How to Make Enemies and Lose Influence in the Chip Business – Bloomberg – not only Toshiba but Apple, Dell and SK Hynix – Western Digital will likely have to fall on the good graces of Samsung at a steep price discount. It will be interesting to see how Western Digital shapes out in the longer term. More technology related content here
Consumer behaviour
‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!’ The story behind the song sweeping Glastonbury – It all started in Birkenhead on a balmy evening in late May. The Libertines were due to play a gig at Prenton Park, home of Tranmere Rovers FC, when Corbyn took to the stage to say a few words about austerity and the NHS – important stuff, for sure, but not, perhaps, what the crowd had paid to see. “Thank you for giving me a few minutes,” Corbyn shouted. “And remember, this election IS. ABOUT. YOU!” And that’s when it happened, the crowd spontaneously erupted into the chant. Football fans have been using the not wholly complex compositional framework (“Oh + five-syllable name”) for years but this seems to be have been the first time Jeremy Corbyn’s name was used
Ideas
Does the UK’s ‘government-in-waiting’ really plan a robot tax? – the current state of infrastructure as described is really bad
Luxury
Luxury Brands Must Act Or Be Digitally Disenfranchised From Savvy Luxury Consumers · Forrester – Forrester’s understanding of luxury brands is behind the curve
China Sees More Luxury Stores Close Than Any Other Country | Jing Daily – multiple reasons for it. British heritage brands Burberry and Dunhill got a kicking. E-tailing has come up fast and better understanding of market sizing once we’d got through the gift culture changes driven by government corruption clamp down
Media
The FT warns advertisers after discovering high levels of domain spoofing – Digiday – This is crazy
Online
YouTube tightens rules around videos with external links – The Verge – Alphabet aren’t exactly winning friends with this move
Security
China’s Weibo Hires 1000 ‘Supervisors’ to Censor Content | The Diplomat – is this really that different to people Facebook deploy except that there is more of them? Also raises cost of doing business online in China providing a slight ding on market attractiveness
Software
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: AI should be open like PCs, not closed like the App Store | Business Insider – I guess not closed like Windows hidden APIs against Borland, Lotus etc might be a better analogy… Bit of future gazing. A lot of whitewashing the past
Is AI Riding a One-Trick Pony? MIT Technology Review – expect another AI winter sooner rather than later
Technology
Apple is really bad at design | The Outline – provocative title, interesting op-ed points. I thought the MacBook Pro touch bar was a better example
Apple Working on an ARM based MacBook isn’t Surprising because the Competition is Forcing their Hand – Patently Apple – ARM still doesn’t have the computational power of MIPS according to people like the Chinese government…
Web of no web
Varjo Raises $8.2M Investment to Further Develop “Human Eye-resolution” Headsets | Road To VR – There is a softness to VR that almost reminds me of the ‘fog’ of watching old VCR cassettes on a standard definition CRT Equipped TV set
Wireless
WeChat messaging trends