Ged Carroll

Category: technology | 技術 | 기술 | テクノロジー

It’s hard to explain to someone who didn’t live through it how transformation technology has been. When I was a child a computer was something mysterious. My Dad has managed to work his way up from the shop floor of the shipyard where he worked and into the planning office.

One evening he broad home some computer paper. I was fascinated by the the way the paper hinged on perforations and had tear off side edges that allowed it to be pulled through the printer with plastic sprockets connecting through holes in the paper.

My Dad used to compile and print off work orders using an ICL mainframe computer that was timeshared by all the shipyards that were part of British Shipbuilders.

I used the paper for years for notes and my childhood drawings. It didn’t make me a computer whiz. I never had a computer when I was at school. My school didn’t have a computer lab. I got to use Windows machines a few times in a regional computer labs. I still use what I learned in Excel spreadsheets now.

My experience with computers started with work and eventually bought my own secondhand Mac. Cut and paste completely changed the way I wrote. I got to use internal email working for Corning and internet connectivity when I went to university. One of my friends had a CompuServe account and I was there when he first met his Mexican wife on an online chatroom, years before Tinder.

Leaving college I set up a Yahoo! email address. I only needed to check my email address once a week, which was fortunate as internet access was expensive. I used to go to Liverpool’s cyber cafe with a friend every Saturday and showed him how to use the internet. I would bring any messages that I needed to send pre-written on a floppy disk that also held my CV.

That is a world away from the technology we enjoy now, where we are enveloped by smartphones and constant connectivity. In some ways the rate of change feels as if it has slowed down compared to the last few decades.

  • Audi Skysphere & other things

    Audi Skysphere

    Audi launched its latest concept car the Audi Skysphere. It’s electrically powered as you’d expect. Massive screens for displays and sustainable materials used in the interior. It has autonomous driving when its in a ‘grand touring’ mode. It allows for the owner to drive in a ‘sports car’ mode. All pretty normal stuff so far.

    But sports car mode means that the vehicle length shrinks. That’s right the Audi Skysphere changes shape rather than just changing functions up via electronics.

    In terms of styling, Audi calls calls jazz age Horsh tourers the influence for the Audi Skysphere. Audi is descended from Auto Union AG. Auto Union AG was formed in 1932, with the merger of Horch, DKW, Wanderer and the original Audi Automobilwerke. That’s why the Audi logo has four circles and why Horsh is the influence.

    Its long, wide and low bonnet brings to mind the Dodge Viper. The sides reminded me of Ford’s ‘Edge’ design language, if it was done by Zaha Hadid Architects. Lots of the details such as the lights use a mass of small triangles, reminding me of Hadid’s Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion. It also serves a reminder that computerised shapes are usually made up of lots of small polygons. Triangles must be a thing in car design at the moment, not only does the Audi Skysphere feature them, but so does the new Hyundai Santa Cruz throughout its design.

    Audi talks about the Audi Skysphere in terms of progressive luxury, which seems to be about experience and not making a huge environmental impact. They talk about vegan leather (that could be anything from fungi derived proteins to a PVC style plastic) and microfibre (finely spun and woven (usually) polyester / nylon fibre mix).

    The problems are likely to be in the system that the car would go into.

    • How is insurance handled for an autonomous vehicle?
    • Who is the insured party? Vehicle manufacturers would like for it to be the owner who might be responsible for any autonomous vehicle decisions. Putting software product liability out of their hands and on the buyer.
    • Who would be the defendant in the case of someone being run over?
    • How would vehicle inspection tests like Germany’s TUV or the UK’s MOT handle a collapsable chassis?

    I am a bit disappointed to see that Audi isn’t thinking seriously about a post Lithium world sodium ion batteries or hydrogen powered vehicles

    Los Angeles Olympics 1984

    The Los Angeles Olympics was the last olympic event that made a profit. This was down to the city being able to use existing venues for all the competitions and a less onerous demand on resources than games ran since then.

    Los Angeles didn’t have the reputation for design that Munich or the 1964 games in Tokyo had. So this video by the Olympics gave me new insight into the experience. I remembered the logo and the mascot, but since I watched only a small amount of the LA Games. This was because I was working on the family farm at the time. The bits that I did see were on an old black and white TV, so I missed a lot of the design details shared.

    Home-made silicon foundry

    I’d not heard of Sam Zeloof before. Over the past few years he has managed to fabricate integrated circuits ‘chips’ in his own home. Admittedly when we say home, we are talking about a big American multi-car garage. The results is impressive. One obvious thing to point out is that he is not putting in dust suppression techniques like you would see in a commercial fab.

    Solid Logic Technology

    IBM came up with an interesting ceramic hybrid technology that powered the Apollo missions and IBM’s System 360 computers. They were engineered for a robustness that even silicon micro-processors couldn’t match.

  • Photo hashing & other news

    Apple photo hashing

    Report: Apple to announce client-side photo hashing system to detect child abuse images in user’s photos libraries – 9to5Mac – photo hashing its not foolproof. Once the proof of concept exists, Apple won’t be able to withstand the pressure authoritarian government could use it to track other materials. Tencent’s WeChat is already collecting memes that the Chinese government wouldn’t like from foreign WeChat accounts so that it can train its algorithms to locate similar content with domestic users. The risk for Apple’s customers in other markets like Russia, China and the middle east is real. Apple’s development of photo hashing has garnered a lot of coverage

    Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery | Financial Times 

    Apple led the market on encryption, but other players like WhatsApp have made it clear that they won’t follow Apple on photo hashing.

    Apple has been trying to ignore the voices complaining against its photo hashing initiative. The problem is that those voices are the early adopters and developers who have made Apple what it is today. I think that this could end very badly for Apple in the long term. Particularly when viewed in context of questionable ethical choices despite its progressive positioning on issues in western markets

    Apple Discusses “Screeching Voices of the Minority” in Internal Memos – It’s difficult to even write a piece like this, pointing out that a feature ostensibly created for good could have bad implications. Again: What happens when a country like China uses this feature to find people with images critical of the government? Why wouldn’t the industry want to start searching for pirated content on iPhones in a few years?

    Apple Privacy Letter: An Open Letter Against Apple’s Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology – a legion of the great and the good of the technorati from around the world on the photo hashing

    One Bad Apple – The Hacker Factor Blog 

    Even the FT weighed in.

    Business

    The China risk factor continues to reverberate: China’s Corporate Crackdown Is Just Getting Started. Signs Point to More Tumult Ahead. – WSJ

    Chinese music group pulls $1bn Hong Kong IPO after tech crackdown | Financial Times – interesting move, especially given Netease’s exposure to the edutech sector

    ‘If Masa said yes, who am I to object?’: SoftBank deals unleash internal compliance tensions | Financial Times – sounds like desperate measures

    China

    Is Pax Sinica possible? – China will need to start upholding democratic values and norms, and cultivating peaceful relationships with other countries. Pax Americana has survived for so long, because many countries, including China’s neighbours, rely heavily on the US for trade, finance, technology, and security. They will be reluctant to accept Pax Sinica, unless China offers them something better. And that must begin with pax – I suspect that Premier Xi would be thinking more along the lines of mercantilistic trade relationships and vassal statehood, which would be more in keeping with pre-revolutionary China

    Consumer behaviour

    Everybody needs to get vaccinated, says Tilman Fertitta – Fertitta’s comments about employees admitting that they had fake vaccines cards is pretty disturbing. It isn’t like vaccines are in short supply in the markets that has restaurants in like New York. The counterfeit vaccine cards must be more about avoiding vaccines all together

    Historical language records reveal a surge of cognitive distortions in recent decades | PNAS – Individuals with depression are prone to maladaptive patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions, whereby they think about themselves, the world, and the future in overly negative and inaccurate ways. These distortions are associated with marked changes in an individual’s mood, behavior, and language. We hypothesize that societies can undergo similar changes in their collective psychology that are reflected in historical records of language use. Here, we investigate the prevalence of textual markers of cognitive distortions in over 14 million books for the past 125 y and observe a surge of their prevalence since the 1980s, to levels exceeding those of the Great Depression and both World Wars. This pattern does not seem to be driven by changes in word meaning, publishing and writing standards, or the Google Books sample. Our results suggest a recent societal shift toward language associated with cognitive distortions and internalizing disorders. – literally society is sick

    The xenophobic chicken and the propaganda egg: disentangling official and popular nationalism in China – by Kevin Carrico – NSL can’t cancel me – you could not make some of this up. But then, you also couldn’t make up the QAnon community if you tried either.

    ‘Sales funnels’ and high-value men: the rise of strategic dating | Dating | The Guardian – I suspect this is an edge case but its interesting

    Where have all the pre-teens gone? – The Face 

    Design

    ongoing by Tim Bray · Apps Getting Worse – Every high-tech company has people called “Product Managers” (PMs) whose job it is to work with customers and management and engineers to define what products should do. No PM in history has ever said “This seems to be working pretty well, let’s leave it the way it is.” Because that’s not bold. That’s not visionary. That doesn’t get you promoted. – This also explains why Skype got designed into irrelevancy

    FMCG

    Unilever installs a detergent refill machine in Mumbai | Trendwatching – this all feels like things have gone full circle. My Mum and Dad growing up as children in rural Ireland talked about how many dry goods products were sold by weight in the village store. My Granny used to keep spices and flavourings for baking in a bucket sized tin that she’d been gifted decades before by the village store owner. Used packaging was a community asset rather than a liability. The biscuits were sold by the dozen in a paper bag by the shopkeeper. I can just about remember the village store and its long time owner Mrs Paddy Kelly, (Mr Kelly had died decades ago but I have no idea what Mrs Kelly’s name was). By the time I was born, it was more like a modern convenience store, with a farm supplies store attached. Electricity had come to the farm when I was three or four, so we had a fridge and an icebox – ideal for a block of HB vanilla ice cream that came back from the shop wrapped in newsprint to try and keep it cold.

    Secondly, by having a vending machine in store; Unilever are still managing to keep control of their brand.

    Japan

    Japan’s fractured polity exposed by COVID-19 crisis – Nikkei Asia – Whatever the intention, the public sees hypocrisy, inconsistency and incompetence. The vaccination rollout has been a mess. The public was asked to practice “self-restraint” and stay at home for the fourth state of emergency as the country opened its doors to tens of thousands of athletes and officials for the 2020 Olympics. 

    This dismal state of affairs clashes with the image of competence and professionalism that Japan has enjoyed for decades, and for which it is admired around the world. 

    Japan looks good in international COVID comparisons, but by its own standards, the situation is perceived as chaotic and a failure of leadership. The public has lost faith. Cynicism has spread as people blame a sclerotic government that does not seem to understand the many recent transformations of Japanese society

    Legal

    South Africa grants patent to an AI system known as DABUS — Quartz Africa – The patent application listing DABUS as the inventor was filed in patent offices around the world, including the US, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. But only South Africa granted the patent (Australia followed suit a few days later after a court judgment gave the go-ahead). South Africa’s decision has received widespread backlash from intellectual property experts. Some have labelled it a mistake, or an oversight by the patent office. However, as a patent and AI scholar whose PhD aims to address the gaps in patent law created by AI inventorship, I suggest that the decision is supported by the government’s policy environment in recent years. This has aimed to increase innovation, and views technology as a way to achieve this – back when I worked for DSM before I went to college, a lot of of our patented products were developed using software that tested and then gave us optimal formulas – yet the patents went to the doctor who was the nominal head of the lab

    Luxury

    LVMH’s Deal With Google Is Groundbreaking. Here’s Why. – develop business solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI), it raised many questions about how brands are embracing the use of digital technologies to reshape the luxury experience. Google said they would join forces to empower LVMH’s individual luxury brands to create new, personalised customer experiences that fostered long-term growth, through functions like demand forecasting, inventory optimisation, as well as develop new business use cases at scale and explore co-innovation opportunities by launching a data and AI Academy in Paris

    Luxury Daily | Have China’s ‘trafific stars’ become toxic for beauty brands? – Chinese versions of K-pop stars are becoming embroiled in scandals that affect their brand partners

    Retailing

    Crocs, Ralph Lauren, LV All Get More Expensive As Apparel Prices Soar – Apparel prices across US retailers rose nearly 5% in June, the biggest leap in a decade.

    Software

    ongoing by Tim Bray · Apps Getting Worse – Every high-tech company has people called “Product Managers” (PMs) whose job it is to work with customers and management and engineers to define what products should do. No PM in history has ever said “This seems to be working pretty well, let’s leave it the way it is.” Because that’s not bold. That’s not visionary. That doesn’t get you promoted. – this explains why Skype got designed into irrelevancy

    Sports

    Why Puma cancelled a $2.7 million deal with Nigeria — Quartz Africa – Nigeria’s current sports administrators are delighted. The athletics federation said Nigeria’s sports minister had successfully stopped athletes from receiving Puma bags containing about 40 items each in Tokyo through the Nigerian embassy. To this set of administrators, the 2019 deal was not properly agreed between Puma and previous leaders of Nigeria’s athletics body

    Wireless

    General Dynamics Mission Systems Introduces Badger Software-Defined Radio – Soldier Systems Daily – interesting decline in size, but much slower than would be likely to happen in the commercial space

    Samsung flagships can no longer compete with the Chinese smartphones – The current flagship Galaxy S21 series has never managed to win worldwide love. Judging by the information from South Korean publications, the flagships, which were supposed to destroy competitors, failed miserably in sales. Based on the report of Counterpoint analysts, it can be concluded that the Galaxy S21 series has not been able to repeat the success of any of its predecessors, starting with the Galaxy S5 – this looks like PC sales when ‘white box manufacturers’ disrupted Winter brands such as IBM and Compaq

    Research Alliances Grow to Learn How 6G Will Play Out – EE Times Europe

    Thailand

    Jack “dekfarang” Brown is having a tantrum – by Andrew MacGregor Marshall – Secret Siam – foreign influencers enjoyed by Thais were a thing I didn’t even know about

  • ORAN problems & other news

    ORAN

    O-RAN in uncertain future – Although Europe’s four major telecom operators – Vodafone, Orange, Deutsche Telekom, and Telefonica – had signed memorandum of understanding on the implementation of Open RAN (ORAN) based networks in Europe in early 2021, Rakuten Mobile’s ongoing operating losses have put uncertainty to ORAN’s future. Rakuten Mobile is the only major telecom operator to adopt the ORAN architecture for its 5G network, but the financial results of the company for the first quarter of 2021 showed an expansion of 265% on year in its operating losses to JPY97.2 billion (US$880 million), the largest in the past five quarters. The company’s operating margin also reached negative 141.7%, down 77.4% on year. However, Rakuten Mobile’s revenues still grew JPY19.1 billion and 38.5% from a year ago to JPY68.6 billion for the first quarter of 2021. The figures show the company has continued to see its mobile business growing, but the high costs from its operation kept the company suffering losses. – so what are the hidden costs of ORAN? What is different about this ORAN situation conceptually to the use of white boxes in complex enterprise IT systems? Would this question have pointed towards the kind of problems that ORAN has been encountering?

    Banking

    US Graduates Are Snubbing Junior Banker Jobs Citing Work-Life Balance – I think that they will be replaced by candidates from China, India and other countries instead

    Consumer behaviour

    Men are much less likely to read books by women | Canvas8 – male readers are significantly less likely to opt for fiction books written by women. Of the top ten best-selling female authors, including Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, and Danielle Steel, only one of five readers are male, whereas for the top male authors, including Charles Dickens and JRR Tolkien, 45% of readers are women. Meanwhile, data on Goodreads shows that enjoyment levels are not impacted by sex – on Goodreads, men give an average rating of 3.9 out of 5 to books by women while they give books by men an average of 3.8 – Sieghart’s interpretation of the data misses a key assumption that many women authors write books that don’t appeal to the majority of male readers interests, where as she assumes that they are not accorded as much authority as male ones. Those that do enjoy the kind of content that these women authors write find as much enjoyment in it. Examples of authors that cross the gender popularity gap include Gillian Rubinstein (aka Lian Hearn), Ursula Le Guinn and JK Rowling. TL;DR – sometimes its the product doesn’t float their boat rather than sexism

    In case you didn’t notice, nationalism in China at the moment is a bit cray – by Kevin Carrico – NSL can’t cancel me – TL;DR some Chinese academics believe that the US could have used a ‘Ming the Merciless’ style weather weapon to cause floods in China. A good number of Chinese netizens find this credible. Nationalism and gaslighting is a dangerous combination

    Screen Use Strongly Linked to Failing Eyesight in Children – After over a year spent indoors staring at movies, TV, and video games, scientists say that near-sightedness and other vision problems are skyrocketing among children

    Economics

    The young ‘lie flat’ as China’s growth model begins to fray | Financial Times – the money quote in this article for me is “The bulk of China’s population is doing worse in net terms as housing affordability continues to worsen and access to education and health becomes ore and more costly” – sounds like a lot of western developed economies. The key question is what impact this unfairness might have on the relationship between the populous and the communist party of China

    Germany

    Handel mit China: Braucht Deutschland eine Wende? | Frankfurther Allgemeine Zeitung – there are more important things than doing good business in China. Germany’s foremost business paper editorial swipe at Angela Merkel and selected big German enterprises (Daimler Benz, Deutsche Bank, T Systems and Volkswagen Audi Group)- short of name checking them with IG Farben I couldn’t see what else FAZ could do

    Innovation

    China’s CATL unveils sodium-ion battery to diversify from lithium — Quartz – this was going to have to happen sooner rather than later due to the challenge of sourcing lithium. It will be interesting to see how recyclable these batteries are

    Japan

    China and South Korea car makers vying for SE Asia EV market – surprising that Japan isn’t in the mix given their factories in the region? For instance, Toyota has a major plant in China

    Saitama man repeatedly steals food from store by making his phone say “PayPay♫” | SoraNews24 -Japan News- – clever mix of social engineering and mobile payments in Japan

    Legal

    UK’s Draft Online Safety Bill Raises Serious Concerns Around Freedom of Expression | Electronic Frontier Foundation – which attempts to tackle illegal and otherwise harmful content online by placing a duty of care on online platforms to protect their users from such content. The move came as no surprise: over the past several years, UK government officials have expressed concerns that online services have not been doing enough to tackle illegal content, particularly child sexual abuse material (commonly known as CSAM) and unlawful terrorist and extremist content (TVEC), as well as content the government has deemed lawful but “harmful.”

    2022 Beijing Olympics: Sponsors Grilled on China Human Rights Abuses – Variety – AirBnB, Coca-Cola, Intel, Visa and Procter & Gamble are going to have a bumpy ride in their home market

    Two arrested over online calls for boycotts, threats against Hong Kong broadcaster TVB | Hong Kong Free Press HKFP – continuously and widely disseminated a large amount of messages through social media groups and pages, intending to smear the media organisation, and also to use threatening means to pressure different advertisers into stopping advertising with this media. [Their] goal is to cause reputational and financial damage,” said Superintendent Wilson Tam of the Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau. – sounds like what pro-Beijing politicians have done on several occasions. Angry emojis organised was seen to be criminal damage

    Marketing

    Internet backlash against Fila sportswear after Hong Kong badminton player seen drenched in sweat | Hong Kong Free Press HKFP – that has screwed Korean owned Fila brand in terms of clothing performance

    FundFemme – I think what the site is trying to do is good. The thing I don’t like about this is the cynical approach of WundermanThompson who are trying to distract and run crisis comms on their unfair dismissal of Chas Bayfield and Dave Jenner. The domain was registered on June 30th via Squarespace

    Security

    Chinese hacking group APT31 uses mesh of home routers to disguise attacks – The Record by Recorded Future 

    Phantom Warships Are Courting Chaos in Conflict Zones | WIRED – Bergman has found no evidence directly linking the flood of fake AIS tracks to any country, organization, or individual. But they are consistent with Russian tactics, says Todd Humphreys, director of the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin. “While I can’t say for sure who’s doing this, the data fits a pattern of disinformation that our Russian friends are wont to engage in.”

    Streetwear

    Foot Locker targets Japan and sneakerheads with atmos purchase — Quartz – I can understand why Hidefumi Hommyo would want to sell, but I do wonder if the heat will move on from Atmos now the with the footlocker buy. More related content here.

  • Michael Malone & things this week

    Michael Malone

    Michael Malone was famous to me as a writer on the San Jose Mercury News online site. Michael Malone had been a long time writer on the paper and chronicled all the happenings in Silicon Valley. Michael Malone is now the co-host of The Silicon Insider podcast. In the past he has written numerous books covering different parts of the history of Silicon Valley. So he has a unique perspective on the place and the technology sector.

    Michael Malone was interviewed by NBC reporter Scott Budman on behalf of the Computer History Museum based in Silicon Valley.

    Dune trailer

    Denis Villenueve is the director that Hollywood seems to trust with difficult to tell films like the Blade Runner sequel. He is also the director who is likely to get closest Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt to film Dune in the mid-1970s. Green screen and digital cinema offer Villenueve tools that Jodorowsky could only have dreamed of four decades earlier.

    Junk sleep

    US speciality retailer Mattress Firm is doing a couple of new things with its adverts featuring Lev Schreiber. First of all was the concept in the creative of ‘junk sleep’ that reminded me of J Walter Thompson’s early work for Odorono, an early anti-perspirant that invented the concept of ‘body odor’ from a marketing perspective. People had always been smelly, but it was JWT that broached the subject in the adverts.

    https://youtu.be/WudcydXGWLI

    Junk sleep feels like a similar type of concept. As a strategist, I like the concept. The second aspect is the trippy nature of the ads which captures the feeling of sleep deprivation really well.

    Apple watch

    Apple put together a fun ad for health tracking on the Apple Watch. It gets over many of the activities that the Apple Watch can track.

    https://youtu.be/RkRQ_aykXw8

    It reminded me (unintentionally) of The Court of King Caractacus, made famous by Australian entertainer Rolf Harris. Harris had a five decade career in show business that ended in ignominy when he was convicted for 12 indecent assaults on against four girls.

    Emirates and Qatar Airways

    COVID-19 disrupted the airline industry since people weren’t flying. The asymmetry of opening up seems to be hammering the Middle East airline ‘super hub’ model according to this video by Sam Chui. Chui posits that super hubs offer the opportunity for a super spreading event and there is likely to be an uptake in customers wanting to fly direct in the immediate aftermath of COVID-19.

    If this is true, then there will be a knock on effect for duty free retailing and luxury sales as well.

  • TSMC analysis + more news

    TSMC analysis by DigiTimes

    Taiwanese technology industry publication DigiTimes has some some great ‘state of the industry’ analysis pieces. They have placed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. aka TSMC at the centre of this.

    TSMC dossier (4): Technology contention among world-class leaders | DigiTimes – size of process is only part of the story. Interesting data on how TSMC, Samsung and Intel compare in terms of node transistor density by wafer foundry

    TSMC dossier (6): Possible ways to defeat the world’s top foundry house – TSMC’s concern is not getting surpassed in process technology or losing key customers but being overtaken by someone figuring out how to combine quantum technology and IC design. In-memory computing becoming a reality might be another scenario where TSMC could lose its competitive edge. However, according to Yu-Chung Lin, a DIGITIMES consultant devoted to the study of quantum technology application trends for years, large-scale commercialization of quantum technology is unlikely to happen before 2025. In-memory computing comes with high costs. If Samsung with leading-edge memory technologies really makes a breakthrough, TSMC will have to brace for challenges

    China

    The EU’s unsustainable China strategy | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank – really good read from Chatham House

    DiDi’s Troubles, Tweets of the Week (Corruption, Waluigi+Mao, Fish Hugging, Which Chinese Ministry Works the Hardest?) – by Jordan Schneider – ChinaTalk – interesting commentary on China’s regulatory environment, not so great news for western investors

    Consumer behaviour

    Mediatel: Mediatel News: Attention Revolution: a new column by Professor Karen Nelson-Field

    Recommitting to Trust | Edelman 

    Economics

    The Economic Fundamentals of Chinese Communism’s Successes and Failures by Nancy Qian – Project Syndicate 

    Germany

    China-Konzern will deutsche Gaming-Firma kaufen: Wegen Kriegs-Simulationssoftware? – Politik Ausland – Bild.de – Tencent is planning to take over the German game developer Crytek – but Bild reports they hope to use the “CryEngine” developed by Crytek to produce war simulation programs for the Chinese army

    Hong Kong

    Fall of Hong Kong’s opposition camp: mass arrests in era of protests and national security law – really nice visualisation showing the 173 activists including 108 district councillors have been arrested since 2019

    Leung Kin-fai and the question of condemning violence – by Kevin Carrico – so much in this essay to unpack

    Hong Kong’s national security trial debates Malcolm X’s legacy — Quartz – Leung argued that forceful and peaceful resistance can play complementary roles in a social movement, invoking Martin Luther King and Malcolm X as representing the two different styles of resistance in the US civil rights movement. In that 2016 interview, Leung also advocated for protesters to use a level of force that’s equal to that of the police. It’s an idea that evokes another line in Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech: “I’m non-violent with those who are non-violent with me.” – so the Hong Kong government is not only oppressing its own people but suggesting that African Americans should have been jailed as national security risks?

    Ireland

    Irish language introduces new term for people of color | IrishCentral

    Legal

    Translation: Cybersecurity Review Measures (Revised, Draft for Comment) – July 2021 | DigiChina

    Luxury

    Defying conventions, Chinese millennials turn to watches | Vogue Business – “There are lots of common points among women who are enthusiastic about watches, including financial and intellectual independence, and having a refined attitude towards shopping luxury goods,”

    Luxury is culture now. Here’s how | Vogue Business – Vetements has teased a rebrand as a platform for young talent. Gucci spotlighted 15 emerging brands including Collina Strada and Bianca Saunders at November’s GucciFest film festival. Saint Laurent recently teamed up with Bang & Olufsen, Baccarat and JL Coquet on a lifestyle product series. Luxury brands no longer sell just their brand. In a new era of consumer expectation for shared values, brands are curating platforms to function as tastemakers to extend their own brand halo into the wider cultural world

    Marketing

    Dunkin’ drives audio ad results by matching background music to listeners’ tastes | Marketing Dive – this did make me wonder about brand. In particular the role of audio branding and about the role of jingles in culture.

    Splash and Dash; Ford Fragrance Shows Petrol Fans They Won’t Miss out with Mustang Mach-E GT | Ford of Europe | Ford Media Center – as a non-driver I miss the ritual of going to the petrol station and filling the tank. As a kid I loved accompanying my Dad to do it.

    Till Jagla adidas Collab King Exclusive Interview: Why He Left – “Now Energy is a new hype creation unit that really puts storytelling at the heart of everything we do,” says Jagla. “It was literally starting a brand within a brand. It was all the bad and ugly of the startup brands.”

    Media

    Cannes Film Festival, Risking China’s Ire, to Screen Hong Kong Protest Documentary – WSJ – Hollywood has been trying to court China. This feels like they’ve given up the ghost on this.

    GB News in crisis as exec quits and presenter is pulled for ‘taking the knee’ | The Guardian – GB News – set up on the basis that free and open debate is no longer possible in the mainstream media due to an all-pervasive “cancel culture”, was overwhelmed with complaints that after only a few weeks on air it had gone “woke” and its content was not sufficiently rightwing.

    Online

    How Vietnam’s ‘influencer’ army wages information warfare on Facebook | Reuters

    Financial services advertisers in the UK must meet Google verification requirements by August 2021 – how on earth will YouTube survive? Unless Google sets the bar really low, or those ‘forex training courses’ count as education. But then, that’s how OneCoin managed to get around their problems as well. This might not be the panacea that Google would want it to be seen as.

    Pluralistic: 15 Jul 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – interesting thread on how Facebook has disbursed its Crowdtangle analytics team. The reality is that social monitoring tools have been going dark for years. Most of them disproportionately rely on Twitter. Twitter has an outsized importance for its audience size due to it being favoured by journalists. Doctorow’s post however looks specifically at these Facebook moves

    Security

    We Got the Phone the FBI Secretly Sold to Criminals | Vice 

    Philippines calls claim China influenced 2016 election to favour Duterte ‘nonsense’ | South China Morning Post – Former foreign secretary Albert del Rosario made the claim at a forum on Monday, citing a ‘most reliable international entity’. He said senior Chinese officials were ‘bragging that they had been able to influence the 2016 Philippine elections so that Duterte would be president’ – I wouldn’t be surprised if China did try to influence the election result. However I am surprised that Chinese officials would be so indiscreet. The risks of that getting back to Beijing are too great, unless they wanted to be found out

    Threat to UK from hostile states could be as bad as terrorism, says MI5 chief | The Guardian – while the threat from Russia, as demonstrated by the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury, is familiar to the British public – the spy chief will argue that threats that typically come from China are not. McCallum will say that universities and researchers risk “having their discoveries stolen or copied” if they are not vigilant and that businesses could be “hollowed out by the loss of advantage they’ve worked painstakingly to build”.

    Technology

    Russia to Build 8-Core RISC-V CPUs for Laptops, Government Systems – ExtremeTech