Bassline + more news

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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

Chinese Social Scientist Says Internet Hipster-Geek Slang Will Destabilize Their Society | Geekosystem

Hong Kong has more millionaires than ever – but one in 10 are considering leaving the city | South China Morning Post – (paywall)

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

The Duplication Complex: Failing to Acknowledge the Importance of ‘Mobile-Only’ Audiences – comScore, Inc

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

Apple introduces 8 GB iPhone 5c to help boost disappointing sales (update: now on European Apple stores) | 9to5Mac

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

The Price of Music | Re/code

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