Say hello to the Hangzhou Internet Court that is in session and accessible via WeChat. It has handled 3 million legal cases or other judicial procedures. It was first established in 2017 to help online trade disputes, copyright cases, and e-commerce product liability claims. By using artificial intelligence, chatbots, and other new technologies, the digital court judges are augmented by humans to get quick decisions. The cost of mistyping couldn’t be higher. Read on Japan Times.
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The 2010s are coming to an end, and looking back, a lot has changed, especially when it comes to retail landscapes. Vox looks back at the brands we have lost. Blockbuster and Borders failed to adapt and thus became victims of broadband and the Internet, only to be replaced by Netflix and Amazon. Internet and the companies it has spawned saw the death of compact discs, and with that, we lost the brands such as Columbia Record House. Payless, American Apparel, and Bon-Ton are some other names. Only recently we lost Dean and Deluca and Barneys. Good News is that we still have many American brands thriving in Japan. When I look back at the decade and see all these brands dying, I can only see the regeneration and creation of new brands and enterprises — bigger and different. I can’t imagine life without Spotify. Or Amazon, for that matter.
Photo by Andrea Davis on Unsplash
Phone Cameras FTW
The iPhone 11 Pro is just another step in the seemingly unending march of the camera phones. The falling sales of cameras across the price and performance spectrum is a testimonial to how everyday people take photographs. As a believer in computational photography and the improvement curve of phone-camera capabilities, I have often written about … Continue reading Phone Cameras FTW
Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life and founder of True Ventures-backed VR startup, HiFidelity in a provocative blog post points to many shortcomings of the current generation of virtual reality head-mounted displays and why a lot has to change for these to become a device that is commonplace. Read the post.
Photo by Lux Interaction on Unsplash
Foggy Illusions
Two of these are from Leica SL2 and two from iPhone 11 Pro. Who cares which one is by which device. Because they are all about the magnificent beauty of San Francisco, which looks like a maiden behind a veil when the fog envelopes the city, its warts and its ugliness. “The fog of illusion, … Continue reading Foggy Illusions
Houston Astros, Enron, and The McKinsey Way
In his explosive and must-read “The Smartest Guys in the Clubhouse,” New Republic writer David Roth points out that the Houston Astros are just one of the latest examples of the McKinsey approach to solving problems and giving clients an edge. It should come as no surprise that ex-Mckinsey consultant Jeff Luhnow and the Astros … Continue reading Houston Astros, Enron, and The McKinsey Way
“Larry has even managed to keep the names of his two kids secret, an act of paternal love that is also, given Google’s mission ‘to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,’ an act of corporate treason,” writes Nicholas Carr, a long-time Google nemesis in this wonderful goodbye to the two of the richest dudes who walked on the planet.
Travel writing that resonates with me tends to be less formulaic and more poetic and personal. I love the works of Pico Iyer and Bruce Chatwin for those reasons. And very rarely do you come across a new talent just waiting to be discovered. I love this ode to the Utah deserts in winter by Anne Marie Vivienne. Have a look.
Apparently walking 10,000 steps a day does not mean a thing.
Spotify Wrapped: Data Story Done Right
I am a long time Spotify customer, and over the years, I have appreciated their data-driven approach to surfacing the music I might like. However, what I absolutely love is their year-end wrap-ups about my listening habits. And this year, they have gone above and beyond and come up the decade long wrap up of … Continue reading Spotify Wrapped: Data Story Done Right