My Friend Cayla
My Friend Cayla doll banned in Germany over surveillance concerns – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – So are most other connected systems such as Google Now, Siri and Alexa powered devices. My Friend Cayla has little to no security allowing it to be relatively easily hacked.
Business
Uber’s work environment sounds even worse than we thought – Business Insider – who said beer bong bro?
Snap’s IPO Draws Barclays CEO, But London Investors Remain Wary – Bloomberg – slowing user growth an issue
Economics
How Trump’s Bullying of Mexico Could Backfire | The New Republic – could Mexico follow the Asian model of economic development?
Wanda’s Dick Clark deal shaky, but not yet dead: sources | Reuters – restrictions on currency movement
What Does Trump Want? China Scours Twitter, Cocktail Parties for Clues – Bloomberg – they may decide just to wait Trump out
Ethics
Let’s not kid ourselves: sexual harassment is rampant in Silicon Valley | The Outline – bro culture and brewskis by nerds
Closer look: Assassination Report Has China Talking About Ageism – Caixin Global – interesting commentary on Huawei
FMCG
The $143bn flop: How Warren Buffett and 3G lost Unilever | FT – Back in London on Saturday, as [Unilever CEO] Mr Polman tapped into his network of contacts, he was informed that Finsbury was working with Kraft Heinz on PR. Within seconds, Mr Polman blasted off an email to Sir Martin Sorrell, the founder and chief executive of WPP, the advertising company that counts Unilever as one of its most important clients. Finsbury, which is majority owned by WPP, was removed from the Kraft Heinz side by the end of the day. – guessing Kraft Heinz isn’t worth that much for WPP, also think that you can take Colgate Palmolive off the table as well since they are a big WPP customer
Japan
Japan’s wild, creative Harajuku street style is dead. Long live Uniqlo | Quartz – think Camden market before the energy got sucked out of it
Korea
Ask a Korean!: Presidential Election and Spy Agency – Interesting article on fake news in Korea
Luxury
Hurun: China’s Super-Rich Name Apple, Bulgari As Top Brands for Gifting | Jing Daily – interesting rise of Alipay rather than UnionPay
Marketing
Ask uncomfortable questions: UBS and boundary-pushing content marketing | Campaign – odd partnership with Vice Media
Developers | Uber – interesting stuff on augmenting a passengers journey as marketing opportunity via the API
Media
Don’t Look Now, but the Great Unbundling Has Spun Into Reverse – NYTimes.com – bundling started to be used by online business for the same reasons as offline
Security
Apple Severed Ties with Server Supplier After Security Concern — The Information – I imagine that this is what being a target of the NSA’s tailored access programme would look like. There are a number of other state actors with similar capabilities. SuperMicro is interesting because it assembles servers outside China – instead it has factories in San Jose, The Netherlands and Taiwan
Nuts and Bolts of Encryption: A Primer for Policymakers by Edward W Felten (Princeton University) – great 101 guide (PDF)
Technology
NVIDIA’s GTX 1080: The Tip Of The Iceberg? – OneRiver Media Blog – Apple need to sort their Pro range out
Web of no web
Smart Waggle Boosts IoT | EE Times – interesting move towards a thicker client on IoT for cloud
Wireless
Oppo knocks: Beating Apple, Xiaomi and the gang in China | The Economist – BBK the parent of Oppo and Vivo was a successful feature phone maker with good channels and manufacturing smarts – Huawei should be afraid