5 minutes estimated reading time
Vintage Tomorrows
I got a chance to watch the Vintage Tomorrows documentary the other evening. It was interesting that it had a range of practitioners such as William Gibson and Bruce Sterling in it. Cory Doctorow gave some of the explanations of the culture. There were a number of things that Vintage Tomorrows just scratched the surface on:
- How can steam punk be decolonised? Steam Punk is based on a new-liberal society that thrived on child exploitation and had colonisation at its centre. Add to that is the fact that steam punk is the very essence of Stuff White People Like.
- There is a question about the reductive dismal nature of science fiction, a theme that William Gibson has reflected on at length.
- The relationship between our own convergent technology path and gadgets. This also brings in the control that people feel with hardware that they can build. There was aspects around specialisation that wasn’t touched up on, but its into this as well.
- I thought that Vintage Tomorrows didn’t reflect more on Victorian originators of science fiction like Jules Verne beyond a name check. I would like to have heard more about William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s take on things.
I felt that there was a huge opportunity missed in not getting Neal Stephenson on camera to discuss steam punk on Vintage Tomorrows.
China
U.S. raises concerns about China aligning with Russia at meeting it calls ‘intense’ | Reuters
China insists it’s ‘not a party’ to Russia’s war with Ukraine – POLITICO
Saudi Arabia Invites China’s Xi to Visit Kingdom Amid Strained U.S. Relations – WSJ
Consumer behaviour
Scott Galloway on how consumer behaviour has been affected over time by online dating.
Design
Walgreens replaced some fridge doors with screens. And some shoppers absolutely hate it – CNN
Ethics
British publishers censor books for western readers to appease China | Financial Times
Finance
Tencent Faces Possible Record Fine for Anti-Money-Laundering Violations – WSJ
China’s Mortgage Lending Slumped Last Month for First Time in 15 Years | Yicai
Hong Kong
Ireland
Intel is building a new €17 billion chip manufacturing hub in Germany – The Verge – also major expansion of Intel’s Leixlip plant
Korea
With Yoon’s Election, It’s Time for China to Rethink Its Korea Policy – The Diplomat – China remains – at least in the short to medium run – South Korea’s preferred trading partner, with the country being Seoul’s largest export-import partner, over the United States, by a substantial margin. With slowing growth rates, uncertainty over the real estate sector, and declining demographics in China as looming challenges on one hand, and surging inflation and protectionist amplification of domestic industries in the United States, neither China nor the U.S. presents itself as the natural, exclusive economic partner for Seoul in the long run. More promising, perhaps, would be the exploration of expanded options and connections between South Korea and emerging markets such as Vietnam and India, as well as the European Union. Yoon centered his campaign around the allegations that the present regime has been too economically dependent upon China
Materials
Cyanide maker suspends Europe production as energy costs soar | Financial Times – this is going to impact processes like gold refining
Embedding plastic NFC tags in reusable packaging – eeNews Europe
Media
Netflix Is Ad Free, but It Isn’t Brand Free – The New York Times
USA Today Owner Gannett Co. Gave Advertisers Inaccurate Information for Nine Months – WSJ
Pepsi Taps Joe Jonas For New Competitive Singing Show | The Drum
Online
Telegram: the app at the heart of Ukraine’s propaganda battle | The Guardian
TikTok stars receive White House briefing on Ukraine – The Washington Post
Retailing
Grocery Apps Hoped to Win Over Amsterdam. Then Things Turned Sour | WIRED and more from Reuters – Amsterdam puts freeze on opening ‘dark store’ distribution centres | Reuters
Security
Brian Fishman on Meta’s actions in Russia – Protocol
TrueCaller exploited India’s weak data laws to build a caller ID empire – Rest of World
UK Camera Commissioner: Buying Dahua and Hikvision Puts ‘Money Over Values’
US officials say Russia has asked China for military help in Ukraine | Financial Times
Technology
SoftBank’s Arm to Cut Up to 15% as It Prepares IPO After Nvidia Deal Collapse – Bloomberg
Web of no web
Patients love telehealth–physicians are not so sure | McKinsey
Xerox PARC spins out predictive maintenance for IIoT – eeNews Europe – The Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) has an iconic place in the history of the electronics industry, developing the ideas behind such innovations as the computer mouse, Ethernet and laser printing. But with Xerox waning in influence in the digital age and a focus on software and services, PARC as a subsidiary since 2002 has perhaps struggled in its open innovation role of custom R&D services. One area where it has been innovating is the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). It has now launched new venture to commercialize predictive maintenance technology that reduces unplanned downtime in industrial manufacturing operations. – ok this undersells the work that Xerox PARC did in software, operating systems, distributed services, user experience and networking, but the introduction of Navity is very interesting. There are certain limits to this for instance production lines that depend on several machines will still need scheduled maintenance