This blog came out of the crater of the dot com bust and wireless growth. Wi-Fi was transforming the way we used the internet at home. I used to have my Mac next to my router on top of a cupboard that contained the house fuse panel and the telephone line. Many people had an internet room and used a desktop computer like a Mac Mini or an all-in-one computer like an iMac. Often this would be in the ‘den’ or the ‘man cave’. Going on the internet to email, send instant messages or surf the internet was something you did with intent.
Wi-Fi arrived alongside broadband connections and the dot com boom. Wi-Fi capable computers came in at a relatively low price point with the first Apple iBook. I had the second generation design at the end of 2001 and using the internet changed. Free Wi-Fi became a way to attract people to use a coffee shop, as a freelancer it affected where I did meetings and how I worked.
I was travelling more for work at the time. While I preferred the reliability of an ethernet connection, Wi-Fi would meet my needs just as well. UMTS or 3G wireless data plans were still relatively expensive and slow. I would eventually send low resolution pictures to Flickr and even write a blog post or two. But most of the time I used it to clear my email box, or use Google Maps if I was desperate.
4G wireless services, started to make mobile data a bit more useful, even if the telephony wasn’t great
Pagers went back into the news recently with Hizbollah’s exploding pagers. YouTuber Perun has done a really good run down of what happened.
Based on Google Analytics information about my readership the idea of pagers might need an explanation. You’ve probably used a pager already, but not realised it yet.
A restaurant pager from Korean coffee shop / dessert café A Twosome Place.
For instance if you’ve been at a restaurant and given puck that brings when your table is ready, that’s a pager. The reason why its big it to prevent customers stealing them rather than the technology being bulky.
On a telecoms level, it’s a similar principle but on a bigger scale. A transmitter sends out a signal to a particular device. In early commercial pagers launched in the 1960s such as the ‘Bellboy’ service, the device made a noise and you then got to a telephone, phoned up a service centre to receive a message left for you. Over time, the devices shrunk from something the size of a television remote control to even smaller than a box of matches. The limit to how small the devices got depended on display size and battery size. You also got displays that showed a phone number to call back.
By the time I had a pager, they started to get a little bigger again because they had displays that could send both words and numbers. These tended to be shorter than an SMS message and operators used shortcuts for many words in a similar way to instant messaging and text messaging. The key difference was that most messages weren’t frivolous emotional ‘touchbases’ and didnt use emojis.
A Motorola that was of a similar vintage to the one I owned.
When I was in college, cellphones were expensive, but just starting to get cheaper. The electronic pager was a good half-way house. When I was doing course work, I could be reached via my pager number. Recruiters found it easier to get hold of me, which meant I got better jobs during holiday time as a student.
I moved to cellphone after college when I got a deal at Carphone Warehouse. One Motorola Graphite GSM phone which allowed two lines of SMS text to be displayed. I had an plan that included the handset that cost £130 and got 12 months usage. For which I got a monthly allowance of 15 minutes local talk time a month.
I remember getting a call about winning my first agency job, driving down a country road with the phone tucked under my chin as I pulled over to take the call. By this time mobile phones were revolutionising small businesses with tradesmen being able to take their office with them.
The internet and greater data speeds further enhanced that effect.
Pagers still found their place as communications back-up channel in hospitals and some industrial sites. Satellite communications allowed pagers to be reached in places mobile networks haven’t gone, without the high cost of satellite phones.
That being said, the NHS are in the process of getting rid of their pagers after COVID and prior to COVID many treatment teams had already moved to WhatsApp groups on smartphones. Japan had already closed down their last telecoms pager network by the mid-2010s. Satellite two-way pagers are still a niche application for hikers and other outward bound activities.
Perun goes into the reasons why pagers were attractive to Hesbollah:
They receive and don’t transmit back. (Although there were 2-way pager networks that begat the likes of the BlackBerry device based on the likes of Ericsson’s Mobitex service.)
The pager doesn’t know your location. It doesn’t have access to GNSS systems like GPS, Beidou, Gallileo or GLONASS. It doesn’t have access to cellular network triangulation. Messages can’t transmit long messages, but you have to assume that messages are sent ‘in the clear’ that is can be read widely.
What is Chinese style today? | Vogue Business – street style at Shanghai Fashion Week has been low-key. The bold looks of the past have given way to a softer aesthetic that’s more layered and feminine, with nods to Chinese culture and history. This pared-back vibe was also found on the runways. Part of this might be down to a policy led movement against conspicuous consumption typified by Xi Jinping’s ‘common prosperity‘.
Where to start with multisensory marketing | WARC – 61% of consumers looking for brands that can “ignite intense emotions”. Immersive experiences that are holistic tap into people’s emotions and linger in the memory. It’s also an opportunity for using powerful storytelling to communicate a brand story.
Airbus to cut 2500 staff in Space Systems | EE News Europe – “In recent years, the defence and space sector and, thus, our Division have been impacted by a fast changing and very challenging business context with disrupted supply chains, rapid changes in warfare and increasing cost pressure due to budgetary constraints,” said Mike Schoellhorn, CEO of the Airbus Defence and Space business.
I was fortunate to get an Apple Watch Ultra 2. It is the third Apple Watch that I have owned and the sixth wearable. My previous history in wearables were:
A Yamasa Tokei analogue pedometer (I received it around the time I was in primary school. It came in handy for guesstimating walking distances when I was in the scouts). What I didn’t know at the time is that the 1960s-era interest in pedometers that eventually spawned my device was driven by Japanese interest in combating obesity due to modernisation during the post-war economic miracle.
If you are focusing on your 10,000 steps a day you can thank Dr Yoshiro Hatano and manufacturers like Yamasa who eventually sold their ‘Manpo-kei’ (10,000 step measure) in the west as ‘Manpo-meter’ devices from the 1960s through to the late 1990s.
Nike Fuelband – I really enjoyed the simplicity of this device, but it was very fragile and I ended up going through three devices in a matter of months.
Casio G-Shock+ connected device that was let down by its software, but very much a go-anywhere device.
Polar Loop fitness tracker – it was more reliable than Nike’s Fuelband but I didn’t really enjoy it as device.
Apple Watch series 1 and 2 – I lasted about 48 hours wearing the series 1 Apple Watch, but did better with a series 2 device.
Apple Watch Ultra 2
My expectations have been impacted by poor experiences with earlier devices.
How have I found the Apple Watch Ultra 2?
I have worn tool watches all my adult life, a mix of mechanical dive watches and Casio G-Shocks. That meant that I didn’t think about where I took my watches. Into the shower, or the swimming pool – the watches could take it all in their stride. But the Apple Watch couldn’t.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a classic ‘go anywhere’ watch. It is waterproof like a Casio G-Shock. So fine for swimming, in the shower or scuba diving. Titanium means that it’s hypoallergenic, and corrosion resistant; even more so than most grades of stainless steel. However, if you wear it in the sea or at the swimming pool, rinse the watch in clean fresh water afterwards, like you should do with any other dive watch.
I found the default straps sold with the Apple Watch Ultra 2 were excessively clunky. Awkward to wear and got snagged in random situations. Instead I favoured a Nike Sports silicone band which is ideal for the gym or working in the office.
I bought a cheap clear bumper for the Apple Watch Ultra 2. It keeps fingerprints off the screen and gives items like the buttons and digital crown a modicum of protection from being activated by putting on a jacket as we go into a cooler wetter autumn.
Battery life on it seems to be more generous than the older Apple Watch models I have used and based on what I have seen I think you could get a weekend out of it without a charge.
The ubiquity of Apple watches on the wrists of Londoners mean that this doesn’t attract any good or bad attention.
What’s it like?
Compared to previous Apple watch models I have used the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is faster and more sophisticated. I get the sense that the Apple WatchOS is now supported by less non-health related apps than previously. My watch supports alerts for my train ticket bookings, airline flights and my preferred taxi app.
Part of this might be down to watch might make contextual sense in the 10 second app usage time that a consumer would have. And when does it make sense to just pull the phone out of your pocket.
There isn’t the same lag that made the first series Apple Watch unusable, as the device has become more powerful and more processing happens on the watch. Apple’s health app is more tracking than I need, so I haven’t used it with apps like Strava.
What’s good about it?
All of the Apple watch models have been impressive pieces of engineering and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is no exception. In their own way, they challenge Swiss industry for a different type of engineering prowess.
I really like the strap that I landed on. The material is the right texture and unlike other straps I have worn it doesn’t hinder my typing on a laptop. That being said the strap owes a lot to Marc Newson’s prior work in the early 1990s for Ikepod. This all means that you have a device that feels nice on the wrist.
One of the first things that I liked about the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is ‘night mode’ a plain red on black face, rather than the distracting colour complications. It would be great if this could be a universal theme carried through all the watch faces.
Thanks to mobile phone contracts, Apple watches like G-Shocks are surprisingly poor signals of status. In a city like London, that has its benefits.
What could be improved?
The Apple Watch is over nine years old. A number of problems have been there since the first device launch and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is merely the latest in the line to carry them.
You can’t wear your watch on the inside of your wrist. I used to scuba dive without a dive computer, relying on pre-planned dive tables, a depth gauge and air pressure gauge for my tank. I got into the habit of wearing my watch on the inside of my right wrist so I could hold my gauge console in my hand and see my elapsed dive time at the same time. It also means that your watch is less on-show in public settings.
Screens default to being overly busy with Apple trying to cram in as many complications as possible which compromises ‘glanceability’ – the key experience benefit that wearables like the Apple Watch Ultra 2 provide. Apple should also start to think about accessibility on across the Apple Watch range as much as it does on a Mac. I have have worked bleary eyed from deep sleep, looked at the watch and not being able to read it until my focus kicks in. How could the haptics function in the Apple Watch be used better?
Less apps now support the Apple Watch than have done previously. The more apps that support a platform, the more likely you are to get at least some sticky experiences that add to the utility of the device.
It’s not a particularly stylish device to look at, but it also doesn’t lean into function in the same way that a Casio G-Shock does. This means that it could be better protected out of the box than it is.
The battery life is better than previous generations of Apple Watch, but it still creates battery anxiety. Unlike Casio or other manufacturers, there’s no solar top-up option.
I don’t know how precise the data is. It measures blood oxygen level but freely admits its data isn’t good enough to be used in a medical situation. If you move to an Apple device from a Garmin or similar, you may find that your step count and activity measures may vary.
Price-wise, it’s expensive. It does offer value for what it does, but it’s expensive. You can spend as much, if not more money on a G-Shock than an Apple Watch Ultra 2; but the G-Shock won’t be a worry on issues like obsolescence, software support or even battery replacement in the same way that the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is. I have G-Shocks that I have owned for almost 20 years and are perfectly fine. I won’t be able to say the same of any Apple Watch.
What’s its use?
Still a great question. When I had my first Apple Watch, I stopped using it after 48 hours for a few reasons:
I couldn’t see a good user case coming thorough in the product at the time
It was slow
It had poor battery life
At the time Apple had thrown a number of things at the wall. There was a luxury line with a $17,000 version with a gold case and official third-party leather straps by Hermès. Apple still sells a Hermès co-branded range, but the gold models are no longer made.
In the intervening years Apple has committed to a number of areas:
An extension of your phone, on your wrist.
Integration with payments
Integration with identity
The quantified self
The use cases I have personally favoured included being an extension of my phone, when it rings my watch vibrates. But since I work most of the time at home and the phone sits on a stand in front of me, this tends to be only useful when I am out. Glanceable updates from a few apps, notably weather and my taxi app.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 can work as a standalone phone attached to your existing number, but that depends on your mobile carrier supporting it. I didn’t opt for this for reasons relating to my current service plan with 3 UK.
Tracking activity and the quality of my sleep. The quantified self is the area where Apple really pushes now, as do third-party developers such as Strava.
Apple also allows integration with Apple wallet, but you have to turn your wrist in an awkward position to work with most ‘tap-and-go’ systems. It is just as easy to do it with your phone or card.
Finally, Apple and some car manufacturers have been looking at using Apple devices as your car key. I live in London and even if I did need a car, I would be going for a pre-owned vehicle.
Is it a watch?
Is the Apple Watch Ultra 2 actually a watch at first glance seems like a ridiculous proposition, if for no other reason than you have the word ‘watch’ twice in close succession.
But on closer examination, it’s a pertinent question. Watch sales actually dropped as cellphones became ubiquitous. You had the time in your pocket or purse and the phone went everywhere with you. If you went abroad on holiday, it even changed time zones unless you specifically set it not to do so.
Watches offered some benefits from using the cellphone as a portable clock.
Easy to read / glanceable.
An analogue face allowed you to visually understand elapsed time.
It sent social signals in work about taking time seriously and likely punctuality.
More broadly the watch demonstrates signals about style, wealth, taste and even sub-cultures. This can be especially true of luxury brands and the countless collaborations that Casio has done with its G-Shock range over the years.
Finally, if you have an automatic movement watch or a solar powered quartz one, you don’t need to worry about a dead cellphone battery.
Smartwatches in general, have put a simplified version of your smartphone on your wrist. Depending who your mobile service provider is, your Apple Watch Ultra 2 can become a fallback phone, allowing you to leave it charging at home.
But as a watch it’s trying to do too many other things. Update you on your messages, provide a simplified experience of some apps (airlines and taxi services in particular) and activity tracking. All of which is squeezed into a screen area about an eighth the size of my smartphone’s screen.
This all comes with experience choices and compromises. It’s this lack of functional purity that is a moat between even the most technical G-Shock and an Apple Watch Ultra 2. Your watch will never compromise on telling you the time despite being a really shitty dive recorder or digital compass.
Yes you can spend the price of a Porsche; on a Patek Philippe watch with lots of complications, but realistically it’s an objet d’art that happens to look like a wrist watch. On that measure the Apple Watch Ultra 2 isn’t a watch, despite sitting on your wrist.
Zynternet is a portmanteau made up of Zyn and internet. If you’re reading this internet is self-explanatory, the Zyn in question is tabacco-free Skoal bandit type nicotine pouches. Zyn comes in a tin and has various flavours.
According to journalist Max Read, the Zynternet is a kind of 90s to early 2000s sports obsessed ‘lad’ type culture; but in the 2020s. There are shades of ‘white van man’ in there as well.
a broad community of fratty, horndog, boorishly provocative 20- and sometimes (embarrassingly) 30-somethings–mostly but by no means entirely male–has emerged to form a newly prominent online subculture.
Despite Read’s definition defining it as a 20 to 30-something thing, the subculture seems to bleed into 40-something Dads and draws on creators like Barstool Sports. They’re less extreme than the Andrew Tate acolytes. They care more about sports and professional golf than they do about current affairs and politics. But they’ll be voting Republican. They like college sports, sports betting, light beers and Zyn nicotine pouches.
The culture has grown prominent on the laissez-faire Musk era Twitter.
Zynternet stretch
It would be very easy to point to the Zynternet audience and draw parallels to the ‘proles’ of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. And then go down a dystopian k-hole.
I’ll leave the last words to David Ogilvy for those despairing about the Zynternet:
You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. Three million consumers get married every year. The advertisement which sold a refrigerator to those who got married last year will probably be just as successful with those who’ll get married next year. An advertisement is just like a radar sweep, constantly hunting new prospects as they come into the market. Get a good radar and keep it sweeping.
David Ogilvy
TL;DR if you’re not reaching the zynternet, you’re probably not doing political marketing properly. More related content here.
Content or couture? Balenciaga’s 30-minute dress becomes the flashpoint of the season | Vogue Business – “It feels a little like a fast fashion iteration of haute couture,” says Victoria Moss, fashion director of The Standard, of the swirling mass of black nylon. “This feels at odds with what fashion at this level should be, which is exquisitely made pieces that somewhat justify their extreme pricing.” She adds that many invest in couture to have garments perfectly fitted to their bodies — and made to last for years.
“Is it beautiful? That’s debatable. Is it impressive? Not really. Is it brazen? Absolutely. Is it a meditation on the creative process? Maybe. Are we bored of these kinds of gimmicks at Balenciaga? Clearly not, as Demna’s work continues to be both a lightning rod and a conversation starter. “Call it ‘pret-a-polarize’,” says fashion journalist and ‘Newfash’ podcast host Mosha Lundström. “To my eye and understanding, I see this look as content rather than couture.”
Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks | Reuters – yes stories like this are funny because ‘modern’ Japan with its flip phones, fax machines and floppy discs are an anachronism. But there’s a few other things to consider. There might be issues in terms of investment a la the NHS and critical systems that for whatever reason can’t be ported on to modern systems (like the problems had with security based on ActiveX).
Dumb systems also have security benefits, you can’t steal nearly as much data on even a compressed floppy disk as you can on a USB stick.
Interesting use cases for generative AI in China which sounds like a plot line from Ghost In The Shell.
Baidu – World No. 1? – Radio Free Mobile – is Baidu ERNIE really the number one generative AI service? It depends on if the numbers are true. 14 million developers, 950,000 models within the eco-system
China plays down importance of lithography tools in semiconductor challenges – Interesting report from Taiwan’s DigiTimes semiconductor trade magazine: China seems to be deliberately playing down the importance of lithography tools as it identifies the challenges for the development of its semiconductor industry in a recently published dossier.
The story Dogfight tells feels much more recent than it now is almost two decades on, and yet so far away as smartphones are central to our lives. Back in the mid and late 2000s Silicon Valley based journalist Fred Vogelstein was writing for publications like Wired and Fortune at the time Apple launched the iPhone and Google launched Android. He had a front-row seat to the rivalry between the two brands.
And being on the ground in Silicon Valley would have meant that he would have had access to scuttlebutt given in confidence of anonymity as well as official media access.
But he’s probably best known for being part of the story itself: Fred Vogelstein wrote about his experiences with Microsoft’s PR machine for Wired back in 2007.
The fight
The Motorola ROKR E1 I was given, but eventually threw out.
Dogfight starts some time after Apple had withdrawn support for Motorola’s ROKR phone, which was able to sync with iTunes for music downloads. This particular track of Apple’s history isn’t really documented in Dogfight.
The book goes through two separate but entangled story strands. The first is Apple’s development of the Apple iPhone and iPad. At that time Apple in the space of a decade had gone from almost going under, to having the iPod and iTunes music store, together with a resuscitated computer range thanks to the iMac and Mac OS X.
The Google of this era was at its peak, search had become a monopoly and the company was overflowing with wondrous and useful web services from Google Earth to Google Reader. What was less apparent was that inside Google was chaos due to internal politics and massive expansion. Into this walked Andy Rubin who had built and designed the Danger Hiptop, sold exclusively on T-Mobile as the Sidekick.
The Sidekick had been a text optimised mobile device. It featured email, instant messaging and SMS text messages. His new company Android had been acquired by Google to build a new type of smartphone that would continue to provide a mobile audience for Google services.
Dogfight’s style
Dogfight is undemanding to read but doesn’t give insight in the way that other works likeInsanely Great, Where Wizards Stay Up Late and Accidental Empires did. Part of this might be down to the highly orchestrated public relations campaigns happening at the time.
Instead Vogelstein documents developments, from video recordings, marketing materials and court documents. Some of the things covered were items that I had largely forgotten about like music labels launching albums as multimedia apps on the new iPhone ecosystem. This was doing in software with what the Claudia Schiffer Palm Vx or the U2 autograph edition iPod had previously done in hardware.
Google’s decision to ‘acquihire’ the Android team to build their mobile operating system, wasn’t examined in depth. Yet there are clear parallels with the Boca Raton team in IBM which came up with the IBM PC a quarter of a century earlier. Vogelstein kept to the facts.
It’s a workman-like if uninspiring document. And that mattered deeply to me. Part of the reason why I went into agency life was because I was inspired about the possibility of working the technology sector. This inspiration had been fired up by the chutzpah and pioneering spirit portrayed in older technology of history books. Some of them were flawed characters, but all of them had an energy and vibrancy to make the world a better place.
Wired magazine issues had a similar effect. Yet in Dogfight Vogelstein brought neither of those influences to the table, instead he was writing an account that will probably only read by academics citing his material as a contemporary account in a future thesis.
Dogfight isn’t the Liar’s Poker of the smartphone world, it isn’t even that illuminating about the nature of Silicon Valley.
This is probably why Vogelstein hasn’t had a book published since Dogfight – he’s a reporter, not a writer. You can find more book reviews here.
The IT director is seeing a return to power and its thanks to the power of hackers and AI. The smartphone, the resurgence of Apple and SaaS saw IT decisions become more organic thanks to increased access to online services that provided better features than traditional enterprise software companies and the rise of knowledge working. IT teams found management of mobile devices onerous and faced hostile users.
Michiko Fukahori of the Japanese National Institute of Information and Communications Technology at ITU TSB – 8th Chief Technology Officers (CTO) Meeting
This meant that the IT director became less important in software marketing. A decade ago marketing had pivoted to a bottom up approach of ‘land and expand’. This drove the sales of Slack, Monday.com and MongoDB.
Two things impacted this bottom up approach to enterprise innovation:
Cybercrime: ransomware and supply chain attacks. Both are not new, ransomware can be traced back to 1989, with malware known as the AIDS trojan (this had much cultural resonance back then as a name). Supply chain attacks started happening in the 2010s with the Target data breach and by 2011, US politicians were considering it a security issue. Over COVID with the rise of remote working, the attacks increased. The risk put the IT director back in the firing line.
AI governance: generative AI systems learn from their training models and from user inputs, this led to a wide range of concerns from company intellectual property leaving via the AI system, or AI outputs based on intellectual property theft.
The most immediate impact of this is that the IT director is becoming a prized target on more technology marketers agendas again. This takes IT director focused marketing from back in the 1980s and the early 2000s with a top-down c-suite focus including the IT director. This implies that established brands like Microsoft and IBM will do better than buzzier startups. It also means I am less likely to see adverts for Monday.com in my YouTube feed over time.
This doesn’t mean that the IT director won’t be disrupted in other parts of his role as machine learning facilitates process automation in ways that are continuing to evolve.
Brands plan for a quiet Pride Month | News | Campaign Asia – The hesitation around Pride may also be related to executives’ increasing reluctance to speak out on social issues more broadly. Wolff pointed to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, which found that 87% of executives think taking a public stance on a social issue is riskier than staying silent. “Essentially, nine out of every 10 executives believe that the return on investment for their careers is not worth the support during this turbulent time,” said (Kate) Wolff. “This is clearly problematic for both the community and the progress we have made in recent years.”
Chinese Firms Are Investing Heavily in Whisky Market | Yicai Global – Although international liquor giants have developed the local whisky consumption market for many years, the market penetration rate of overseas spirits in China, including whisky, is only about 3 percent. This means domestic whisky producers will need to develop new consumption scenarios, Yang said. Whisky consumption in China centers mainly around nightclubs, gift-giving and tasting events held by affluent consumers, Yang noted, but in these scenarios, imported whisky brands with a long history tend to be more popularly accepted,, so it will be difficult for domestic rivals to compete. According to the latest report from alcohol market analysts IWSR, China’s whisky market was worth CNY5.5 billion (USD758 million) last year, having grown more than fourfold over the past 10 years. It is expected to reach CNY50 billion (USD6.9 billion) in the next five to 10 years.
Yoox Net-a-Porter exits China to focus on more profitable markets – Multi-brand luxury clothing sales platform Yoox Net-a-Porter is closing its China operations, this against a backdrop of other brands also pulling out of Chinese e-commerce including Marc Jacobs fragrances. The corporate line from Richemont was “in the context of a global Yoox Net-a-Porter plan aimed at focusing investments and resources on its core and more profitable geographies”.
Ignite the Scent: The Effectiveness of Implied Explosion in Perfume Ads | the Journal of Advertising Research – Scent is an important product attribute and an integral component of the consumption experience as consumers often want to perceive a product’s smell to make a well-informed purchase decision. It is difficult, however, to communicate the properties of a scent without the physical presence of odorants. Through five experiments conducted in a perfume-advertising context, our research shows that implied explosion, whether visually (e.g., a spritz blast) or semantically created, can increase perceived scent intensity, subsequently enhancing perceived scent persistence. It also found a positive effect of perceived scent persistence on purchase intention. In conclusion, the research suggests that implied explosion can be a powerful tool for advertisers to enhance scent perception, consequently boosting purchase intention.
Mat Baxter’s Huge turnaround job | Contagious – interesting perspective on his time at Huge. What I can’t square it all with is what we know about marketing science and declining effectiveness across digital media
On my LinkedIn, I couldn’t escape from the Cannes festival of advertising. Partly because one of the projects I had been involved in was a shortlisted entry. One of the most prominent films was Dramamine’s ‘The Last Barf Bag: A Tribute to a Cultural Icon’. It was notable because of its humour, which was part of this years theme across categories.
震災復興から生まれた刺し子プロジェクトをブランドに！ 15人のお母さんの挑戦！ – CAMPFIRE (キャンプファイヤー) – ancient Japanese craft – KUON and Sashiko Gals are part of a new generation of designers keeping the traditional Japanese technique of sashiko alive. And together, they are bringing the decorative style of stitching to our favorite sneakers (including techy Salomons!). Sashiko is a type of simple running stitch used in Japan for over a thousand years to reinforce fabrics. It’s typically done with a thick white thread on indigo fabric and made into intricate patterns.
Nationalism in Online Games During War by Eren Bilen, Nino Doghonadze, Robizon Khubulashvili, David Smerdon :: SSRN – We investigate how international conflicts impact the behavior of hostile nationals in online games. Utilizing data from the largest online chess platform, where players can see their opponents’ country flags, we observed behavioral responses based on the opponents’ nationality. Specifically, there is a notable decrease in the share of games played against hostile nationals, indicating a reluctance to engage. Additionally, players show different strategic adjustments: they opt for safer opening moves and exhibit higher persistence in games, evidenced by longer game durations and fewer resignations. This study provides unique insights into the impact of geopolitical conflicts on strategic interactions in an online setting, offering contributions to further understanding human behavior during international conflicts.
The West Coast’s Fanciest Stolen Bikes Are Getting Trafficked by One Mastermind in Jalisco, Mexico | WIRED – “Not so long ago, bike theft was a crime of opportunity—a snatch-and-grab, or someone applying a screwdriver to a flimsy lock. Those quaint days are over. Thieves now are more talented and brazen and prolific. They wield portable angle grinders and high-powered cordless screwdrivers. They scope neighborhoods in trucks equipped with ladders, to pluck fine bikes from second-story balconies. They’ll use your Strava feed to shadow you and your nice bike back to your home.” – not terribly surprising, you’ve seen the professionalisation and industrialisation in theft across sectors from shoplifting, car theft and watch thefts so this is continuing the trend.
OpenAI Just Gave Away the Entire Game – The Atlantic – The Scarlett Johansson debacle is a microcosm of AI’s raw deal: It’s happening, and you can’t stop it. This is important not from a technology point of view, but from the mindset of systemic sociopathy that now pervades Silicon Valley.
Apple Intelligence is Right On Time – Stratechery by Ben Thompson – Apple’s orientation towards prioritizing users over developers aligns nicely with its brand promise of privacy and security: Apple would prefer to deliver new features in an integrated fashion as a matter of course; making AI not just compelling but societally acceptable may require exactly that, which means that Apple is arriving on the AI scene just in time.
‘Rare, vintage, Y2K’: Online thrifters are flipping fast fashion. How long can it last? | Vogue Business – as secondhand shopping becomes increasingly commonplace, this latest outburst brings to light the subjectivity of resale. What determines an item’s worth, especially in an age of viral micro-trends and heavy nostalgia? Is it ethically moral to set an item that’s the product of fast fashion — long criticised for not paying workers fairly — at such a steep upcharge, and making profit from it? If someone is willing to pay, does any of it matter?
