Lenovo + more news

6 minutes estimated reading time

Lenovo

How did Lenovo become the world’s biggest computer company? (Economist) – large home market giving it enough time and capital to invest in products. Lenovo started off in 1984 as a television manufacturer called Legend. Lenovo then moved into making and selling PCs. In 1994, they managed to raise US$30 million. By 1999 Legend managed to buy IBM’s PC business and then became Lenovo. Lenovo is notable for the way in which it has blended Chinese and US business culture.

Consumer behaviour

New-to-vinyl converts talk about the joys of playing LPs | The Audiophiliac – CNET News – interesting observations about ritual and really listening to music

Stop Generalizing About Europe | JonasBentzen.com – I wish I could have given this to clients back when I started in agency life

Economics

How Chinese Economic Policy Could Save Club Med Countries – interesting take on whether free trade zones would help the PIIGS countries

Daily chart: Undue credit | The Economist – lending to decline further in western Europe, in contrast with the rest of the world

Five economic charts that will define 2013 – Quartz

FMCG

How Tide Detergent Became a Drug Currency — New York Magazine – particularly interesting when you think about the way Tide doesn’t match your traditional idea of currency: it isn’t particularly portable for instance

How to

4 Secrets For Doing Gonzo User Research | Co.Design

wireframe.cc – minimal wireframing tool – for free

Ideas

The new politics of the internet: Everything is connected | The Economist – really nice analysis of how web issues affect society and politics

What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web? | Smithsonian Magazine – an antedote to data utopianism

The Web We Lost – Anil Dash – good ideas that the social web has killed or corrupted

The WELL: State of the World 2013: Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky – interesting if rambling discussion with author Bruce Sterling

Innovation

The Technium: Pain of the New – interesting review of high frame rate (HFR) film screenings and the initial consumer reaction to many pieces of technology

Facebook?! Twitter?! Instagram?! We Did That 40 Years Ago | Wired.com – every idea has its time

Toshiba Building A Lytro-Style Camera Sensor For Smartphones And Tablets, Planned For 2013 Launch | TechCrunch

Media

Edelman – Paid Media — A Change of Heart – not terribly surprising

EU Antitrust Chief: Google “Diverting Traffic” & Will Be Forced To Change – it will be interesting to see what the EU comes up with

Better than Nielsen: Twitter breaks down TV behavior by demographics, device, and genre | The Verge

Topspin’s Ian Rogers to Head Beats’ New Music Subscription Service – AllThingsD

Websites Vary Prices, Deals Based on Users’ Information – WSJ.com

A more complete picture of the iTunes economy | asymco

Is Facebook worth it? Film execs confide they may cut movie ads – latimes.com – the content optimisation steps that studios are taking are particularly interesting

Chinese Social Network Douban Rolls Out Paid Music Streaming Subscriptions

Why Does Everyone Think Google Beat The FTC? | The New Republic – Tim Wu’s great analysis of the Google verdict

Facebook’s Confidence Is Shaken – Business Insider – interesting take on Facebook. The underlying theme is Facebook a one-trick pony or are there future services that will better justify its share price?

Online

British Facebook population hits 27 million – Brand Republic News or roughly two thirds of the online population

Here’s a Heatmap of WeChat Users Around the World – seems to be driven by Chinese communities overseas

December 2012 Social Media Report: Facebook Pages in the United Kingdom – Socialbakers – useful reference

Flickr Photos Added to Yahoo! Image Search – I thought this was done 7 years ago?

Yahoo’s Mail And Search Traffic Drops – Business Insider – not surprised by the search numbers, the mail numbers are more alarming

Who Is Using Twitter in France? – huge increase in the over-55s

Flickr: Why did Flickr drop the “e”? – Quora

China’s Sina Weibo Rolls Out Partial English Interface [UPDATE: Sina Confirms] – it is inconsistent, but promising development

Elapsed Time: Trying to be the one true social graph is like trying to hold water in your fist the futility of all your online social interactions being captured by Facebook

Retailing

No Logo | Design Week – I love this new campaign by Selfridges that I heard of via Stephen

Security

Nokia: Yes, we decrypt your HTTPS data, but don’t worry about it — Tech News and Analysis – but knowing that exists could encourage hackers to break Nokia so that they can sit in on the man-in-the-middle attack

Facebook Will Fight German Anonymity Law And $26K Fine Against Zuckerberg To Keep Real Name Policy | TechCrunch

Software

Nokia Boss: “Today we are with Microsoft, but anything is possible” – is the contract with Microsoft non-exclusive?

WINDOWS 8: Do People Want To ‘Touch’ Laptop Screen? – Business Insider – interesting observations about price points for Windows devices, the comments section is particularly interesting with desperate sounding justification of Windows 8. Whether people want to touch their screen they are likely to getting touchscreen laptops at some point

Java Was Strongly Influenced by Objective-C – interesting how programming languages influence each other, how would this sit with current IP stances?

Polyvore Engineering Blog: Web Developer Admits: Objective-C > HTML5 – provides more engaging experience

Steve Ballmer’s Dilemma ~ I, Cringely – interesting financial analysis on Microsoft

Communities Dominate Brands: Kantar November Numbers: Suggest Decline in Windows Phone and.. Increase in Symbian? Nokia is so doomed – interesting bits in the comments

Samsung and NTT Docomo Bet on Tizen OS to Rival iOS/Android in 2013 | SiliconANGLE – interesting that NTT Docomo is less concerned about vendor consolidation than OS consolidation

Technology

Two supercomputers crunched the data and concluded high frequency trading has “little impact on our lives”

Panasonic halting LCD production to focus on OLED TV and 4K tablet – News – Trusted Reviews – all of those LCD plants could seem like a millstone for Samsung et al in a couple of years

Tablets Will Overtake Laptops in 2013 – AllThingsD – in the same way that mainframes and workstations / mini-computers haven’t died out but become specialised

Tech’s Hot New Market: The Poor | Wired.com – disrupting pay-day loans etc

USC – 25% of PC owners may switch to other devices, reports Center for the Digital Future & Bovitz, Inc. – downshifting computing power, tablets and phones as substitute products

Global Semiconductor Revenues Grew Less Than 1% In 2012: IDC – poor PC component sales

One In Four Americans Owns A Tablet, Overtaking E-Readers, As Printed Book Consumption Continues To Decline: Pew | TechCrunch

Telecoms

Future Internet Architectures Aim to Better Serve Billions of Tablets and Smartphones | MIT Technology Review – new ideas in network architecture

Apple slashes price on Thunderbolt cable, releases additional shorter model | 9to5Mac – interesting that this story ranked so highly in Techmeme despite CES

Web of no web

CES: Sunnyvale chipmaker Invensense seeks to bring GPS indoors – San Jose Mercury News

Wireless

Schiller: Despite popularity of cheap smartphones, they won’t be the future of Apple’s products – The Next Web

Deciphering the Decline in Spanish Mobile Accounts – NYTimes.com

Apple secures majority of US smartphone market, Samsung dominates Europe | ZDNet

Nokia’s Lumia Offered at Discounts – WSJ.com – looks like Nokia demand is soft