Curated Commons // Edition 12
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the Twelfth edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in.
The digital talent gap is real
Politicians and bureaucrats globally need a crash course in basic security hygiene like two-factor authentication. Or, watching out for pictures they share on social media!
Are books “essential items”?
The question comes from France, where leading authors have stepped in to pay fines imposed on book stores that have continued to remain open during the lockdown.
The Internet was built for streaming video.
A pandemic was tailormade for a rise in streaming video. And the biggies of the streaming world are all seeing it in their growth curves (t̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶D̶i̶s̶n̶e̶y̶+̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶i̶n̶c̶h̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶a̶l̶t̶-̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶e̶s̶ ̶H̶o̶t̶s̶t̶a̶r̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶s̶c̶r̶i̶b̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶I̶n̶d̶i̶a̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶r̶e̶e̶ ̶a̶d̶-̶s̶u̶b̶s̶i̶d̶i̶z̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶p̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ edit: Thanks to Shrinivas who pointed out that all of these are indeed paid subs for Hotstar in India and don’t include the ad-subsidized ones).
Tech for saving the world and helping people
The rise of the vaccine platform?
The great results from Moderna and Pfizer towards a Coronavirus vaccine also point to the dawn of a new era of vaccines based on mRNA. One that the WSJ describes very neatly as akin to a platform.
AI for helping navigation for the visually challenged
Google is using machine learning to help visually impaired people run better. This is a fascinating example of a variety of technologies coming together - smartphones, powerful mobile processors/cameras, ML, bone conduction.
Robots & exoskeletons for helping people with disabilities walk
Very good video from CNBC capturing multiple efforts for helping kids and adults with walking disabilities walk again.
Sustainable fashion, as a phrase, is likely sustainable, not in practice
Every second fashion brand out there wants to be seen as ‘sustainable’. For, they are anything but sustainable. And becoming more so with each passing day. Very good read from the FT saying there’s no such thing as sustainable fashion. And I also learnt Patagonia doesn’t use the word sustainable to describe itself or its products.
https://www.ft.com/content/d174e7d7-97c4-43fc-8765-95075e5fcce7
Capitalism is alive and kicking, 2020 edition
Tell me you predicted this.
1) Tiktok mansions where influencers stay rent-free but share a cut of revenue generated with the mansion owners.
2) There will be companies of such Tiktok mansions
3) A reverse merger with a listed company set up by a Chinese hospital
4) The CEO is the owner and the tenant and the accountant and…
5) You can now trade on TikTok mansions
6) Teens are apparently investing in the stock market
Wild story - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/style/clubhouse-tiktok-tongji-west-of-hudson.html
How Huawei took the lead in 5G
If there’s one company that has consistently been in the news across countries courting trouble, that’s Huawei. There have even been, strange stories such as this in Bloomberg, which tried to attribute Huawei’s successes to a hack at Nortel in 2004. This brilliant read from Steven Levy though lays out the back story of how Huawei got itself into 5G and 5G standards. Including this wonderful line -
“The US could live with intellectual property theft, but it is much harder to live with being in competition with an equal power.”
https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-5g-polar-codes-data-breakthrough/
Can incumbents innovate?
Given all of the high-decibel talk around ‘disruption’ last few years, we have instinctively begun to not associate incumbents with innovation. In this context, there’s a very good line that I first read in a blog by Alex Rampell over at A16Z:
The battle between every startup and incumbent comes down to whether the startup gets distribution before the incumbent gets innovation.
Two recent stories to highlight this quote:
P&G showed remarkable agility for a company of its scale when it launched a bacterial disinfectant, Microban 24, which is now on track to clock $200 Mn in sales
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-p-g-cleaned-house-before-covid-19-11605279627
From a different industry comes the remaking of the New York Times as a digital subscription giant. But not just that, in recent months, the company has snapped up Buzzfeed’s ex-editor in chief Ben Smith, rock star from Recode Kara Swisher, and now, the co-founder of Vox Ezra Klein. And it’s hard not to think of this in the context of the recent upheaval within digital media with Buzzfeed acquiring Huffington Post and a growing number of individual journalists moving on to start their own paid newsletters.
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"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware”
That’s not me, but legendary computer scientist Alan Kay. Apple takes that to heart, and the launch of their latest M1 processor proves that. This is a very good read on M1 from Ars Technica.
Pet pampering is good business
The #6 highest paid CEO in 2019 was Sumit Singh, the CEO of Chewy, a pet food online retailer. The company, in nine years of existence, has yet to post a profitable quarter. The company is now having the pandemic dividend.
Wrong product, wrong timing, wrong naming
That’s one wrong too many in my book. This is a $3,000+ groceries robot from the company that makes the Vespa scooter that will follow you and carry up to ~18kg weight. An expensive motorized grocery cart launching during a pandemic with the name “Gita” (think in context of subservient bots/robots being given female names - Alexa, Siri- and ‘smart’ ones being given male ones - Watson. Also, this) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/11/17/business/carrying-load-you/
Confessions of a jewel thief
This is a delightful read on a polite thief who used to con seniors in Delhi.
https://lifestyle.livemint.com/news/big-story/confessions-of-a-jewel-thief-111605668635893.html
From the Corona Times of 2020
What does the 92% or 95% efficacy that Moderna or Pfizer claim mean in reality? Not what you think. Good explainer - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/health/covid-vaccine-95-effective.html
Very neat rule summarizing the best guidance out there when it comes to trying to avoid the virus in the time before you get the eventual vaccine - “Don’t spend time indoors with people outside your household.” - https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/10-simple-rules-surviving-pandemic-holidays/617122/
Very good read from The Economist on where we are, and how it looks when it comes to a vaccine. And a sobering conclusion - "But for all the hope that diligence and science have kindled, there are hard winter months to face before that spring" - https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/11/14/an-effective-covid-19-vaccine-is-a-turning-point-in-the-pandemic
Some exciting result coming in from a trial of a genetically modified brinjal (eggplant). “51% increase in yield, a 37.5% decrease in pesticide use, increased farmer profits and decreased farmer sickness” - https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/11/bt-eggplant-is-great.html
And finally…pls stay safe
Best of the rest:
The UK wants to ban sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 -https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54981425
The US military is buying up your location data aggregated by brokers and sourced from innocuous apps - https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqm5x/us-military-location-data-xmode-locate-x
Microsoft Teams now offers video calls that can go on for 24 hours. Free. In the browser. Great for family get togethers indeed, but, lest we forget, digital limitations are also a cop-out for real-world connections. Who hasn’t dropped out of a painful long call with someone claiming network coverage issues? - https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/20/21579076/microsoft-teams-free-video-calling-web-zoom-competition
Cisco’s Webex has a bug that allows strangers to join in as ghost users. Yep, that’s how your boss knows what you were talking about them! - https://www.zdnet.com/article/cisco-webex-bugs-allow-attackers-to-join-meetings-as-ghost-users/
America is discovering TikTok now, so that naturally means you have a gazillion takes on it - https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/11/13/tiktok-ology-lessons-from-the-15-second-philosophers
I leave you with this too-real cartoon from New Yorker. If kids have been impacted in one way, seniors have been impacted even more by the pandemic - staying away from family, while being constantly aware that the virus is harsh on their demographic.
Stay safe, and happy reading! And if you liked the newsletter, please do share on your social networks. My DMs on Twitter are always open for any feedback.