Category: taiwan | 中華民國 | 중화민국 | 民国

Ni hao – welcome to the Taiwan category of this blog. This is where I share anything that relates to the island of Taiwan, business issues relating to Taiwan, people from the island of Taiwan, or Taiwanese-specific culture. I don’t post that often about Taiwan but given its strategic location, vibrant culture and importance in global manufacturing I’d like to remedy that.

Taiwan has a range of cultural exports including music, but most of that is focused addressing a Chinese speaking audience. Many of China’s stars actually come from across the strait. Many Chinese factories are actually owned and run by Taiwanese companies with many managers and engineers crossing the straits to work. They were as responsible for the success and opening up as their Hong Kong brethren who moved their factories upstream along the Pearl river delta.

The Republic of China to give it its formal name has had a complex history, acting as a cradle of traditional Chinese culture that was destroyed and remade on the mainland under Mao Zetong. He was looking to build a new country, while Chiang Kai-shek was looking to preserve as much of an old country as he could. The island across the strait was like a seed bank ready to regenerate the mainland at some point in the future.

Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if the Palace museum launched a collaboration with a brand that had great design chops and that I thought was particularly notable that might appear in design as well as Taiwan. Or if there was a new white paper from the government of Taiwan, that might appear in ideas and Taiwan. If there are Taiwanese related subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

Canon semiconductor manufacturing disruption + more

Canon semiconductor manufacturing disruption

I started thinking about Canon semiconductor manufacturing disruption when I read this article: Canon looks to nanoimprint tech for 2nm lithography | EE News Europe. Canon semiconductor manufacturing disruption looked on the horizon with the announcement of its nano imprint technology. Nano imprint approach is something that has been explored for a a couple of decades, but had so far been rejected due to challenges of implementation.

Future Ventures on Moore’s Law

Canon now claims that they have it ready for production on middle edge processes with a potential address current leading edge processes. Canon has stuck with nano imprint as a development approach because it is adjacent to Canon’s core technology expertise in inkjet printing.

Canon semiconductor disruption depends on whether it can change the technology roadmaps of memory chip makers and other fabs. This is going to be unlikely, but Canon semiconductor manufacturing disruption could disrupt the outlook for other vendors, notably Dutch equipment maker ASML.

Canon semiconductor disruption seems to be part of a wider movement to rethink how semiconductors and adjacent products are manufactured to better facilitate further scaling at reduced capital costs, but few if any will be successful: Dracula plans Europe’s largest OPV plant with inkjet printing | EE News Europe

China

Scottish Water admits solar farms could use parts linked to China’s forced labour camps | Scotland | The Guardian

The end of China’s economic miracle shows how China has followed a similar curve to Korea and Japan in terms of economic growth.

CSIS

Design

A quote from Benedict Evans | Simon Willison – on the limitations of chat-based interfaces for LLMs

Huge entertainment ‘city’ in Tokyo transformed with variable typographic identity – expect this to be fashionable in design circles

Economics

Retail sales, Great Britain – Office for National Statistics – UK consumers spending power is relatively inelastic and inflation is eroding it.

Britain needs to take its sheds more seriously | FT – more attention needed for logistics and warehousing (I imagine that Brexit has added pressure)

Energy

Electric truck pioneer Volta Trucks files for bankruptcy | EE News Europe – supply chain collapse for its batteries caused the business to file for bankruptcy.

Ethics

Excerpt from ‘Career and Family’ by Claudia Goldin – Harvard Gazette – the idea of ‘greedy careers’ is very interesting.

Starbucks is trying to distance itself from union workers who have taken a pro-Palestinian stance | Quartz – brand purpose is complex.

Gadgets

Daring Fireball: There’s a New Apple Pencil With a USB-C Port, and My Thoughts Turn to the Complexity of the Overall iPad Lineup

Health

EMA looks into falsified Ozempic with German and Austrian origins – Endpoints News – it was inevitable that this was going to happen.

How neurodivergence became a subculture | Dazed

Hong Kong

‘We don’t feel safe here’: Hongkongers in UK fear long reach of Chinese government | Transnational repression | The Guardian

Innovation

Japan trials wireless fast charging of moving vehicles | EE News Europe

Yamaha’s Self-Balancing Motorcycle Seeks to Push Human-Machine Interface – Core77

NEC develops 150 GHz Antenna-on-Chip transmitter IC | EE News Europe

Japan

Halloween Spooks Shibuya – Matt Alt’s Pure Invention – the impact of the western Hallowe’en festival on Japanese culture.

Luxury

A New Age Of Genderless Brands? – Branding Strategy Insider – Mikimoto pearls managing to attract men. I see this as an extension of century’s old ‘dandy’ culture from the pearly kings and queens, to 1970s African American style in Detroit and some of Dapper Dan’s work that looked to come up with ostentatious looks.

Marketing

WPP, Y&R, WTF? ‘Merging’ Away Storied And Expensive Agency Brands Doesn’t Add Up | The Drum

Brands lose by ignoring Gen X — here’s what the numbers say | Marketing Dive – the bit that these miss is that this cohort has always been missed out because of its size, this cohort has always been underrepresented in advertising. Secondly, half of your consumer life time spend is done by the time you are 35 and a lot of brand associations are built by then. More on the same theme which seems to have been provoked by a Wavemaker report – Myth-representation is mis-representation: What’s stopping brands targeting over 50s? | Creative Moment.

DDB on localising adidas Originals: “We Gave the World an Original, It Gives Us a Thousand Back” | LBBOnline – I think DDB Hong Kong’s ‘original spirit’ is better than the global campaign theme.

Media

Jon Stewart’s The Problem Canceled at Apple Amid Creative Differences – The Hollywood Reporter – “Mr. Stewart told members of his staff on Thursday that potential show topics related to China and artificial intelligence were causing concern among Apple executives, a person with knowledge of the meeting said.”

Disney ads chief: TikTok is now our ‘programming extension’ – The Media Leader and TikTok moves into OOH and cinema – The Media Leader implies that TikTok represents an existential threat to media buying function of agency for some clients

Online

The Digital Town Square Doesn’t Exist Yet | The Atlantic

Chinese Bloggers Might Soon Be Required to Display Their Real Names on Social Media Platforms – the government already knows who they are, this seems to be an effort to expose them more to the general public – which can be volatile and vindictive. And so, this is likely to be an effort to use crowd pressure to reduce divergent or innovative opinions, so the party becomes the originator.

Security

Latest 23andMe data claim would take leaked records to 5M • The Register

Hamas-linked app offers window into cyber infrastructure, possible links to Iran | CyberScoop

Five Eyes spy chiefs warn Silicon Valley over Chinese threat | FT

Fearing China, South Korea targets firms building Taiwan navy submarines | Reuters

Israeli Cybersecurity Startups: Impact of a Growing Conflict | Dark Reading

Predator Files: Technical deep-dive into Intellexa Alliance’s surveillance products – Amnesty International Security Lab more on it here.

Software

Amazon is thinking about quantumcomputing | Patent Drop – Amazon’s tech essentially acts as a middleman between a quantum computer and the user interface. First, a user makes a request with this service through an “edge computing device” — their own device that isn’t connected to the quantum computer itself. Then the system will “automatically translate the quantum task, quantum algorithm, or quantum circuit” into a representation that a quantum computer can understand. This system will then pick the right quantum computer for a certain job, and work with it on the back end to complete the request

Taiwan

New space age collaboration: how Taiwan’s satellite supply chain is driving innovation | DigiTimes

Taiwan’s aging population | Taiwan Data Stories

Technology

Qualcomm, Google confirm RISC-V wearable chip | EE News Europe – something to think about if you were ARM Semiconductor. More here: Does Qualcomm’s new RISC V chip matter? | Digits to Dollars

Foxconn taps Nvidia for AI data centres and EV factories | EE News Europe

Chinese chip equipment makers grab market share as US tightens curbs | Reuters

December 5, 2023
Western fast fashion + more things
Western fast fashion

Western fast fashion brands have managed to spread around the world, despite concerns over working conditions, product quality and impact on the environment. But things have gone into reverse for western fashion brands in China. Just over a decade ago saw China as a potential growth market. But over the past five years things have gone badly for them.

Looking at western fast fashion brand H&M’s presence in China, there has been a consistent decline since a 2017 peak of 507 stores in China.

Data via Daxue Consulting and South China Morning Post

The reasons cited by Chinese consumers online include:
- Western fast fashion brands aren’t cut / styled for ‘Asian body types’. This sounds like a need for extended sizing
- Local trends: the clothing doesn’t fit with local trends in design in the same way that local rivals can. Brands to keep an eye out for include Urban Revivo and JNBY
- Other foreign brands meet the needs of young Chinese consumers better. These include Brandy Melville, and its “Malibu beach babe” look, while Chuu, is a Korean brand with K-pop aesthetics
More related content here.

Beauty

Luxury skincare for dogs is a thing. Here’s what to know about dog shampoo and paw care.

China

Panda Diplomacy: The Departure of DC’s Beloved Pandas May Signal a Wider Chinese Pullback – The Diplomat

US Department of State: Global Engagement Center Special Report: HOW THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA SEEKS TO RESHAPE THE GLOBAL INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT

Consumer behaviour

Wavemaker unveils first-of-its-kind global research into Gen X on social – Wavemaker Global – subtext they will be more prosperous due to their parents dying. I still think understanding life stages is more important than understanding ‘generations’

Economics

How China’s “debt traps” actually work – by Noah Smith – interesting assessment on how the Belt and Road projects actually fared. The Chinese government was let down by poor planning and execution by its contractors

Energy

New technology uses wind power to reduce cargo ships’ emissions, fuel use : NPR – interesting article. Back when my Dad worked in shipbuilding 40 years ago there were proposals and trials for similar designs. Economics are now making this technology a reality

Finance

Hong Kong fintech unicorn WeLab targets eight-fold growth in customers, tapping digital banking demand in Southeast Asia

Gadgets

Ming-Chi Kuo: The iPhone 15 Pro Overheating issues aren’t related to TSMC’S 3nm node – Patently Apple – compromises in design and performance trade-offs

Apple releases fix for issue causing the iPhone 15 to run ‘warmer than expected’

Health

Opinion | America’s Next Public Health Moonshot Should Tackle Health Spans – The New York Times

How Japan dealt with its amphetamine problem.

UK prime minister wants to raise the legal age to buy cigarettes in England so eventually no one can – the New Zealand model

Hong Kong

Nope | Big Lychee, Various Sectors – vintage curation by Hemlock

Japan

Japan’s toddler superstar: the baby bringing hope to a ghost village | Financial Times

Luxury

China’s ‘Chanel’? Chinese Beauty Brand Florasis Is Raising Eyebrows on Weibo | What’s on Weibo – this might find ridiculous, but a mix of Chinese guo chao and targeting the global south’s wealthy could see it happen. Whether or not the products are actually comparable is a whole other question

Inside Hatton Garden’s turbo-charged watch market – The Face

Prada is designing Nasa spacesuits. Will luxury customers wear them next? | Vogue Business – if nothing else it puts Prada’s innovation credentials out there which are a key part of the brand’s apparel story

Marketing

Gooding: Feminist brands need to be conscious and proactive – The Media Leader

The power of awe – The Media Leader

How VMLY&R Created a Jennifer Lopez AI for Virgin Voyages | LBBOnline – AI Jenni from the blockchain (sorry I couldn’t resist)

AI Coming to White Castle Drive-Thrus With Help From SoundHound, Samsung

Coca-Cola credits ‘world class marketing’ as it ups growth forecast – credits work on lowering entry points through price-pack architecture and digitised B2B platforms after raising organic revenue forecast for 2023

Media

Dentsu warns brands over tech ‘battling’ to increase ad revenue – The Media Leader – Global media buyer Dentsu’s forward-looking report said there had been an “explosion of the ad-supported segment” and that next year will see “an intensification of competition between ad platforms” with more lookalike apps, data partnership possibilities, premium subscriptions and a further proliferation of advertising formats and offerings. “Brands will have to balance these opportunities with risks to alienate audiences”, the report said. Especially given the fact digital adspend is forecast to hit $450.6bn in 2024, but its year-on-year growth is slowing to 6.2%. This means tech platforms are “battling” to increase their advertising revenue by launching new formats and carrying more placements. Some examples the report highlighted included: developments in adoption of search advertising on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, the rise of retail media on commerce sites, ticketing platforms and delivery apps, forecasted “spectacular growth” in advertising on connected TV (CTV), advertising video on-demand players launching new formats like YouTube’s unskippable 30-second ads, and major streaming players (and Amazon’s Audible) trialling or launching ad-supported plans

Security

The Gambling Industry in Ukraine: Financial and National Security Threats | Royal United Services Institute

Gulnara Karimova Accused of Running Criminal Organization in New Swiss Indictment – The Diplomat – Swiss federal prosecutors filed an indictment against Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan’s first president Islam Karimov, and an unnamed former general director of the Uzbek subsidiary of a Russian telecommunications company for alleged involvement in a criminal organization, money laundering, bribe taking, and forgery. The charges extend over a period of time running from 2005 to 2013 and mark the latest expansion and extension of criminal proceedings against Karimova and her associates. Karimova, once envisioned as a possible successor to her father, lived large and fell hard.

S Korean spy agency warns shipbuilders of N Korean hacking attempts — Radio Free Asia

Taiwan

The Big Lie About Taiwan – The Atlantic – TL;DR – Taiwan is not China

Technology

Power drives SK Telecom to AI pyramid strategy | EE News Europe – The AI Infrastructure plan consists of data centre, AI semiconductor, and multiple large language models (LLM) will serve as a technology platform. This will introduce energy-saving technologies including immersion cooling system and hydrogen fuel cells, and expand into the AI hosting business that generates higher margins by bundling these energy-saving solutions with Sapeon’s neural processing unit (NPU) and SK Hynix’s high bandwidth memory (HBM). – I am surprised that we haven’t seen similar ventures from Oracle, IBM and Fujitsu so far

Intel begins EUV lithography of ‘Intel 4’ process in Ireland | EE News Europe

Intel plans to IPO its FPGA business | EE Newechs Europe

Apple reportedly absorbs rising costs for making iPhone 15 in India | DigiTimes

Web of no web

Apple Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo Wonders Why anyone Needs Apple Vision Pro and more – Patently Apple – where’s the compelling app? It might be in the enterprise, like aircraft servicing
November 16, 2023
Humane AI pin + more things

Humane AI pin

The Humane AI pin has been hyped for a while. Now it’s been launched as a product with what seems to be a small initial batch based on a waiting list and drop type distribution model. I thought I would wait a bit to post on the Humane AI pin and let the dust settle.

The Humane AI pin is an interesting take on a personal device. particularly with its ‘AI experience’ switching – picking the right smarts for the right task. This seem to fulfil the kind of vision that the likes of Kevin Kelly have outlined in the past. It also seems to access communications services like messaging services and the audio design in the product seems interesting. There is also a projected interface of sorts on the Humane AI pin. It’s an interesting alternative direction to the spatial computing vision of Apple’s Vision Pro.

The Humane AI device falls down in being such a network-centric device. Although it has onboard machine learning technology, its reliance on a relationship with T-Mobile US’ cellular network is problematic. Cellular connectivity is not ubiquitous. It is one of several device visions that have been articulated over the years, but what I still don’t understand is the ‘why?’

What’s going to be more interesting is what the Humane AI pin does next?

Beauty

How Chinese influencer Li Jiaqi’s outburst turned the poster child of C-beauty into a laughing stock

China

China’s first deficit in foreign investment signals West’s ‘de-risking’ pressure | Reuters

US law firms rethink China future amid economic woes, data crackdown | Reuters – Of the 73 largest U.S. law firms with a presence in China, 32 shrank their attorney presence in the last decade, according to a Reuters review of data from Leopard Solutions, which tracks law firm hiring. In Beijing, 26 of the 48 largest U.S. law firms drew down their presence since 2018. Worthwhile reading with: US consultancy Gallup withdraws from China | FT – market research was sensitive when I worked in China. Gallup’s business was closer to consulting than a pollster to get around these challenges. Interesting that they can no longer thread the needle in China

China’s family-run businesses face succession challenges – Nikkei Asia – more than 80% of China’s 1 billion private enterprises are family-owned, with about 29% of these businesses in traditional manufacturing. From 2017 to 2022, around three-quarters of China’s family businesses are in the midst of a generational leadership transition

Economics

Fading prosperity and global shipping surplus pose challenges | DigiTimes

Maersk cuts 10,000 jobs as shipping demand falls – BBC News

Energy

Shipowners urged to protect vessels against electric-car fires | FT

Russia’s weaker hand undermines case for Power of Siberia 2 gas link to China | Reuters

FMCG

Post-pandemic party’s over as Americans shun cognac | FT – Half of all cognac in the US is drunk by African Americans, a demographic that has been disproportionately affected by the cost of living crisis, according to analysis by Bernstein. The skew to African American consumers is in part due to the fact that French spirits producers ignored the segregation mandated by America’s Jim Crow laws and “cultivated the African American market segment in ways that other producers did not,” said David Crockett, professor of marketing at the University of Illinois Chicago. French spirits producers at the time marketed to Black-owned and targeted publications. As early as the 1970s the advertisements conveyed a message of upward socio-economic mobility, said Naa Oyo Kwate, a sociologist at Rutgers University

Sprite Ads Starred Rappers When Hip-Hop Was Young

25-Year Lasagna, Special Ops Oatmeal, and the Survival Food Boom | WIRED

Finance

The BofA $136B Dynamite Stick – Puck – treasury bond related losses.

Health

Did the Carpal Tunnel Epidemic Ever Really End? – The Atlantic

Plain packaging on cereal? The obesity crisis is far more complex | Comment and Opinion | The Grocer

Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Activist Who Called Washington’s Bluff – The Atlantic – The United States praised Joshua Wong and pledged itself to Hong Kong’s freedom. But when China cracked down, Wong found himself with nowhere to go….

Wong wanted to enter the U.S. consulate. The diplomats told him that only the rooms in the St. John’s Building were on offer, and that the office tower did not offer the protection of a diplomatic compound. In Washington, Ngo took the matter up with one of Hawley’s policy advisers, reasoning that the ultra-Trumpian senator might have the president’s ear. Responding at 1 a.m., Hawley’s staffer promised to pass the message on to his boss, but nothing changed. On July 1, the national-security law passed. The diplomats’ positions were the same: Wong couldn’t enter the consulate and couldn’t apply for asylum from outside the United States. Wong and Ngo knew the rules. But they were asking for the same pathway to haven that had been granted to Fang and Chen…

The focus in Washington has moved on from Hong Kong to Taiwan. The island is under constant military threat from Beijing, which claims the territory as its own, even though the Chinese Communist Party has never controlled it. But for those in Taiwan who cherish their democracy, Hong Kong’s story offers a cautionary tale. The United States gave Hong Kong’s cause its vocal backing, then abandoned the city in its time of greatest need.

Bored Ape crypto fans report ‘eye burn’ after Hong Kong party | FT – this comes on the back of safety problems of a Mirror concert at a local arena in July 2022.

This city never slept. Now with China tightening its grip, is the party over? | CNN Business

Asia is much more important to U.S. interests than the Middle East | Noahpinion – East Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, and until recently, Hong Kong are arguably the world’s most magnificent — hyper-dense and efficient and bustling with life and creativity and personal freedom, but also extremely safe. East Asia is a wealthy region with high quality of life across the board, rivaled only by North Europe and parts of the Anglosphere. Maciej Cegłowski called them “Zeroth World”, and I think that is an apt description. – the burn for Hong Kong on this is real

Ideas

The challenges of sustainable societies and solar punk.

The one where Chandler Bing’s impenetrable job defined a generation | FT – André Spicer, Executive Dean of Bayes Business School, suggests a new category altogether: a “Chandler Bing job”, one indifferent to finding meaning, “low on existential rewards but relatively high on extrinsic rewards, like pay and promotion”. Chandler’s stoicism more broadly reflects Gen X’s tacit acceptance of their lot: the forgotten latchkey kids squished between the Baby Boomers and the Millennials. Jennifer Dunn, author of Friends: A Cultural History, says he “showed that we might not all find fulfilment in the first, or even the longest lasting job we will ever have.” Compared to today’s employers who are increasingly concerned about making their younger colleagues happy, few cared about Gen X’s work-life balance.

Korea

Korea’s brutal economy.

Luxury

Skims and Swarovski Announce Collaboration | BoF – Austrian crystal company Swarovski announced on Wednesday its partnership with the shapewear and clothing brand SKIMS on a collection of body jewellery, intimates and ready-to-wear, co-designed by SWAROVSKI’s creative director Giovanna Engelbert and Skims founder Kim Kardashian. The range, which launches Nov. 7 on Swarovski’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan as well as online

Morgan Stanley’s Top 20 Swiss Watch Company Ranking for 2023 | Professional Watches

Former Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld says ‘no one’ wanted to dress Kim Kardashian | The Independent

Marketing

IPA and ISBA Launch Industry Principles for Use of Generative AI in Advertising | LBBOnline

Media

Chinese tech executive Chen Shaojie, CEO of DouYu, said to be held ‘incommunicado’ after authorities find porn on popular live-streaming platform | South China Morning Post

John Battelle’s Search Blog Why Prime Time TV Might Make a Comeback | Battelle Media

Is the Music Business Losing Money to Sped-Up Song Remixes? – Billboard

Tech In Asia gets the exit and acquirer we all expected | Asian Tech Review – acquired by Singapore Press Holdings

Online

Israel-Gaza war fuels online anti-Semitism, Islamophobia in China | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

Short-Form War | No Mercy / No Malice – TikTok as weapon, chances are China has its thumb on the direction of the algorithm

Why Puma Sees a Future in Virtual Products, Despite the NFT Bust | BoF

Did SEO experts ruin the internet or did Google? – The Verge

The OpenAI Keynote – Stratechery by Ben Thompson – OpenAI as consumer technology company

Retailing

Kantar’s O’Donnell Unravels The Secrets To Gaining Unplanned Purchases – NCA

TikTok Shop Sellers Make Money From Viral Products but Fear Penalties | Business Insider – why can’t TikTok shop handle viral product demand?

Shein’s US head of strategy on the company’s business model

Fortnum & Mason resumes delivery to the EU following Brexit troubles – Retail Gazette

Security

Big Brother Unchained: UK Government to Abolish Biometrics and Surveillance Safeguards As It Embraces Facial Recognition | naked capitalism

Software

Apple is Heavily Invested In Generative AI While Samsung Seeks Help From Microsoft’s ChatGPT And Google’s Bard

This Cheat Sheet Can Help You Unlock ChatGPT’s Full Potential

What are the autonomous car levels? Levels 1 to 5 of driverless vehicle tech explained | CAR Magazine

How AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Bard work – visual explainer | Technology | The Guardian

Xiaomi launches home-grown cross-device system with HyperOS, as US-sanctioned Huawei moves further from Google’s Android | South China Morning Post – not a lot of detail in the underpinnings at launch but imagine that it will have Linux at the heart

Taiwan

The US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth – BBC News

Technology

Apple unveils M3 processor threeseome for Mac computers | EE News Europe as a counterpart to
Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit – The Gauntlet – Radio Free Mobile

Telecoms

Starlink’s competition: Astranis.

Web of no web

BMW ConnectedRide smartglasses bring head-up displays to eyewear | CAR Magazine

MB.OS: How Mercedes’ new software push gives it a direct line to customers | CAR Magazine – at the end of the day this looks like a dystopian Dubai night club, but without bottle service and ‘hostesses’

November 11, 2023
CX research + more things
CX research

IPSOS conducts CX research on an annual basis. They surveyed 1,000 CX (customer experience) specialists around the world about the current state of CX in their businesses. The IPSOS CX research painted a complex picture of organisations. Key take outs of the CX research:
- 82% of respondents believed that CX investment will provide a competitive edge, but only 52% were expecting an increase investment over the next 12 months.
- 28% of respondents admitted that their organisation’s CX was worse than promised and only 15% of respondents consider their organisations ‘CX leaders’.
- Only 52% have CX governance policies in place.
At the present time the majority of CX leaders have data integration issues and 46% now have to integrate AI as well, adding to their business challenge.

Beauty

Hailey Bieber Fulfills Glazed Donut Promise, Announces Rhode x Krispy Kreme Collaboration – Fashionista – via BBH Singapore’s Culture Bleats newsletter

Business

Games Workshop: model maker represents the best of Britain | Financial Times

China

Foxconn offers higher hourly rates for workers in Shenzhen at its Huawei production unit than its iPhone operation | South China Morning Post – Foxconn’s FIH unit manufactures handsets and electronics devices for Huawei and other smartphone firms. Although China remains its most important production centre, Apple has been diversifying its supply chain amid rising geopolitical tensions.

China denies claims of iPhone ban, but leaves vague hints | DigiTimes

China’s coming lawfare offensive | Financial Times

Consumer behaviour

By far the biggest risk factor for suicide is being male | Of Boys And Men

Culture

The news report that drove mainstream interest in the new romantics or blitz kids as they are sometimes known.

Economics

Omdia: Semiconductor Industry Reverses Downtrend, Achieves 3.8% Revenue Growth in 2Q23

CALM highlights the financial worries of the nation and its affect on mental health | Creative Moment

The rise of surge pricing: ‘It will eventually be everywhere’ | Financial Times – this will drive inflation as it maximises revenue more efficiently

Ethics

Environmentally friendly clothing brand Patagonia gets called out about the ‘greenwashing’ design of its buffalo work boots by the Rose Anvil YouTube channel who specialise in analysing boot and shoe design.

Finance

$56M in London property tied to alleged China crime ring — Radio Free Asia

Health

Juul got young people hooked on nicotine—Blip wants to help them quit | Fast Company

How to

Project Gutenberg Audio books – thanks to our Matt

Ideas

John Lanchester · Get a rabbit: Don’t trust the numbers · LRB 21 September 2023

Innovation

MEMS builds tiny space thruster that runs on water | EE News Europe – Researchers at Purdue University showed a water-based thruster for nano satellites in 2017.

No-hands driving | Axios – on ADAS

Thermoelectric Cooling: Paving the Path to AV Safety – EE Times

Luxury

Timed out! Rugby World Cup 2023 referees not wearing watches due to sponsor dispute | Stuff.co.nz – in some ways Tudor are very much like their big cousin Rolex. This move came across as petty, the problem is that Tudor seems to have made mistakes in its sponsorship and doesn’t have the gravitas of Rolex.

Daring Fireball: Hermès Still Sells Leather Apple Watch Straps, But Only Through Their Own Store – which is very different to the impression that Apple gave during their autumn keynote ‘Wanderlust’ event.

Standard Model: The Chanel J12 Eclipse Set – LUXUO – interesting, particularly given the manufacturing problems that Rolex has had with dual colour ceramic bezels. Chanel has managed to master this and master it across the whole watch. Matching bezel and case divisions.

Interesting analysis on supercar prices.

Profile of Lacoste.

Marketing

A few days of lunch time viewing from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) media planning and strategy summit. Interesting mix of presentations and case studies.

Really interesting case study on McDonalds and how the brand has evolved over two decades in the UK.

KFC’s Colonel Sanders in Street Fighter 6 is finger breakin’ good | Yahoo! News – has also transformed wardrobe with a Loro Piana look.

The Unspoken Truth About CMO Churn | AdWeek

Online

Labs | Last.fm – I have used last.fm for 20 years and still love their experimental data visualisations.

China Sows Disinformation About Hawaii Fires Using New Techniques – The New York Times – using LLMs to generate misinformation materials.

How social media killed the protest | Financial Times

New emoji launch in association with Unicode which goes into how emojis became mainstream.

Security

Inside The Ransomware Attack That Shut Down MGM Resorts and more here: MGM, Caesars File SEC Disclosures on Cybersecurity Incidents | Dark Reading.

China’s de-risking strategy predates US, EU efforts | Quartz – it goes back to the 1980s efforts of China.

Saab buys into unicorn AI startup | EE News Europe – the focus includes use of autonomous vehicles (land, sea and air), electronic warfare and surveillance capabilities.

How I got to know Westminster’s ‘Chinese agent’ | The Spectator and China trying to headhunt British nationals in key positions, UK says | Reuters. Sunak admits UK needs more investment to combat China’s security challenge | Financial Times – it’s going to have to get smart soon.

Lithuania gets called out: Revealed: The Country that Secretly Wiretapped the World for the FBI | 404 Media.

Software

Centaurs and Cyborgs on the Jagged Frontier | One Useful Thing – on AI futures

Style

The evolution of sneakers from functional kicks to high-value commodities – ABC News

Taiwan

Taiwanese civilian drone suppliers are tapping into the defense sector | DigiTimes

Technology

Huawei’s Kirin 9000S chip made by SMIC is only a breakout, not a breakthrough

What This Year May Well Bring for the eFPGA – EE Times – embedded FPGAs allow for in-life product upgrades

Telecoms

How two SATCOM companies are responding to Starlink’s dominance
October 26, 2023
Climate despair
I started thinking about climate despair last month as I was researching my post on psychotherapy + culture.

Depth of climate despair

The driver was a research report that appeared in The Lancet in December 2021. Researchers surveyed 10,000 respondents aged between 16 – 25, in ten countries across the Asia Pacific region, North and South America, Europe and Africa. The respondents were drawn from Kantar’s LifePoints online research panel. Of those who started the survey less than 70 percent completed it. The gender split was slightly overweight towards males: 51·4% male, 48·6% female.

The survey was developed by 11 international consultants with expertise in climate change emotions, clinical and environmental psychology, psychotherapy, psychiatry, human rights law, child and adolescent mental health, and young people with lived experience of climate anxiety. Which means that there was an incentive to come out with the findings they received and that may have biased the results. But the indications are clear in terms of direction around climate despair.

Key datapoints supporting the sense of climate despair amongst respondents:
- Survey respondents across all countries were worried about climate change (59% were very or extremely worried and 84% were at least moderately worried)
- Over half of those surveyed reported each of the following emotions: sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless or guilty
- 75% of those surveyed said that they think the future is frightening
Derek Read – “C̶l̶i̶m̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶C̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ We Change”

The report says:

Distress about climate change is associated with young people perceiving that they have no future, that humanity is doomed, and that governments are failing to respond adequately, and with feelings of betrayal and abandonment by governments and adults. Climate change and government inaction are chronic stressors that could have considerable, long-lasting, and incremental negative implications for the mental health of children and young people.
Hickman, C.,Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R.E. & Mayall, E.E. (December 2021) Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. (UK) The Lancet Planetary Health

The article then goes on to hold governments accountable for a moral harm on the young people. However, a good deal of the moral harm is also due to the way companies and NGOs actually talk about climate change.

Anecdotal evidence from therapists interviewed by the New York Times suggests that climate despair tends to be more prevalent in young female patients that they see. However, this might be down to a young men being less likely to see a therapist than a young woman.

Positive reinforcement

This video from WARC features research why it is ineffective to play into the constant environment doom loop if we want action. A change in approach should start to combat the deeply entrenched feeling of climate despair.

WARC highlighted research that positive environmental images motivate people to take action. The research paper in the Journal of Advertising Research is Are consumers moved by a crying tree or a smiling forest? Effects of anthropomorphic valence and cause acuteness in green advertising written by three Taiwanese researchers based on a number of studies, each with 35 – 50 participants.

Research key findings

The paper had four key findings:
- When the environmental issue is considered a sudden disaster, negative anthropomorphism is more persuasive.
- By contrast, when the environmental issue is viewed as an ongoing tragedy, positive anthropomorphism results in a more favourable attitude, higher willingness to pay, and more money being donated.
- Consumers’ connectedness to nature serves as the underlying mechanism in this messaging. If this level of connectedness to nature is low, nonprofit organizations and companies must alter these perceptions by choosing a more appropriate anthropomorphic valence and cause acuteness in their green advertising.
All of which seems to point to a possible challenge amongst both NGOs and companies over their inability to discern the difference between important and the most urgent elements. If collectively they can’t understand the categorisation, it’s no wonder that a significant minority of their audience slips into climate despair and is discouraged from taking a more active role.

Secondly, working on consumer’s connectedness to nature is a major communications JTBD (job to be done).
October 10, 2023