4 minutes estimated reading time
Gentler place to work
Saying out loud the quiet bit about work-life balance; tectonic plates of streaming move again – I’ve found myself thinking about one panel in particular – the participants in the session on advice for aspiring leaders went beyond the usual platitudes, and shared a couple of uncomfortable truths about an industry which is trying to rebrand itself as a gentler place to work. – I think that we’ll see more of this move away from a gentler place to work as companies look to cut staff. I entered the workforce in the middle of recession before I went to college, this was the time of micro serfs and mcjobs. The idea of a gentler place to work seemed to be a transient one to me – one that would come and go with economic growth. Zero hour contracts really grew during and after the 2008 financial crisis, which is as far away from a gentler place to work as you can get.
China
Take down Pelosi’s plane’: Chinese react online to Taiwan visit | Financial Times
Displaced Syrians voice anger as bombed-out town doubles as film set | Financial Times – film being produced by Jackie Chan as demand in China for conflict porn grows alongside nationalistic fervour
Consumer behaviour
Economics
How rising tensions across the Taiwan Strait could threaten global trade | Financial Times
Ideas
Primary care physicians need 26.7 hours in the day – Futurity
Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google. :: Reasonably Polymorphic – The primary purpose of the web today is “engagement,” which is Silicon Valley jargon for “how many ads can we push through someone’s optical nerve?” Under the purview of engagement, it makes sense to publish webpages on every topic imaginable, regardless of whether or not you know what you’re talking about. In fact, engagement goes up if you don’t know what you’re talking about; your poor reader might mistakenly believe that they’ll find the answer they’re looking for elsewhere on your site. That’s twice the advertising revenue, baby! But the spirit of the early web isn’t gone: the bookmarks I’ve kept these long decades mostly still work, and many of them still receive new content. There’s still weird, amateur, passion-project stuff out there. It’s just hard to find. Which brings us to our main topic: search. – It is more than search, there is also motivation and consumer behaviour change in the old web versus the new one – The Founder of GeoCities on What Killed the ‘Old’ Internet | Gizmodo
Innovation
How the American semiconductor industry claimed back technological and market leadership from the Japanese
Microrobots in swarms for medical embolization — Nano Magazine
Turning fish waste into quality carbon-based nanomaterial — Nano Magazine
Ireland
Lidl Ireland removes mandatory retirement age of 65 | RTE
Legal
EU starts competition investigation into Google Play store terms – report – Telecompaper
Luxury
Telfar gets Beyoncé boost, but so does Hermès despite Birkin snub | Vogue Business – rappers don’t drive luxury sales, middle class Asians do
Media
Visa and Mastercard cut ties with ad arm of Pornhub owner MindGeek | Financial Times
Retailing
Ocado, the online supermarket – is this a legitimate content partnership with Disney? Something feels a bit off about the Ocado | Disney inspired meals. The ‘inspired by Disney’ tagline and the Lion King themed ‘green grub pasta’ feels weird.
Security
Missfresh hit by lawsuits from investors and employees | Financial Times
Starlink’s Space Speed-Up: A Battle for Internet Leadership – EETimes
Government concerns over China-owned CCTV company embedded in UK – Channel 4 News – There are more than a million of Hikvision’s cameras installed across the UK – monitoring every aspect of our lives. But Channel 4 News has learned that there are growing concerns within the government about the Chinese state-owned tech company.
China’s war games spur Taiwanese business to rally to island’s defence | Financial Times
Web of no web
Air Force Pilots to Fight AI-Based Enemies Using AR Helmets
Apple’s Next-Gen CarPlay Is Scaring the Car Industry. Here’s Why. – Robb Report UK
Some interesting business takes on the commercial decline of ‘metaverse‘ platforms: