Windows 8 phone + more

Windows 8 phone

Nokia Cuts U.S. Price of Flagship Phone in Half – WSJ.com – gives an indication of how Windows 8 Phone is hurting Nokia. Clear the inventory press reset and hope that Windows 8 phone does the business for them. Windows 8 phone requires a Qualcomm reference board and components. This had a higher bill of materials than Nokia’s phones and meant that Nokia couldn’t take advantage of their highly automated production lines, compounding 3rd party expenses for Nokia in building the Windows 8 phone

Windows Phone 8 Fallout: Impact on Nokia & Developers | tech-thoughts.net – Windows 8 phone has seen a massive drop off in the developer community who had previously supported Symbian and Maego. Nokia’s advantage in developer tools has been lost. Carriers won’t be happy with the bundling of Skype with Windows 8 phone.

Consumer behaviour

Not like the Queen, but like John Hurt | MetaFilter – we thought we were hosts like the Queen is at a posh garden party, when actually we’re hosts in the way that John Hurt is in Alien

The Secret Lives Of Teenagers Online: A Full Report From Business Insider – Business Insider

China’s post-90 generation make their mark – FT.com – (paywall)

China manufacturing contracts again: HSBC – last month this data looked questionable because of the smaller panel size than similar PMI index measures. Is this a pattern?

Germany

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Key in Weakening the Euro Stability Pact – SPIEGEL ONLINE – Gerhard Schröder being blamed presumably to get Merkel’s indecision off the hook

Hong Kong

news.gov.hk – Carrie Lam to uphold core values

Ideas

Let Your Ideas Go – Harvard Business Review – Hang on loosely to your best ideas if you want them to grow

Strategies from the New Emerging Market Competitors | Aaker on Brands

Inside Minority Report’s ‘Idea Summit,’ Visionaries Saw the Future | Wired.com

Urban world | McKinsey & Company – cities bringing forward a consuming class

The Radical Optimism of Eric Schmidt – The Atlantic – a utopian view of technology

Innovation

Defining (and spotting) ‘disruptive’ innovation – PARC blog

3 Steps to Get Social Media into the New Product Development Mix | NM Incite

U.K. Home Office won’t block O’Dwyer extradition in copyright case | CNET News – not terribly surprising given the UK Government’s stance on media to date. Will have a chilling effect on innovation

Moving Geometric Facade Blocks Out Sunlight To Keep Buildings Cool [Pics]

Scientists develop spray-on battery | Reuters

Ireland

Sugar industry could create jobs; Beet Ireland – RTÉ News – this is a potential dramatic turnaround. My Dad served his apprenticeship with the original Irish Sugar Company and their beet processing operation

Japan

Japan finds major rare earth deposits ‹ Japan Today

Korea

The Korean Film Archive who have put many of the most prominent works in Korean cinema on YouTube free for you to watch. Google has gone to the trouble of putting English sub-titles on all of the films. If you thought Korean culture was Old Boy and saccharin-sweet looking girl groups think again.

London

Official Olympic Travel Advice, From Transport from Londonist | Londonist – pretty much nails the shambles that is London’s transport infrastructure for the Olympics

London 1984: Olympics Organizers Say You Can Only Link to Them If You’re Not Mean – The Atlantic – exceptionally stupid decision

Luxury

Qatari Investment Group to Buy Valentino for $850 Million – NYTimes.com

Where the Chinese Millionaires and Super Rich Live | China Internet Watch

Luxury spending slowdown drags on HK – hmmm declining HSBC PMI index, declining luxury spending in Hong Kong – seems like China may have hit a speed bump

LOUIS VUITTON and Yayoi Kusama – An inspired creation from the new Louis Vuitton iPhone app, – LV Kusama Studio

Media

Now There Are Rumors That Murdoch May Kill ‘The Daily’ – Business Insider

MSNBC.com Renamed to NBCNews.com as Microsoft and NBC Divorce – NYTimes.com – reading this brought back memories of my last year in college. Our house had cable and I remember watching Soledad O’Brien and a CGI character Dev Null on The Site which was one of the first products from the MSNBC joint venture. The web seemed new and exciting then in a way that acid house and rave had seen just a few years previously

Can’t make it to Comic-Con? Internet to the rescue — GigaOM

Britain’s media and regulation – FT.com

Global Internet Ad Spend Sees Double-Digit Growth, Outpaces Other Media | Nielsen Wire

Return to cassette tapes (or did we ever truly leave them behind?) ‹ Japan Today

Media Piracy in Emerging Economies — Social Science Research Council – piracy is because media companies got their pricing strategy wrong

EU commission will continue to seek ECJ view on ACTA – goes to show the ‘ACTA is dead’ celebrations were premature

McClureMusic.com | Japanese labels to end copy protection on music downloads

The Overlooked Power of Media – ideas conveyed important as brand recall

McClureMusic.com | Sony Japan gets friendly with Apple — sort of – makes Sony look pathetic

Maritime Band Facing False Takedown Notices From Universal Music

IS STEALING MUSIC REALLY THE PROBLEM? – FutureHit.DNA – despite shouty headline, an interesting article

Jail For File-Sharing Not Enough, Labels Want ISP-Level Spying Regime | TorrentFreak – interesting proposed layer 7 network surveillance system for Japan. The big question is where it stops, why not monetise the equipment and sell pertinent data to insurance companies or marketers?

Twitter’s Mobile Ads Begin to Click – WSJ.com – Twitter good for time-sensitive advertising campaigns on mobile rather than ‘awareness building

Yahoo Chief Plots Return to Ad Basics – WSJ.com – trying to get back to a media portal positioning with an emphasis on events and quality content (paywall)

Online

Mobile Internet Usage in Europe and the US | CCS Insight

What If Teens Prefer Twitter to Facebook? | AdvertisingAge – asymmetric networking a la Flickr, Delicious

Website blocking provisions to be removed from Digital Economy Act, says Government

PPTV Tops Video Streaming in China With 34 Million Unique Daily Users?

Pinterest has overtaken Tumblr in the United States – proles versus hipsters

Why all the fuss about Habbo Hotel? | Snowblog

Teens turn from Facebook to fresher social-media sites

Facebook Showing Solid Growth in Japan and Korea

Criminalizing links: Why the Richard O’Dwyer case matters — GigaOM

Intel’s Jayant Murty on the award-winning ‘Museum of Me’ – Campaign Asia-Pacific – surprised it was Projector Tokyo’s work and surprised it wasn’t designed as an information gathering exercise

OFT launches probe into Facebook’s Instagram deal – Brand Republic News

Gmail finally blows past Hotmail to become the world’s largest email service

Quality

What Happened to Silicon Values? – The Atlantic – really interesting article, because these values then affect concepts like quality and design decisions. However companies like Oracle also feel customer exploitative to me

Retailing

Sportswear, websites the top choices for shoppers | SCMP.com – Nike, Li Ning, Taobao and Amazon China ranked among top 10 on mainland, retail survey finds (pay wall)

Jing Daily: The Olive Shoppe targeting China’s fashionistas – online and offline multi-brand boutique following in the footsteps of Lane Crawford

Sell to 100,000 or shout at a million? Cheap fans become mediocre customers… | Media Week

Baby Centre – 21st century social media Mum

Sell to China: ignore what shoppers say

Security

F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics – NYTimes.com

Protecting Your Data from a New Generation of Hackers

Software

When Machines Do Your Job – Technology Review

Exclusive: Microsoft’s Ballmer Throws Down Gauntlet Against Apple – would Microsoft take Office away from OSX? Probably not given that it makes money, whereas Microsoft’s online services (Bing etc) don’t

Amazon Just Poached Another Microsoft’s Windows Phone Director – Business Insider – probably nothing to the Microsoft defections other than Amazon is in Seattle area too

Building and dismantling the Windows advantage | asymco

Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant | Vanity Fair – it would be foolish to count them out just yet

How NatWest’s IT meltdown developed | guardian.co.uk – according to this Guardian article offshored jobs and Computer Associates software were to blame

A Personal Assistant Mines Your Life to Help Out – Technology Review

RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally • The Register

Google slashes price 88% for using Google Maps API | CNET News

Is your new MacBook Air crashing frequently? Blame Google Chrome | 9to5Mac | Apple Intelligence

BlackBerry 10 may be death knell for RIM – Rethink Wireless – what will happen to the embedded OS business?

Technology

Analysis: Intel and Microsoft face China crisis – Expect bad results this week | TechEye

US Congress to discuss sales bans if key patents infringed | Reuters

OLED TVs — Sony, Panasonic to announce partnership next week – think LCD screens peaked. Sales declined for the first time last quarter

Hewlett-Packard could lose billions as General Motors takes over own IT – San Jose Mercury News – interesting that HP is losing out as GM takes the work inhouse. A few things stand out: software in product development and service provision is important for consumer brands like GM – it becomes a core requirement. Secondly, large corporates are prepared to roll deals back when they don’t get service like the alleged corner cutting at IBM

Sony to make $623 million investment in Olympus, Nikkei says | The Verge

Waiting for Godot | asymco – slow disruption of PCs as not everyone needs a content creation device

Life after the personal computer

Failed HP Slate 500 behind Microsoft’s Surface tablet ambitions | The Verge

Panasonic chief says no to low-cost OLED TVs

Black boxes’ to monitor all internet and phone data – Channel 4 News– so if this encryption can be broken and clever enough people know a box exists, what is to stop it being used for violating credit card details, industrial espionage and behavioural advertising. What is the betting that the BPI will be lobbying for all that data?

Acer slates Microsoft’s hardware push | Reuters