Ged Carroll

Month: December 2022

  • Uninsurable hacks + more things

    Uninsurable hacks

    As cybercrime has become more common there has been a move towards the incidents becoming uninsurable hacks in nature. 2022 looks like a watershed moment in the move to uninsurable hacks.

    Lloyd’s of London defends cyber insurance exclusion for state-backed attacks | Financial Times – Lloyds of London were looking at state backed exclusions. The parallel between a state backed cyber attack and and an act of war have clear parallels from an insurance point of view. An act of war would be exempt from most insurance policy cover. A state backed cyber attack then becomes an uninsurable attack. However, while a business could expect government retribution and likely support in an act of war, the uninsurable hack exists in a grey zone just below the threshold of government response.

    The closest thing that has happened was criminal charges filed against Park Jin Hyok for the Wannacry ransomware that affected the NHS, Bangladesh Central Bank theft and the Sony Pictures hack. Russia has attempted attacks against at an oil refinery in at least one NATO country likely due to the material support that Ukraine has been receiving. NATO isn’t in a state of war with Russia and there are likely to be few repercussions and deterrents. Chinese backed hackers dismantled Nortel and helped drive the business into bankruptcy. These would all be uninsurable hacks as the risk is unmanageable in nature.

    North Korea presents a particular type of risk for uninsurable hacks, using cyber crime to finance its sanction hit economy.

    Companies like NSO and service companies based in India have democratised sophisticated intrusions for legal firms and business purposes. Widening the risk even further and creating a shadow economy of such scale that it creates uninsurable hacks by his own nature. Some of these law firms may even work with insurance companies in other areas; indicating the kind of perverse business incentives that drive these uninsurable hacks.

    The final aspect ushering in uninsurable hacks is one of scale. Due to the economics of digital business – criminal or otherwise; they scale in a non-linear fashion. Insurance insiders see these as uninsurable attacks as they are ‘civilisation level’ attacks. Uninsurable hacks also come from an inability of the insurance industry to absorb pay-outs on a massive scale. But what can be done about uninsurable hacks since Pandora’s box has been opened?

    Business

    This story how Balkan organised crime groups completely compromised MSC is stunning for its audacity and impact.

    China

    Chinese business confidence falls to lowest in a decade | RTÉ 

    China to step up support for local chipmakers – supported businesses include NAND flash memory maker Yangtze Memory Technology (YMTC) and AI chip developer Cambricon Technologies

    Notebook component makers see large absences at China plants due to COVID – some notebook supply chain companies in China have seen infections in their plants affect up to 50% of their workers, resulting in the temporary shutdown of production lines

    China’s Bureaucratic Slack: Material Inducements and Decision-Making Risks among Chinese Local Cadres | The China Journal – We find bureaucratic slack among lower-ranked cadres to be caused mainly by the lack of material inducements, while higher-ranked officials are more discouraged by increased risks

    Mao and markets – great talk on the permeable membrane between communist thought and capitalism.

    China Makes Moves in Middle East After Biden’s Frosty Reception – An eagerness to offer “Chinese wisdom” to the Middle East’s problems is symbolic of Xi’s decade in power, during which time he has thrown off the humble shackles of his predecessors to raise his country’s stature on the international stage. Welcome or not, his offer signals to China’s domestic audience Beijing’s growing influence abroad and its capacity to advise others on successful governance. However, China’s exact role in realizing its peacekeeping recipe remains unclear. A frequent critic of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and elsewhere, Beijing knows all too well the political, economic and military costs of becoming involved. Its willingness to do so is also a matter of constant debate. “China is cautiously increasing its presence in the Middle East, driven more by Middle Eastern states than its own ambitions,” said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “China sees the Middle East as volatile and an area still dominated by the United States. They are cautious about getting sucked into the region’s conflicts.”

    Consumer behaviour

    Why the U.S. middle class is feeling squeezed | Noahpinion 

    Fascinating talk by Scott Galloway

    Culture

    Mr Tape used custom modified reel-to-reel tape recorders. The reason why he can handle the reels is that its actually the tape capstans rather than the reels that are powered on a tape machine. So very different to how a cassette tape recorder works.

    Henry Cavill on his love for Warhammer 40K. He is seriously invested in the universe.

    Design

    Shedding some light on “dark patterns” and advertising regulation – ASA | CAP 

    Economics

    Making Products in America Means Stuff Will Be More Expensive | Business Insider – cost is less clear when one takes into account carbon tax. It is also worthwhile thinking about how this could drive an improvement in product quality as well as production moves away from China. Improved quality could help reduce consumption and improve environmental impact

    Ethics

    The Camp Fix: Infrastructural Power and the “Re-education Labour Regime” in Turkic Muslim Industrial Parks in North-west China | The China Quarterly | Cambridge Core – Drawing on worker interviews, government documents, industry materials and images this article shows that for-profit public-private industrial parks have been built as part of a “camp fix” mechanism centred on detaining and “re-educating” Uyghurs and Kazakhs at the periphery of the nation. It argues that these industrial parks concentrate forms of repressive assistance and “dormitory labour regimes” that operate at other frontiers of Chinese state power and point these strategies of disempowerment towards a seemingly permanent, ethno-racialized underclass, producing a “re-education labour regime.” It further argues that the material infrastructures of these surveiled and policed spaces themselves are productive in enforcing the goals of the “camp fix”: the creation of high-quality, underpaid, docile and non-religious Muslim workers who are controlled through the built environment – this is the environment that large corporates have used in their supply chain. Companies such as VW Group and Anta (aka Salomon, Arc’teryx etc)

    Finance

    Scott Galloway breaks down a number of financial stories from 2022.

    FMCG

    Starbucks Sales Forecast to Decline Due to Customer Cuts in Add-Ons 

    Hong Kong

    Visual Framing: The Use of COVID-19 in the Mobilization of Hong Kong Protest | The China Quarterly | Cambridge Core – messages and images posted on Lennon Walls between January and April 2020 have used COVID-19 to extend public expression of sentiment on the debates around the Hong Kong government and to further mobilize a sense of Hong Kong identity against China. The findings contribute to the understandings of how the cultural politics surrounding the pandemic became a collective action frame in the mobilization of a localized Hong Kong political identity against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments – this linking of COVID-19 to political discourse makes public health communications much more complex

    Hong Kong property: developers mourn demise of ‘coffin homes’ boom | Financial Times – Analysts, including Goldman Sachs, expect Hong Kong home prices to drop by 30 per cent by the end of next year. Shares of CK Asset and Henderson Land have fallen about a tenth in the past six months. The latter trades at 10 times forward earnings, which is more than 40 per cent lower than even 2014 levels — during the last property market decline — reflecting the dire outlook. – add into this also the amount of Hong Kongers leaving the city as well

    Indonesia

    Indonesia’s foreign retirees fear being driven out as new visa scheme targets ‘filthy rich’ | South China Morning Post 

    In Indonesia, ‘all-gendered’ priests are fighting to keep their traditions alive | South China Morning Post – With fewer than 40 Bissu remaining in areas across South Sulawesi, a community which once held divine status is now fighting against extinction. Many Bissu were accused of violating Islamic principles and faced persecution, but some are trying to preserve their heritage by performing cultural, shaman-like roles – the implicit influence of gulf Arab style muslim beliefs is not only about extremism but presenting a dead orthodoxy that will make Indonesia as unattractive as Malaysia has become

    Innovation

    Chipmaker TSMC in talks with suppliers over first European plant | Financial Times – it will take a while for TSMC to get a European project under way

    Ireland

    This is fascinating, it shows how Irish consumers have become much more sophisticated in the 50 years that Ireland has been in the European Union.

    Japan

    Sapporo, Japan Olympic Committee hit pause on Winter Games bid -Kyodo | Reuters – the scandal that encompassed Japan could be a good thing on balance as it allows Japan to press pause on a Winter Olympics bid. The IOC is more hassle than its worth for Japan. Japan already has a great reputation

    Korea

    Jinni’s shock departure from new K-pop group NMixx, just three days after its Loewe fashion campaign launched and within a year of debuting – | South China Morning Post – girl group seems to have been formed to become brand ambassadors for a luxury brand. Much of the money is in sponsorship but usually its mainstream brands like LG, Samsung, G-Shock etc

    Luxury

    From meme fashion to gamified drops: The top consumer trends of 2022 | Vogue Business 

    Rolex Sales: Pricey Luxury Swiss Watch Exports Jump to Record High on US Demand – Bloomberg – Americans snap up pricey timepieces, lifting exports by 33%. Retailers in Qatar stocked up ahead of the football World Cup

    From meme fashion to gamified drops: The top consumer trends of 2022 | Vogue Business 

    Media

    Google agrees NFL streaming deal as Big Tech chases sports rights | Financial Times 

    Online

    Legal basis for removing inaccurate Hong Kong anthem results from Google, John Lee says citing tech giant’s policy – Hong Kong Free Press HKFP 

    Read Zuckerberg’s 2019 Deposition on Facebook User Data | Business Insider – A 2017 report in The New York Times had said Cambridge Analytica previously claimed it could use data to glean voters’ inclinations. Zuckerberg appeared to address those types of news reports in his testimony to SEC regulators, saying it piqued his interest about how the company might have been using Facebook at the time.  “I kind of remember having this reaction to this, which is, if they are using our systems for advertising, then I’m curious to understand if they’re actually doing anything novel that matches the rhetoric that they have, or if they’re just kind of puffing up rhetoric around what would be a relatively standard use of our ad systems,” he told the SEC in 2019, according to the newly released testimony. – to be fair Zuckerberg’s reaction reminds me of a lot of discussions that I was having with peers about Cambridge Analytica at the time

    Netflix password sharing may be illegal – British government warns – Nadine Dorries has already confessed at sharing a password. I think we need a strong a approach to law enforcement and use her as a demonstration case. I think 10 years inside should do it ;-)

    Retailing

    Amazon hit by ECJ ruling on online sale of counterfeit goods | Financial Times 

    Security

    Why everyone needs a dedicated GPS device. TL;DR don’t rely on wireless networks

    How This Bombardier Challenger 650 Jet Became a High-Tech Spy Plane – Robb Report – interesting that this appearing in luxury publication Robb Report

    How SpaceX’s Starlink terminals first arrived in Ukraine | Quartz – Weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, the US began scrambling to find satellite communications equipment that could keep the Ukrainian government connected to the rest of the world, new documents reveal. Those efforts resulted in thousands of satellite-antenna terminals that connect to SpaceX’s Starlink broadband internet network being sent to Ukraine. They have proven vital to Ukraine’s war effort, but became a source of controversy for both SpaceX and the US over the service’s cost, and who is paying for it. Government contractor DAI began searching for the right equipment as early as Feb. 11, according to documents Quartz obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, shocking many, but not the US government, which sounded the alarm ahead of the invasion

    TikTok admits tracking FT journalist in leaks investigation | Financial Times – ByteDance, the Chinese owner of viral social media platform TikTok, has admitted it inappropriately obtained the data of users, including a Financial Times journalist, in order to analyse their location as part of an internal leaks investigation. Over the summer, four employees on the ByteDance internal audit team looked into the sharing of internal information to journalists. Two members of staff in the US and two in China gained access to the IP addresses and other personal data of FT journalist Cristina Criddle, to work out if she was in the proximity of any ByteDance employees

    Software

    How Amazon Uses AI To Automate Work In Its Corporate Headquarters – I was struck by how deeply artificial intelligence was already ingrained in their cultures. With in-house AI research labs that rank among the globe’s best, the tech giants were automating wide swaths of their operations and changing the nature of work within their companies. This commitment to AI in the workplace is newly relevant as powerful tools like Dall-E, ChatGPT, and their ilk make their way into the public’s hands. As access to this powerful technology spreads, nearly all companies will soon have tools like those I saw inside Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. So work inside our companies will change as well

    Taiwan

    Foxconn to sell stake in Tsinghua Unigroup, faces fine | EE Times 

    Technology

    Asianometry does a run down of Sun Microsystems history. A few things. When I started working agency side, this was what our client websites were hosted on. Sun had a partnership with Netscape to have a great software stack. Oracle’s hardware business is the old Sun Microsystems business. Cisco routers and other manufacturers as well were basically a Sun motherboard and a raft of ethernet ports together with a look-up database that handled the routing.

    Revenge of reality: how technology was discounted in 2022 | Financial Times 

    Vietnam

    Vietnam loses 25 ancient books related to culture and sovereign territory — Radio Free Asia – one of which is “relevant to Vietnam’s sovereign territory,” according to the deputy head of the literature department, Nguyen Xuan Dien. Posting on his Facebook page on Tuesday, a day after the institute’s annual meeting, Dien said the books were “extremely important for national culture.”The institute said Wednesday the books were among 35,000 volumes it had cataloged and preserved at the request of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences When it inspected the inventory in April 2020, for the first time in over 10 years, it discovered that 29 books were missing. Four of the books were later found on the wrong shelves. Among the books still unaccounted for are four written by scientist Le Quy Don and two books which record the precise geography, boundaries and borders related to Vietnam’s sovereign territory, according to Dien. Those two volumes could help substantiate Vietnam’s territorial claims in the South China Sea – I would guess that these books have been incinerated in China, as it helps China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and debilitates Vietnam’s rival claims

    Web of no web

    How successful are Roblox branded experiences? – Peter Gasston – low continued engagement

  • Casio DW-100 – throwback gadget

    My story with the Casio DW-100 began in the school canteen. One of the people that I used to hang with as I ate my packed lunch was a guy called Neil. Neil was one of the better off people in my school, he had a maths tutor. His Mum ran a green grocers and we occasionally heard about giant spiders turning up in boxes of bananas that had been picked up from the wholesale market.

    The Chiba connection

    Neil’s Dad was a ships carpenter by trade who ended up working for Shell. He was assigned to different places and inspected tankers that were under construction or being repaired. Because of this, he worked away for most of the year. During the summer or Christmas Neil would get to visit his job in places like Nigeria, Singapore or Japan. He spent a good deal of time in Chiba, Japan as his Dad was inspecting ships being built at Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding.

    ASIAN BLOSSOM

    When you have a well paid parent who doesn’t see you very often and access to the latest greatest products, you end up the most well heeled kid on the block. At the time, a lot of the best Japanese products didn’t get as far as the UK. Neil had a better Walkman than anyone else and he had the Casio DW-100.

    dw100
    Casio DW-100

    After coming back from visiting the Far East Neil came a new Casio DW-1000.

    Why Casio?

    Casio watches had a battery that would usually last a couple of years, which was why they were holding their own against competitors like Commodore or Sekonda. Before the lithium ‘coat button’ batteries, watches had smaller ‘shirt button’ sized batteries that lasted 12 months if you were lucky. The smaller buttons also seemed to leak ruining the watch beyond repair.

    Back then our equivalent of Hodinkee magazine was the Argos catalogue. My local Rolex authorised dealer seemed like it was a space ship from another world. My Dad’s 1960s vintage Omega felt like adult unobtainium. Seiko and Citizen watches were things I aspired to have when got to hold down a job in the adult world of work that felt so far off at the time. It was the 1980s so even being able to work felt more hopeful than reality.

    They were also cheaper than the likes of Seiko or Citizen digital watches. It was fortunate to have a Casio Marlin W750; which was a step above most digital watches at the time with water resistance of 50 meters. This was the best Casio digital watch that was available at the time in Argos catalogue. This 50M water resistance capability was shown with a marlin fish on the front of it. Otherwise it looked like every other Casio watch. What that meant that it was able to survive getting washed or having a shower. This was important as my school was full of light-fingered pupils.

    The G-Shock before the G-Shock

    Neil’s Casio DW-100 caught the eye for a number of reasons:

    • It was an unusual combination of resin strap and metal case
    • The strap was beefier
    • The case was predominantly brushed finish rather than shiny and discernibly larger
    • It had a plastic bumper on the front to protect the easily scratched plastic glass
    • “Water Resist 200M” embossed on plastic bumper. Dive watch level water resistance seemed like an ability to blast off into space.
    • Staring at the grey glass a bit harder and you would see a stylised scuba diver where my own watch featured a marlin.

    Function-wise it was very similar to my own watch. The screen had the exact same three segments on the screen. There would be a half hour chime function, which was the soundtrack of my classroom in the same way that iPhone alerts are the soundtrack of the office today.

    While these watches were robust, they would soon resemble a hard-working Land Rover. The front bumper scarred and chewed up as if it was mauled by a lion. Many of them were probably prefectly useable up to the day that they were thrown away or put in a drawer. One of them featured in an advertising campaign that Casio ran in the US in 2019.

    The development of the G-Shock also implies that many of the drops that the DW-100 damaged it in a similar way to cheaper watches. The LCD screen would break and there wasn’t the kind of replacement services that we know have for broken smartphone screens.

    Cult item

    While the Casio DW-100 was not well known in the UK, they were sold in the US as well as Japan. in 1986, they were a key item in an episode of the TV show MacGyver. And have now been coveted by watch collectors and adult fans of the show.

    Epilogue

    I haven’t spoken to Neil in decades, we fell out of touch. He got sponsored for his first degree; did a doctorate after leaving the sponsor and has spent the rest of his career in the oil industry. The last I heard of him he was involved in oilfield maintenance and engineering in the Middle East.

    More retro gadget related content here.

  • 2022 in review

    News stories of 2022 in review

    January

    2022 kicked off with the start of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free trade agreement. It eclipses the European Union – it covers nearly a third of the global population and about 30 per cent of its global gross domestic product. [i] It’s hard to overstate how important this agreement is to the world economy. 

    Russia’s intervention in Kazakhstan to quieten unrest triggered by a rise in the price of LPG (liquified petroleum gas) and general government dissatisfaction is seen at the time as a good thing on balance.[ii]

    The number of global COVID cases exceeds 300 million worldwide[iii], contrast this with the estimated 250 million infections experienced in China alone right before Christmas 2022.[iv]

    By the end of January, we had 10 billion vaccinations conducted.[v] But that didn’t stop anti-vaxxers, including celebrity tennis player Novak Djokovic who was deported from Australia due to not being vaccinated.[vi]

    In other medical developments, we also saw the first successful heart transplant from a pig to a human. The operation was carried out in the US. [vii] This represents a huge step forward in dealing with the shortage of available organs for transplantation. 

    February

    The winter Olympics were held in Beijing, China. The International Olympics Committee have found it harder to get countries to host both the summer and winter Olympic Games. Holding these events in authoritarian countries posed hard questions for sponsors and legal sanction including the Beijing Winter Olympics Sponsor Accountability Act bill submitted to the US Congress.[viii]

    No sooner had the Winter Olympics finished than Russia started its invasion of Ukraine, and the west made a remarkably cohesive response in terms of sanctions, this would be followed with military aid throughout the year.[ix] By the end of February,[x] Russia had indicated a willingness to use its nuclear forces. This was a remarkable turnaround from just seven weeks after Russia, as part of the United Natios Security Council affirmed that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.’[xi]

    March

    The global death toll due to COVID passes 6 million worldwide.[xii] In a potential resurgence of corporate Japan, Honda and Sony are partnering in creating sophisticated electric vehicles.[xiii] Equality may have taken a major step forward in the US, with young women in 22 major cities have a higher average salary than their male peers.[xiv] Part of this might be down to a decline in male participation in higher education and economic activity.[xv]

    April 

    Global food prices rise to their highest ever price according to the UN’s Food Price Index, which began in 1990. This adds to supply chain related inflation due to COVID and energy price rises.[xvi] [xvii]

    May 

    There was an outbreak of monkeypox first recorded in the UK[xviii], which sparked concern about a possible new global pandemic.[xix] A mix of demand for electric vehicles and continued supply chain problems meant that Volkswagen had sold out of electric vehicles.[xx]

    June 

    Amazon finally closes its Kindle e-book store in China. [xxi] Low economic growth combined with supply side inflation due to disrupted supply chains and the war in Ukraine causes concern about the short term and long term future of the UK economy.[xxii] Meanwhile perceptions of China across Europe reach a new nadir.[xxiii]

    July 

    Heatwaves pummelled Europe, killing 53,000 people through July and August.[xxiv]

    August

    September

    The UK was hit by a double whammy. Queen Elizabeth II died.[xxv] The queen had been a constant in the life of most Britons as the country had moved through imperial decline. Her death was notable for the sustained wall-to-wall media onslaught. Secondly, the 50-day career of prime minister Liz Truss shook up the UK economy due to her proposed government policies. [xxvi]

    October

    Footage is released that shows construction of linear city The Line is already well under way.[xxvii]

    November

    The FIFA World Cup was held in Qatar and managed to survive controversy which also engulfed sponsorships. FIFA managed to dodge many of the brickbats slug at the IOC. But both events raise questions for western brand sponsorship strategies moving forward.[xxviii]

    December

    Will 2022 be seen as the start of the fusion age? In February, the JET (Joint European Torus) facility in Oxford managed to produce more energy than had been created in a controlled fusion reaction. At 59 megajoules over 5 seconds, it was twice as large as the previous record set 25 years earlier.[xxix] But the ‘Wright Brothers’ moment for nuclear fusion may have occurred in December. The US government managed to achieve nuclear fusion with net energy gain.[xxx]

    2022 in review for this blog

    Site basics

    No review of 2022 would be complete without looking at you, the readership of this blog

    Audience 

    The internet has become a global phenomenon, but my audience numbers read like they could from the late 1990s. My readership is predominantly from the US, which surprised me a bit. 

    Top five countries that my audience comes from

    %Country
    33.2United States of America
    9.53Indonesia – this surprised me 
    7.41United Kingdom 
    3.95Japan 
    2.72Germany

    Most trafficked blog posts

    RankTitle
    1Metaverse discussion paper – or why the ‘open’ metaverse won’t be happening anytime soon. Web 3.0 doesn’t solve any of its problems and neither do 5G wireless networks. 
    2The Line – Saudi plans to build a high rise, high density linear city. 
    3Hino Trucks – one of my regular round-up posts, but it led with a celebration of the Hino Truck brand and how it took Irish roads by storm during my childhood
    4AI and Creativity – the results of an exploration and me and a colleague did into Midjourney and the likely impact it would have on creative agencies. 
    5The Gay Blood Collection – a project by Mother London to highlight and protest against a long-standing regulation that keeps gay blood donations restricted in comparison to other members of the population 
    6Moviedrome – probably one of my largest long form posts ever (excluding the Metaverse discussion paper) looking at the impact of a long running weekly film screening on BBC curated and presented by film director Alex Cox
    7The World of Visuals – was a trend presentation that provided Adobe’s perspective on areas like artificial intelliengence. 
    8StetWalk – a trend that has sprung up amongst book editors, where they talk a walk outside to clear their heads and be inspired by their surroundings. I was introduced to the concept by my friend Siobhan. 
    9Naked Power Politics – the invasion of Ukraine was a transgression of several norms and seems to be part of a movement to a more ugly world. 
    10Bong Bong Marcos – the scion to the Marcos political dynasty became a president in the mould of former president Duterte. 

    [i] Mullen, A. (1 January 2022) What is the RCEP, the world’s largest free trade that is under way? Hong Kong: South China Morning Post

    [ii] Auyezov, O. (5 January 2022) Kazakh president fails to quell protests, ex-Soviet states offer to help. United Kingdom: Reuters

    [iii] (7 January 2022) Global Coronavirus Cases Top 300 Million. United States: The New York Times.

    [iv] Liu, Q., Leng, C., Yu, S., McMorrow, R. (25 December 2022) China estimates 250m people have caught Covid in 20 days. United Kingdom: Financial Times

    [v] (28 January 2022) The world surpasses 10 billion vaccine doses administered, but gaps persist in how gets the shots. United States: The New York Times

    [vi] (16 January 2022) Novak Djokovic: Tennis star deported after losing Australia visa battle. United Kingdom: BBC News

    [vii] (10 January 2022) The University of Maryland School of Medicine Faculty Scientists and Clinicians Perform Historic Transplant of Porcine Heart into Adult Human with End-State Heart Disease. United States: University of Maryland Medical Center

    [viii] Waltz, M. (28 May 2021) H.R. 3645. United States: US Congress 

    [ix] (26 February 2022) Joint Statement on further restrictive economic measures. European Union: European Commission

    [x] (28 February 2022) Ukraine invasion: Putin puts Russia’s nuclear forces on ‘special alert’. United Kingdom: BBC News

    [xi] Ostroukh,A.  (4 January 2022) ‘No one can win a nuclear war’: Superpowers release rare joint statement”. Australia: The Sydney Morning Herald.

    [xii] McPhillips, D. (6 March 2022) Global Covid-19 deaths surpass 6 million. United States: CNN

    [xiii] Lewis, L., Slodkowski, A., Sugiura, E. (4 March 2022) Sony and Honda plan electric vehicle tie-up to take on Tesla. United Kingdom: Financial Times

    [xiv] Gregg, A. Bogage, J. (28 March 2022) Younger women now earn at least as much as or more than men in 22 metro areas. United States: The Washington Post

    [xv] Thompson, D. (14 September 2021) Colleges Have a Guy Problem. United States: The Atlantic

    [xvi] Ahmed, K. (8 April 2022) Global food prices rise to highest ever levels after Russian invasion. United Kingdom: The Guardian

    [xvii] Boffey, D. Oltermann, P., Davies, R. (27 April 2022) Russia accused of blackmail after gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria halted. United Kingdom: The Guardian

    [xviii] (16 May 2022) Monkeypox – United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Switzerland: World Health Organisation

    [xix] Fischer, R.S.B. (10 August 2022) The Monkeypox Epidemic Is Unusual: Here’s How I Know. United States: Medscape

    [xx] Miller, J. Vladkov, A. (4 May 2022) VW sells out of electric cars in Europe and US. United Kingdom: Financial Times

    [xxi] Olcott, E. (2 June 2022) Amazon to close China Kindle Store after losing out to domestic rivals. United Kingdom: Financial Times

    [xxii] Wolf, M. (26 June 2022) Grim times lie ahead for UK as inflation combines with low growth. United Kingdom: Financial Times

    [xxiii] Silver, L., Huang, C., Clancy, L. (29 June 2022) Negative Views of China Tied to Critical Views of Its Policies on Human Rights. United States: Pew Research Center

    [xxiv] Reuters staff (16 September 2022) EU saw 53,000 excess deaths in July amid record heatwave: report. Canada: Global NEWS

    [xxv] (8 September 2022) Queen Elizabeth II has died. United Kingdom: BBC

    [xxvi] (23 October 2022) Sunak warns of economic challenge as he prepares to become PM. United Kingdom: BBC News

    [xxvii] Ravenscroft, T. (19 October 2022) Drone footage reveals The Line megacity under construction in Saudi Arabia. United Kingdom: Dezeen

    [xxviii] (17 November 2022) In defence of Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup. United Kingdom: The Economist

    [xxix] Amos, J. (9 February 2022) Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy. United Kingdom: BBC News

    [xxx] Wilson, T. (11 December 2022) Fusion energy breakthrough by US scientist boosts clean power hopes. United Kingdom: Financial Times

  • KanDenko + more stuff

    KanDenko

    KanDenko is a Japanese construction company that specialises in infrastructure. This advert communicates effectively what they do in a creative manner. KanDenko must have spent a good deal of money to have this film produced. But it is well worth it.

    Vintage Singapore

    Footage of Singapore‘s North Boat Quay circa 1983. This area has now been redeveloped with the shop houses refurbished and now holding cafés, restaurants and bars. What this video shows is traditional Chinese life that would have been similar to the mainland prior to Mao’s ‘new China’ which culminated in the cultural revolution.

    Thankfully overseas Chinese and Taiwan had preserved the culture and beliefs.

    Stussy x Nike

    Nike and Stüssy have collaborated on bringing an old Nike model back to life.

    New Order’s Blue Monday on 1930s instruments

    The BBC made a video of Orchestra Obsolete using early electronic instruments (including a Thermin) alongside traditional instruments to reproduce New Order’s Blue Monday

    Distorted Kowloon City

    When I first saw this footage of Distorted Kowloon City, I was reminded of the locative art discussed in William Gibson’s novel Spook Country. I read this shortly after being switched on to where 2.0 services while working at Yahoo! on search and Flickr offerings. Yahoo! bought Whereonearth, to better understand what ‘local’ meant with its InternetLocality product set. At the time Whereonearth worked with Three on local mobile services and was a data provider to the likes of insurance companies and credit reference agencies. Yahoo! engineers like Dan Catt and Paul Hammond worked on projects like ZoneTag and including location data in the EXIF metadata of photography; something we just accept as normal on smartphones now.

    Distorted Kowloon City is a piece of immersive digital abstract art. Or according to The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC)

    Kowloon City is full of collective memories of Hong Kong people. Spanning the old town with restaurants and specialty shops, Checkered Hill (also known as Radar Hill), tree-lined parks, the historical remains of the Kowloon Walled City and the former Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon City is as diverse as Hong Kong.

    To re-interpret how we perceive, how we feel and how we see Kowloon City, moon.moon weaved the sensory data elements of the real world into an 360-degree audio-visual experience with the aid of original music and technologies (e.g. Point Cloud Processing and drone photography), allowing the public to re-discover Kowloon City from abstract art perspective.

    Design Inspire | HKTDC

    From this explanation, its a mix of history, Hong Kong culture and geography blended into the art work.

    The work was done by local digital artist Moon Hung.

    Fractured markets

    The effect of low interest rates in the aftermath of 2008 on financial investors was to encourage increased risk taking and one of the first casualties of interest rate increases were UK pensions under management. The FT goes into more depth in a video documentary.

  • AT and T True Experience + more things

    AT and T True Experience

    AT and T True Experience sprang out of the the mid-1990s. At that time AT&T was thinking about how they could own the customer as the internet superhighway became a reality.

    David Hoffman

    David Hoffman worked on promotional videos for AT&T at the time including a video showing a service based on General Magic internet appliances for business, personal use and telecommuting.

    AT and T True Experience outlined in this video looked to be:

    • Customers relationship with the nascent web would be mediated through AT&T
    • AT&T also wanted to build an e-commerce shopping mall similar to what AOL later set up

    AT and T True Experience went on to join similar services like Apple’s eWorld, CompuServe and AOL in irelevance as the first generation walled gardens fell away.

    Business

    Marvell Industry Analyst Day – by Doug O’Laughlin 

    How World’s Top Shipping Company Became Hub for Drug Trafficking – Bloomberg – this seems crazy

    The tech ‘nepo babies’ are coming | Financial Times – SEC research found that seven or more years after listing, companies with perpetual dual-class shares underperformed. Still, founders continue to push for them

    How World’s Top Shipping Company Became Hub for Drug Trafficking – Bloomberg 

    China

    China’s Dangerous Decline | Foreign Affairs 

    Refreshing our approach? Updating the Integrated Review – Foreign Affairs Committee – China ‘a significant threat to the UK on many different levels’ and dependency should be curbed, MPs warn. While supporting a potentially risky shift in using stronger language towards the economic and military giant, the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) argues it must be backed up by action rather than “empty rhetoric”.

    COMAC’s challenge to Airbus and Boeing and the perils of forced technology transfer.

    Energy

    500kV Black Sea submarine cable to connect Georgia to the EU | EE Times 

    Health

    What are the ethics of AI reading animal X-rays? – Futurity 

    Weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy gain popularity, effectiveness – The Washington Post

    Global forecast: Pharma and healthcare brands shift their ad strategies | Advertising | Campaign Asia  

    Media

    Wall Street Journal on how financial companies are now buying up YouTuber back catalogue content in the same way that they have previously bought up music back catalogues

    Online

    Disinformation research – Disinformation Counter | Hijacking & Weaponizing the Narrative: Disinformation Amid Rising Repression in East Asia by Tess Bacalla 

    The internet wants to be fragmented – by Noah Smith – this isn’t a new idea Forrester Research branded it the Splinternet and did a whole report on it back in 2010.

    Security

    China/US blacklist: chip designer Cambricon becomes tech war casualty | Financial Times 

    Technology

    Siemens ports Sokol Linux to RISC-V | EE Times – I think that there is a long slow pivot away from ARM processors