In addition to Evan Osnos (New Yorker) another Sino-centric blog I recommend is from the Financial Times, Dragon Beat.
Here are some recent posts of interest:
- The west should heed advice from China’s bank regulators (Link)
- Is China ready to ‘empty the bird cage’? (Link)
- Time to stop talking of renminbi as reserve currency (Link)
- Why the crisis is good for China’s Pearl River Delta (Link)
- China’s land-rights reform is vital but not enough (Link)
- How real is the threat of social unrest from China’s army of unemployed? (Link)
- Mercury and MESSENGER: The Big Picture (Boston.com)
- Juniper revs Ethernet to 100Gbps (CNet)
- Yahoo releases parallel software (EE Times)
- Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest (NY Times)
- Growing Organs in the Lab (Singularity Hub)
- Miniature Robot Attempts to Race Through the Body (Singularity Hub)
- Video: Robots Firing Guns (Wired)
- Oily fish ‘can halt eye disease’ (BBC)
- Opening Doors on the Way to a Personal Robot (NY Times)
- In Worms, Genetic Clues to Extending Longevity (NY Times)
- Genetic Tests on the Horizon (Technology Review)
- Virtual body parts take the guesswork out of medicine (NewScientist)
- Army Mechanic’s Garage Tinkering Yields 18-Foot Mecha Exoskeleton (Popular Science)
- Acoustic Black Hole Created in Bose-Einstein Condensate (Technology Review)
- Eye-Fi Pro wireless SD card hands-on (Engadget)
- Video: MakerBot’s build-it-yourself 3D printer in action, replicator in the works (Engadget)
- Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit gets its own specifications breakdown (Engadget)
There is one story that seems very discouraging: “Venture capitalists pin growth hopes on green tech” via CNet.
In the chart, notice that the semiconductor space is looking to invest the least in the coming 3 years and will in fact have the largest decrease. While that is a huge industry and should be qualified with specific niches, the belief that “Moore’s Law” will continue unabated may indeed run into an economic wall before the physical miniaturization one.
I posted this link a few days ago, but thought the video was worth embedding:
Yea, KFC operates more than 2500 restaurants out here and McDonalds has just over 1000. In the small city I live in, there are 3 KFCs and 1 McDonalds (and several knock-offs).
Here are some case-studies discussing this growth phenomenon:
- KFC in China (IBS CDC)
- Kentucky Fried Chicken in China (Ivey Business Journal)
- KFC – ‘a foreign brand with Chinese characteristics’ (John Sexton)
- McDonald’s in China (ICMR)
- McDonald’s China takes on KFC with drive-through concept (Meat Process)
- China warns Federal Reserve over ‘printing money’ (Telegraph)
- China May Test North Korea Leverage After Kim’s Nuclear Blast (Bloomberg)
- China stuck in ‘dollar trap’ (Financial Times)
- China Bid to Rival Toyota, VW May Stumble on Local Politics (Bloomberg)
- PetroChina to Pay $2.2 Billion for Singapore Refining (Bloomberg)
- World’s first camera on display in Macao (Xinhua)
- When 1.3 Billion People Are Too Many (TechCrunch) — bad title, interesting numbers
- Chinese investors to buy into Cavs (ESPN)
- Chinese group buys NT$6 bil. local Taiwan products (China Post)
- China’s Online Game Revenue Reached CNY5.514 Billion In Q1 2009 (China Tech News)
- China Goofs Off Online, We Buy Stuff (SAI)
- BitAuto: A Chinese Canary in an Online Ad Coal Mine (TechCrunch)
- Taiwan’s National Stadium gets solar panel roof (Engadget)
- An Imperial Journey: The Story Behind a Collection of Historical Clocks (WSJ)
- China builds rare-earth metal monopoly (The Australian)
- Brazil and China eye plan to axe dollar (Financial Times)
- Beijing-Hamburg train halves time by sea (Telegraph)
- Wan Hai, Shipping Companies Rise After Report on Chinese Ports (Bloomberg)
- The Almighty Renminbi? (NY Times)
- China’s Stockpiles Are New Sovereign Wealth Strategy, RBC Says (Bloomberg)
- Unit 731 (Wikipedia)
An oldie but a goodie: Crazy English: The national scramble to learn a new language before the Olympics (New Yorker)
- 25 Microchips That Shook the World (IEEE Spectrum)
- The World’s New Numbers (Wilson Quarterly)
- More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops (NY Times)
- China to Shut Small Oil Refineries, Metal Smelters (Bloomberg) — this is in response to Report on Business
- How It All Went Wrong for SGI in HPC (HPCwire)
- Proposals Would Transform College Aid (Washington Post) — because universal home ownership worked wonders…
- Operation Keelhaul (Wikipedia)
- Stem Cell Therapy Today in the People’s Republic (h+ magazine)
… direct flights between mainland China and Taiwan went from zero to 270 each week.
That is zero flights for sixty year.
I remember sitting in an expat bar in Kaohsiung at the beginning of last April listening to the Belgian owner fret over the day that peaceful exchanges took place. He, along with most others, feared that the PRC would invade and blow the island up.
The very opposite has occurred.
Not only has trade expanded, but so have visitors from the mainland. From zero a week to more than 3000 a week (and now with even more liberalization, 7000+). In addition, while Taiwanese-based companies could invest on the mainland (billions have been spent erecting factories), mainlanders can now invest in the island; approximately $1.2 billion from the QFII program is predicted to flow that way this year.
As a consequence, my friends still living on the island have said everyone seems to be less frantic than a year ago. (Of course, warm feelings probably were also helped with this big purchase of LCD monitors.)
To mark the peaceful occasion, here is another photo from the March 2008 election:
This is just outside my apartment and is taken like 10 seconds before the other one I’ve shown (I lived off of Fuguo road, between Boai and Mintzu). Other election photos here and the wiki entry on the event.
Obama could really learn from this case-study on how to deal with Cuba!
- Cutting back is hard (The Economist)
- The last, frantic days of Perot family hedge fund (Dallas Morning News)
- Technology Stocks Favorites in S&P 500 on Zero Debt (Bloomberg)
- Fannie Mae Creates Housing Mirage With Bum Loans (Bloomberg)
- IBM to hire for new ‘analytic’ centers (EE Times)
- Casualties Continue in Vietnam (In These Times)
- Woman sends stripper impersonator to highschool reunion as a prank (BoingBoing) <-- thinking outside the box!
- Beyond HDTV: 4K digital cinema might soon come home (ArsTechnica)
In a speech today, Obama said “it is time for America to lead again in the area of research and development.”
Uhh. There is a myth that government sponsored research and development funding fell during the Bush years, according to the AAAS this is incorrect. It actually fell during the Clinton years and rose dramatically in Bush’s first term.
And according to the December 2008 issue of R&D magazine (pdf), the US spent more than Japan, China and Germany combined — each and every year.
To rectify a problem that does not exist, Obama wants to boost R&D spending from 2.6% of GDP to 3% yet he does not realize that the stimulus monies will fund both good and bad research alike and crowd out the former (presumably as they both compete for scarce talents)
