Asia
Metaverse gets touch of reality at CES | RTÉ – interesting use of haptics that has been tried unsuccessfully before