Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: daily briefing

  • Daily links

    Daily links

    Today’s links are somewhat more upbeat; starting with Apple extending its lead over Android in smartphone activations, a teenager’s view on social media and Google’s declining market share.

    Apple takes the lead in smartphone activations

    In their regular survey of mobile phone activations, research company Kantor found that Apple have taken the lead back from Android phones.  The Kantar Worldpanel ComTech global consumer panel monitors the brands of phones being connected through selected apps to give them an idea of what’s going on in the smartphone marketplace.

    While not an absolute numbers, and one that was inflated by the new range of Apple iPhones released late in the year, it’s clear Apple are by no means out for the count when it comes to the smartphone market.

    What teenagers think of social media

    I’m not sure how accurate or scientific this story is, but it illustrates how complex the social media industry is and how dangerous assumptions are with what age groups use new media channels for.

    How boring can driverless cars be?

    Another story points out driverless cars are actually quite boring to ride in. Maybe we’ll all catch the train insead.

    Google loses market share

    Since signing an agreement with Firefox to be the default search engine provider, Yahoo! sees its share of the marketplace spike upwards. Should Google be worried?

    So you thought a tech job was safe?

    Document service Evernote cuts jobs proving that even a job in the hottest parts of the tech sector isn’t safe. Notable in this story is the concentration of employment in two locations which shows Silicon Valley isn’t keen on remote working at all.

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  • Links of the day – redesigning the car and South China Mall.

    Links of the day – redesigning the car and South China Mall.

    The CES extravaganza continues in Las Vegas with a wave of announcement, most of which I’m ignoring, however the motor industry continues to show off new developments with Mercedes displaying their vision of how a driverless car will look.

    Other interesting links today include an analysis of the ill fated South China Mall’s flaws and how Amazon is reorganising its R&D efforts after the failure of the Amazon Fire.

    Mercedes redesigns the car

    A little while back I suggested that we could do better in redesigning the driverless car – Mercedes have gone ahead and done it.

    Mercedes’ redesign of the driverless car indicates just what can be done when we rethink what passengers will need in the vehicles of the future.

    Ford recalls a vehicle for a UI upgrade

    Ford has recalled its Lincoln MKC SUV models for a software upgrade after discovering drivers were shutting down the cars by accident.

    What’s notable with this story is how software changes are now one of the main reasons for recalling vehicles and how design flaws in an automobile’s computer programs are relatively quickly discovered and resolved.

    We will probably find in the near future car manufacturers will carry out the upgrades remotely rather than ask owners to bring their vehicles into dealerships.

    A long running security flaw is exposed

    In August 2013 a security researcher warned UK online greeting card vendor Moonpig that its system exposed up to six million users’ account and financial details. Until Monday the company had ignored him. This is a tale of classic management disregard for customer security and one area where business culture needs to dramatically change.

    Rumours of an AOL – Verizon merger

    It’s a speculative story but if a merger between US telco Verizon and former internet giant AOL goes ahead it may mark another wave of telcos moving into content services, although it’s hard not to think that Verizon could spend its money more wisely.

    After a flop, Amazon restructures its R&D

    The Amazon Fire was by all measures a miserable flop as a smartphone however it seems the company learned some important lessons from the device’s market failures. Instead of abandoning its research efforts, the online behemoth is increasing it’s R&D budget and reorganising its development division.

    Design fails of the South China Mall

    South China Mall just south of Guangzhou has been the poster child of Chinese malinvestment during the nation’s current boom. In a blog post from 2011, a shopping mall expert visits the development and points out the major design faults in the complex which may well have doomed the project from the beginning.

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  • Links of the day: Connected cars and fast trains

    Links of the day: Connected cars and fast trains

    The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas kicks off today with thousands of product announcements at what is by far the biggest technology convention in the world. No doubt news from the show is going to dominate the tech media for the rest of the week.

    One of the biggest fields for tech vendors at CES will be Internet of Things with connected cars being in the spotlight with both BMW and General Motors leading the way.

    GM unveil their connected car of the future

    For some years GM have offered a connected car service with their OneStar system. At this year’s CES they’re showing how they intend to extend the service with more integrated social and navigation services.

    Driving the crashless car

    While we fixate on the driverless car of the future, the next few years are going to see the technologies be incrementally introduced into our motor vehicles. A good example of this is BMW’s Active Assist that CNET writer Wayne Cunningham claims he could not crash.

    The story points out Active Assist isn’t affordable in today’s cars but undoubtedly much of this technology will be standard in many automobiles by the end of the decade.

    California starts work on its high speed railway

    Cars aren’t the only thing in the news with California turning the first soil in its Los Angeles to San Francisco high speed railway.

    This troubled project has been years in the making and it’s not expected to be completed until the end of the next decade at a cost of over 60 billion dollars. An interesting aspect in the story is how communities in California’s Central Valley region are pinning their hopes of an economic resurgence from the project.

     

    Google takedown notices explode

    While cars and trains are being reinvented, the entertainment industry is still struggling with its disruption. Torrent freak reports Google is being overwhelmed with movie industry take downs notices.

    As the story suggests, this campaign is hurting Google’s relationship with the movie industry.

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  • Links of the day – dead malls, economics and politics of the future

    Links of the day – dead malls, economics and politics of the future

    Today’s interesting links revolve around economics – those of shopping malls, the future and how politics might react to a world where the majority’s incomes are lower and far more precarious than we’re used to.

    The economics of dead malls

    Shopping malls were the town square of the late Twentieth Century consumerist society. Now in many parts of the US the shopping mall is dying as economics and culture turns against them.

    The New York Times looks at the economics of shopping malls and how they are affected by changes to society, particularly the decline of working class incomes and the middle class squeeze. In the meantime high end malls seem to be doing extremely well.

    Having opened in 1986 with a renovation in 1998, Owings Mills is young for a dying mall. And while its locale may have contributed to its demise, other forces played a crucial role, too, like changing shopping habits and demographics, experts say.

    A number of factors are working against old fashioned shopping malls including growing wealth disparity, falling middle and working class incomes along with fundamental changes to the economy which mean retail businesses, along with other industries, are going to have to adapt to a very different future.

    Journey through the landscape of the future

    Some of those changes to the global economy are described in Deloitte’s Centre For The Edge’s The hero’s journey through the landscape of the future, first published in July last year.

    The Deloitte think tank describes a world where the workforce is more casualised – dare one say more precarious – and the barriers to business far lower than today.

    Democracy in the 21st Century

    Changes like those described by Deloitte don’t happen without consequences and economist Joseph Stiglitz suggests this will change our democratic institutions.

    Sadly Stiglitz doesn’t suggest the changes that might happen apart from observing the current system that seems to be baking in inequality probably isn’t sustainable.

    In a world where incomes are less stable and economic standards of livings are falling for the majority of people, the current beliefs that underpin the philosophies of political parties and government agencies become redundant. How today’s governments react to these changes will be an important question for how our societies look in the 21st Century.

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  • Links of the day – touring an old nuclear plant and terrorists misusing Twitter accounts

    Links of the day – touring an old nuclear plant and terrorists misusing Twitter accounts

    From a quiet Sunday here’s some of the stories that have kept me occupied; terrorists misusing their Twitter accounts, what chefs really think of smartphone toting customers and more musings on the future of work in an age where robots and algorithms dominate.

    To kick off the post, what does a nuclear power plant looks like after it’s been shut down?

    Touring a decommissioned nuclear plant

    Yesterday former New York Governor Mario Cuomo passed away, one of the most contraversial moves of his administration was closing down the state’s only nuclear power plant at Shoreham, Long Island.

    In March last year Nick Carr had an opportunity to tour the abandoned site and posted the story of this visit onto hist Scouting New York website.

    Where will all the workers go?

    Economist Nouriel Roubini adds to the discussion about jobs in an age of robotics and algorithms in Where Will All The Workers Go? In his Project Syndicate piece, Roubini focuses on how the current wave of automation will affect jobs in emerging markets.

    Today, for example, a patient in New York may have his MRI sent digitally to, say, Bangalore, where a highly skilled radiologist reads it for one-quarter of what a New York-based radiologist would cost. But how long will it be before a computer software can read those images faster, better, and cheaper than the radiologist in Bangalore can?

    Like the rest of us he doesn’t have any firm answers except to suggest we may have to accept a new age of under-employment. This has serious consequences for today’s consumerist societies and the economic assumptions that underpins them.

    The risks of Instagramming your Jihad

    A clumsy Kiwi jihadist gave away the location of secret training camps in Syria through his Twitter account reports the iBrabo website. Mark Taylor joined an insurgent group in June this year and publicly burned his New Zealand passport on declaring he had no intention of returning to his homeland.

    A few months after destroying his travel documents, The New Zealand Herald reported Taylor wanted to return home. All of which proves the point of The War Nerd that the best way the west can deal with its suburban jihadists is to give all of them a one way business class ticket to Syria.

    How do chefs really feel about cell phone use in restaurants?

    Many articles have been written about how restaurateurs are driven to distraction by mobile phone users in their establishments, but how true are those tales.

    The Daily Meal interviewed a dozen US chefs about their attitude towards diners taking selfies and instagramming their meals. It turns out they are more concerned about their customers enjoying their meal rather than being upset at them shooting photos.

    Hyundai connects their cars to Google Android watches

    Korean conglomerate Hyundai has joined the connected car race with an Android Wear app that works with the company’s Blue Link system. The app, designed to work on Google’s wearable devices as well as smartphones, will work allow users to lock, open and locate their cars.

    It’s another example of how car manufacturers are integrating wearable and mobile apps into vehicles and it’s a small taste of what’s possible when the smart home and the connected car start talking to each other.

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