Ged Carroll

Category: design | 設計 | 예술과 디자인 | デザイン

Design was something that was important to me from the start of this blog, over different incarnations of the blog, I featured interesting design related news. Design is defined as a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, interfaces or other object before it is made.

But none of the definition really talks about what design really is in the way that Dieter Rams principles of good design do. His principles are:

  1. It is innovative
  2. It makes a product useful
  3. It is aesthetic
  4. It makes a product understandable
  5. It is unobtrusive
  6. It is honest
  7. It is long-lasting
  8. It is thorough down to the last detail
  9. It is environmentally-friendly – it can and must maintain its contribution towards protecting and sustaining the environment.
  10. It is as little design as possible

Bitcoin isn’t long lasting as a network, which is why people found the need to fork the blockchain and build other cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin uses 91 terawatts of energy annually or about the entire energy consumption of Finland.

The Bitcoin network relies on thousands of miners running energy intensive machines 24/7 to verify and add transactions to the blockchain. This system is known as “proof-of-work.” Bitcoin’s energy usage depends on how many miners are operating on its network at any given time. – So Bitcoin is environmentally unfriendly by design.

On the other hand, Apple products, which are often claimed to be also influenced by Dieter Rams also fail his principles. They aren’t necessarily environmentally friendly as some like AirPods are impossible to repair or recycle.

  • Apple Daily & other things this week

    Apple Daily

    Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily closed down. It closed under government pressure. If we’re honest about it, it had been under government pressure for years. Advertisers were reluctant to be in the paper for years, partly due to government sentiment. Despite being Hong Kong’s most popular paper, it was running on loans that Jimmy Lai gave it.

    Apple Daily
    Final print edition of the Apple Daily published in Hong Kong

    It’s end came with a series of cuts. Jimmy Lai has had his assets frozen as part of the national security law related investigation. The Hong Kong government extended these charges to further senior employees of the Apple Daily. Then the Hong Kong government froze the bank accounts of Apple Daily and the related companies.

    The business had 67 million US dollars; so could have kept going for another 18 months until that freeze kicked in. As it was, the last paper would have come out on Saturday. On Wednesday the lead writer was arrested and the board decided to publish its last paper on Thursday. They printed 1,000,000 copies of the final edition which sold out. On previous days they had printed 500,000 to mark the asset freeze as Hong Kongers came out to support them. Back in the late 90s the paper was around 300,000 copies a day. The typical print run was 150,000 copies a day. The paper had about 500,000 paid subscribers. I was one of them. Yes their English copy was almost sub-Guardian standard (but with less typos of course). But their English language news has stories about Hong Kong business and China that other English language outlets didn’t cover.

    The security secretary John Lee warned people not to associate with Apple Daily employees, creating a white terror style scenario.

    A lot of the commentary from people who should know better has been about the Apple Daily‘s tabloid nature. Apple Daily was Hong Kong’s most popular paper for a number of reasons

    But they conveniently ignore Apple Daily‘s pioneering work in internet video journalism. Its investigative journalism and an editorial stance that called government to account. Stories last year included expat police officers breaking planning and property laws. But the Communist Party of China doesn’t want to be examined, let alone held to account.

    Hong Kong writer Sum Lok kei summed it up really well with this post that he put on Twitter

    Yes, ppl are aware of Apple Daily’s failings, their paparazzi arm and all. What is being mourned isn’t exactly the paper, but the possibility of its existence in this city that had prided itself for its witty discretions – now replaced by a monotonic, absolute drone.

    Via @sumlokkei on Twitter

    The Hong Kong government has been very opaque about the kind of journalism that is allowed. It is arbitrary and designed to promote severe self censorship.

    Apple Daily the night after it closed down
    images of the now closed Apple Daily fence with tributes from Hong Kongers via Guardians of Hong Kong Telegram channel
    Apple Daily the night after it closed down
    Apple Daily the night after it closed down

    It all hinges around the national security law:

    • Seccession includes acts ‘whether or not by force or threat of force’
    • Subversion or colluding with foreign countries are vague. So Apple Daily were accused with colluding with foreign countries without being in touch with them
    • The law isn’t supposed to be retroactive, yet Apple Daily content from before the July cut-off date is included in its alleged violations
    • China’s definitions of state interests are expansive
    • It is extra-territorial in nature. So this post that I have written could fall foul of inciting hatred of the Hong Kong and Chinese government. Despite the fact that this post is written and hosted outside Hong Kong. If I get shanghai-ed whilst transferring through an Asian airport you know what has likely happened

    But its just the media isn’t it? No.

    • if you’re a strategist in an advertising agency writing about consumer attitudes and touch on areas like what Hong Kong localism means for brands. This would affect how brands position themselves, I wrote similar positions for brands on Brexit supporters versus remain supporters. (Brexit supporters preferred local brands with nostalgia compared to remainers.) Or changes in attitudes to home ownership and buying homewares due to immigration. The kind of things that the government won’t like then you could be doing eight years to life in jail
    • If you write critical piece of analysis on bonds, Chinese or Hong Kong ‘well connected companies’ or forward-looking views on government policies. You could be doing eight years to life in jail
    • If you create a legal opinion on any of the above for a client. You could do eight years to life in jail
    • If you did a frank audit of a well connected company as part of the audit team of an accountancy firm. You could do eight years to life in jail
    • You do legitimate academic research in an area that the Chinese or Hong Kong governments and their hangers on don’t like. You could do eight years to life in jail

    All of this sounds like a bit of an exaggeration?

    While the world was looking on at trials of Apple Daily, major retailer Watsons withdrew special edition water bottles. The water bottles were designed with the slogan #Hong Kong is very beautiful. Presumably, they had originally been created to tap into Hong Kongers love of limited edition things celebrating their city and their love of hiking in oppressively hot weather.

    They were withdrawn due to perceived seccessionist overtones. Hong Kong is actually achingly beautiful with its futuristic skylines and natural environment. By comparison lot of the Chinese mainland is butt ugly like Hubei province or Beijing in winter.

    Bao Choy, a freelance producer who worked at RTHK was fined for ‘improper car plate searches’ carried out investigating Pro-Beijing forces inspired Triad violence at Yuen Long.

    A reporter at pro-Beijing paper Ta Kung Pao who accessed the same database, but was bound over instead.

    The Department of Justice said it agreed with the order, as Wong had a clean record and was working for the pro-Beijing newspaper when he made the licence plate searches.

    Ta Kung Pao reporter off the hook over car searches – RTHK.hk English news (June 17, 2021)

    Hong Kong brought in new film censorship rules banning documentaries on the protests and anything the government doesn’t like.

    The Hong Kong government is expanding its reach into accountancy diminishing the role of Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

    This would give Hong Kong increased insights into NGOs and political parties. Professional bodies in accountancy and law have been seen as a roadblock by the Chinese and Hong Kong governments. The movement against accountancy bodies is mirrored by moves against the legal profession. The latest move to make solicitors senior counsel turns the legal profession upside down.

    You are now restricted in accessing company registry data, making ownership structures opaque. This will provide boundless opportunity for corruption and fraud and Hong Kong becomes as opaque as mainland China.

    And in a news report from Hong Kong’s public service broadcaster RTHK:

    “If it’s a police state, why not? I don’t think there’s any problem with a police state. When we say a police state, I will view the other side, that is the emphasis on security,” 

    Pro-Beijing politician Alice Mak who is a affiliated with the Federation of Trade Unions quoted in Nothing wrong with HK being a police state: lawmaker – RTHK English news service.

    GPS for your feet

    Honda has been putting in thinking into pedestrian navigation that provides haptic direction instructions through your feet.

    More information from SoraNews24.

    Pride inspiration

    June is pride month and one of the best adverts that I have seen is by Pinterest. It has members of the LGBTQI community from around the world talking about sexuality and how they learned about themselves.

  • Hydrogen & more stuff

    Max Fujita, head of European hydrogen fuel cells at Panasonic, discusses the importance of hydrogen technology. Hydrogen is the most widespread chemical element in the universe and could play a significant role in achieving zero net emission and other goals such as wind and geothermal power. Hydrogen is important for more environmentally friendly steel mills and foundries. It even offers a solution for the range anxiety caused by lithium ion battery cars.

    The Asia Society have a video on the story behind the Japan traditional craft revitalisation competition. If you read Monocle you will be well aware of Japan’s strength in traditional crafts, often within centuries old businesses. More Japan related content here.

    Interesting observations on culture and remote working. Interesting where they are talking about a culture crisis. For the past five years before the pandemic I saw company cultures changed as noise cancelling headphones went on and desks turned into long benches. This ironically damaged company culture. The pandemic shook up office space again, with the home office. I was quite fortunate as I had pretty much everything I needed after freelancing. But I did a lot of Zoom calls with people punched on the end of their bed. The range of views in this series of interviews shows that there will be wide mix of responses.

    Finally as a curry cup noodle fan, this next story appealed to me. Nissin (who make the iconic Cup Noodle) has a new strategy in the sustainability game by eliminating the “lid closing seal,” a thin strip of sellotape type material that holds your noodle cup closed while the ramen is cooking in boiling water. This very small change will save an estimated 33 tons of plastic waste per year produced by Nissin. Instead the lid will be held shut by two ‘ears’ on the lid film.

  • PostScript + more things

    PostScript

    Adobe is dropping PostScript Type 1 font support. Be prepared for the change – huge move, given the amount of time that PostScript had been at the centre of design and print. There must be brands out there still using Type 1 fonts for standard print design work that haven’t changed style in 30 years beyond a logo tweak. Without PostScript fonts you couldn’t have had the laser printer or modern design software tools

    Business

    Amazon Exploding Hoverboard Case Could Forever Change Company – Bloomberg – Last month, a California appeals court ruled that Amazon can be held liable, even though the seller stored and shipped the device itself. The decision sent shockwaves through the e-commerce world. Though it will probably be appealed again, the ruling raises the possibility that Amazon might have to exert more control over the activity on its own website. “Courts are rejecting the internet exceptionalism idea when it comes to a company like Amazon,” Agnieszka McPeak, a Gonzaga University professor, told Bloomberg Law. – It could also have implications for companies like Shopify

    Sennheiser to spin out its consumer audio business | EE News Europe – AKG got sold off by the family, Sennheiser is selling off its iconic headphone business. This leaves only Beyerdynamic – Sennheiser sells auido business to hearing aid maker | EE Times Europe 

    South Korea’s Kakao to buy two U.S. storytelling apps for $950 million | Reuters

    Why SoftBank’s THG deal has more questions than answers | Financial Times – What exactly the Ingenuity business does is something of a riddle: chief executive Matthew Moulding described it as a “social media influencer platform” but it also handles the prosaic business of logistics and translations for third parties launching in new markets – I don’t get The Hut Group (THG), maybe they’re bad about telling their story?

    Luxury

    Why Victoria’s Secret Body Positivity Spin Won’t Work in China | Jing Daily – Victoria’s Secret’s has a long history of glamorous supermodel perfection, therefore this choice is seen as inauthentic for the Chinese consumer and has left many citizens bewildered. Global brands need a localized approach in China, but one that resonates convincingly with the company – on Victoria’s Secret trying be more inclusive and body positive

    Technology

    EVs Will Drive A Lithium Supply Crunch – IEEE Spectrum – not new news, but interesting that it is being highlighted by electrical engineers now just as many electric cars are coming to market. More lithium related content here

    Web of no web

    Northrop Breaks Into DARPA’s Blackjack « Breaking Defense – Defense industry news, analysis and commentary – software-defined Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) technology will offer military users an agile new signal from low Earth orbit (LEO) that is not dependent on existing satellite navigation systems – it could be interesting to see what new services can be built on this eventually

  • OrCam + more things

    OrCam

    OrCam Read – Transform the Way You Read – YouTube – I watched this video and wondered if this was a sign of failure in the education sector in terms of literacy. As far as I can tell, OrCam is a dedicated OCR appliance that reads back the text to you. In essence it is playing the same role as a scribe to a medieval lord. I suspect that OrCam is a product looking for a market and this is a skewed pitch

    Business

    Chinese investment in UK assets estimated to be £135bn : CityAM 

    Another One Bites The Dust: Why Verizon’s Divestiture Of AOL And Yahoo Is No Surprise | Forrester – Verizon’s sale represents a giant write down. I remember the uproar when Tumblr got wrote down from $1Bn to zero. This is a greater write down in absolute value.

    Consumer behaviour

    Are some personalities just better? – All-blues might really be happier and healthier. If so, it could a result of late modernity, or it might have always been true. Still, that doesn’t mean that evolution will favor all-blues, or that all-blues are “more successful”

    Economics

    The Failed Promise of Malaysia’s New Economic Policy – Asia Sentinel – Malaysia’s 49 year affirmative action programme for the Malay majority failed and helped precipitate a brain drain of Malaysian Chinese overseas (paywall)

    Ideas

    How the U.S. Government Can Learn to See the Future – Lawfare – Research over the past decade funded by the U.S. government demonstrates that “keeping score” by quantifying the probability that a potential event will or will not happen leads to improved forecasting accuracy. This is especially true when that scorekeeping is paired with training to reduce cognitive biases, as well as tools that combine the forecasts of many people together, harnessing the “wisdom of crowds.” These methods are not just for carnival games and stock trading. They can provide clearer insight on national security questions – it looks like prediction markets might be getting their time in the sun again

    Security

    Sweden drops Russian hacking investigation due to legal complications | The Record by Recorded Future – Swedish government dropped today its investigation into the 2017 hack of its sports authority, citing the legal constraints that would have prevented prosecutors from charging the Russian hackers responsible for the intrusion, which officials claimed were mere pawns operating on behalf of a “foreign power.”

    China-linked hackers used VPN flaw to target U.S. defense industry -researchers | Reuters

    Chinese military unit accused of cyber-espionage bought multiple western antivirus products | The Record by Recorded Future 

    Apple brass discussed disclosing 128-million iPhone hack, then decided not to

    Wireless

    Opinion | Steve Jobs Never Wanted Us to Use Our iPhones Like This – The New York Times

  • Porsche 911 GT3 & things that made last week

    Porsche 911 GT3

    Yes the Porsche 911 GT3 is a car faster than most people can drive. Yes they all look very similar unless you are a truly devoted petrol head. But I was struck by this review of the Porsche 911 GT3 by Chris Harris.  In the early part of his review, he ran the car in to put 1,000 miles on the engine. During that time he focused on the simple joy of driving, which gave me a real hankering to get behind the wheel of a car again. What really struck me was the comments Harris makes about that primally magic time for driving as the light goes down in the evening or the sun comes up in a morning.

    Some of my most visceral early memories are of being in the back seat of the family car (unencumbered by a back seat seat belt) during this time. The magic of the early dawn light on winter clouds and wisps of smoke from rural houses as we drove back to the family farmstead in Ireland. Harris’ Porsche 911 GT3 review brought it all rushing back to me.

    Media ideas

    Thought provoking interview on the future of media, ‘lazy-endism’, balancing hyper-personalisation with wider insight and empathy, and the power of context in media. You won’t necessarily agree with all of it, but it took my thoughts on marketing to interesting places for exploration. Jerry Daykin heads up media for GSK’s consumer business across EMEA.

    C-suite’s diminishing appreciation of brand

    The Financial Times and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising put together research on the c-suite’s lack of appreciation of marketing. The decline has been taking place over decades.

    China’s telecommunications ambitions

    Interesting roundtable on information technology and communications which provides great power advantage. Interesting perspective around standards and technology advantages looking at past case studies. China explicitly talks about its desire to project power through the ICT industry basic inputs, supply chain, standards and applications. It looks to build leverage internationally and independence domestically. They want to lock-in their power. It isn’t just about spying but international coercive control.

    Hands free airline toilet door

    ANA the Japanese airline have rolled out a kit that turns airplane toilet doors into hands free operation. It’s a brilliant piece of design. The work was done by JAMCO – a Japanese company that specialises in the design and manufacture of aircraft interiors.