7 minutes estimated reading time
Bassline
Bassline: The UK Dance Scene That Was Killed by the Police | VICE United Kingdom – Bassline was a Sheffield-specific scene. Sheffield has had a history of birthing electronic music genres. The most notable one for me was the bleep techno scene from the late 1980s. Bassline built on the trends that came before it. It has a more driving 4:4 beat than speed garage, lush burbling analogue synths for the techno and acid house heritage of the city. Finally some of the bassline tracks had some string stabs that brought to mind the early Chicago house and detroit technology a la Rhythm is Rhythm and OctaveOne.
The policing policies of the early 2000s were an extension of the top down culture war against youth culture of the late 1980s and early 1990s. We missed out on an interesting time in dance music with bassline. Who knows where it might have taken things, could bassline have led to a less sterile EDM sound?
What bassline sounds like
Business
Battle Over Spreadtrum/RDA Merger | EE Times
Wealth and Power at Capital M | Jottings from the Granite Studio
Tencent profit 22% higher | RTHK
China Mobile’s annual profits just fell for the first time in 14 years – Quartz – due to building out 4G network, disruption by OTT messaging companies and selling te iPhone
EnfoDesk: China B2C Market Hit 763.71 Billion Yuan in 2013 — China Internet Watch
UPDATE 2-Tencent sharpens focus on WeChat expansion | Reuters – nice breakdown on the Tencent finances
Asia’s richest man’s latest vote of confidence in Europe is a dual-listed Watsons IPO – Quartz
Consumer behaviour
China’s Unquenchable Thirst for Fashion Set to Continue – Euromonitor International
Chinese Travel Willingness Report in 2014 — China Internet Watch
The Role of Second Tier Cities: Comparison by Country – Euromonitor International
Design
This summer’s most coveted new gadget may be an air conditioner – Quartz – if Dieter Rams designed an air-con unit this is what it would have looked like
Economics
London ‘Draining Life’ From Rest of U.K. Economy | Time – not really a new phenomena but interesting that Time is writing about it
Ethics
Please take this pledge: I will not hire the unqualified children of my friends as summer interns | Quartz – interesting stance against middle class privilege
FMCG
Health market a big opportunity: report| China Daily – Chinese consumers trust Chinese medicine more than western OTC products due to their side-effects
Café de Coral charity drive takes wrong turn | Marketing Interactive – brands need to be so careful with charity / product consumption promotions wrapped up as CSR
Check Out How Coca Cola Makes the Most of WeChat Marketing — China Internet Watch
Gadget
Revived Chinon goes retro with digital camera that looks like movie camera – AJW by The Asahi Shimbun – I love the look of this, its also really sad to hear how Japan’s manufacturing capabilities have died off in this way
Exclusive: Xiaomi Unboxed | EE Times
Innovation
Debt and Innovation | Excapite
Chinese scientists urged to develop new thorium nuclear reactors by 2024 | South China Morning Post – (paywall)
Japan
Japanese netizens get creative with custom iPhone unlock screens | RocketNews24 – by careful use of text to provide more meaning around the ‘unlock screen’ text on the iPhone lock screen
What China’s responses to Abe’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine tell us – The Asahi Shimbun – I think this is probably a bit optimistic
Visual translator app Waygo adds Japanese to its slate – The Next Web
Happy birthday Hello Kitty! Superstar cat celebrates 40th anniversary | South China Morning Post – (paywall)
Korea
South Korea is building casinos for Chinese tourists who can’t afford gambling in Macau anymore
Legal
Xiaomi tops the list of most-complained about mobile brand｜WantChinaTimes.com – a lot of it seems to be about counterfeit devices
Contracts as Technology | Organisations and Markets
Luxury
Baselworld Brand Book 2014 – BASELWORLD 2014 – great example of digital luxury marketing
Inside Airbnb’s Grand Hotel Plans | Fast Company
Marketing
10 Ways to Localize Digital Marketing in China | ClickZ – common sense stuff here
Brands and Social: Finding the Perfect Fit – GroupM Next
Multi channel marketing options – Smart Insights Digital – analysis of 40+ channels
Media
Chinese Publisher CITIC for the First Time Profited from Digital Books in 2013 | TechNode
Yahoo Wants To “Tell Better Stories” With New Motion Ads | Marketingland
Global ad spending by medium: Internet gets 1 in 5 ad dollars – Digital Intelligence
What’s the Potential of a Potential Impression? Understanding the Twitter Metric | Simply Measured
Online
After WhatsApp: An Insider’s View On What’s Next In Messaging | TechCrunch – interesting read on messaging services
China tops 3.5 million websites | wantchinatimes.com
Google Reader announced its shutdown exactly a year ago | NewsBlur blog – interesting article on scaling a web service
Renren targets students | WARC – no real surprise given RenRen has a very young active membership anyway
WeChat sees resurgent growth, now has 355 million active users | Techinasia
In San Francisco, Landlords Are Evicting Some Tenants For Using Airbnb | Fast Company
Retailing
Fast fashion brands under scrutiny in China | wantchinatimes.com
Amazon’s mainland unit closes vendor after report of fake cosmetics | South China Morning Post – Amazon has very little of the Chinese market but this shows that its brand can’t offer a more authentic shopping experience than TaoBao
Alibaba bets on Taobao mobile app to boost sales | WantChinaTimes – Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group launched the 24-hour sale “Mobile Taobao 3.8 Life Festival” on March 8 in a bid to boost transactions made via mobile devices and drive mobile app adoption
Why New Yorkers could pay for acceding to Alibaba’s ‘Open sesame’ | SCMP – (paywall)
Retail sales lead weakness in business activity, China Beige Book survey finds | South China Morning Post – (paywall)
How do you sell a luxury fabric online? | HSBC
Nu Skin says it’s likely to be fined by Chinese authorities | SCMP – (paywall)
Mobile shopping trends: Over 50s most likely to ‘showroom’ while in store – Digital Intelligence
Security
Pentagon confirms study into reliance on (Russian) RD-180 engine underway « Space Politics – makes sanctions a bit hard when spy satellites depend on Russian engines
Silver nanowire-studded currency would be almost impossible to counterfeit | GigaOM
How Corruption Is Strangling U.S. Innovation | Harvard Business Review – you get the democracy that you pay for
IBM denies assisting NSA in customer spying | ZDNet
How Would Facebook Ever Use 97.25 Percent Accurate Face Recognition? | The Machines – be afraid
Software
If Microsoft doesn’t loosen up, Firefox won’t be the last to abandon it
Technology
Will China Conquer MEMS? | EE Times
I, Cringely An impending black swan for electric cars – I, Cringely – the battery technology could shake up goods in general
Cashing in with Chips | Improving Efficiency in Semiconductor R&D | Alix Partners
Web of no web
Can wearable technology go mainstream? – Digital Intelligence
Augmedix nabs $3.2M for a Google Glass app made just for doctors | VentureBeat – Jumps on dying bandwagon
Newsflash: Sony unveils “Project Morpheus”, new virtual reality headset for PlayStation 4 | Rocketnews24 – interesting, I wonder how they cope with the motion sickness and will software developers step up to the plate with innovative content rather just a string of first person shooters?
Yandex buys Tel Aviv’s KitLocate for low-power location service technology — GigaOm
Foursquare CEO: How We’ll Tell You Where To Eat And What To Order – ReadWrite
Wireless
Invaluable | Asymco – really interesting article on profits in smartphone sector