Huawei has leveraged its position as the world’s biggest telecom equipment maker to quickly grab market share in the brutally competitive smartphone industry. It currently ranks third—albeit a distant third—behind Samsung and Apple, and at the head of the pack of up-and-coming Chinese smartphone makers, including Xiaomi, Lenovo, and XTE.
China has a lot of fishermen—with 695,555 vessels, its commercial fishing fleet is more than double the size (pdf, pg. 36) of the next biggest, from Japan. That’s primarily because China eats a lot of fish per capita, and catches more fish than any other country in the world by a huge margin.
A $20-billion Burmese railroad project that would link the Chinese province of Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal was cancelled this week due to fears over the project’s environment impact and objections from the public. It was the latest backlash to China’s attempt to expand its influence in its “near abroad” of southeast Asia.
Facebook just posted another set of stellar quarterly results, surpassing most expectations for profits and sales as it reaped massive benefits from selling mobile ads, which now make up the majority of its business. And more of the world is using Facebook, as monthly active users hit a new peak of 1.32 billion, up about 200 million from a year ago.
While Apple reported a mostly ho-hum quarter on July 22, the company’s growth in China was an unexpected bonus. “China honestly was surprising to us,” CEO Tim Cook said. “The unit growth was really off the charts across the board.”
A panicked Thai father calls his wife while she’s grocery shopping. Their newborn baby is crying inconsolably—what should he do? After a comical series of attempts to quiet the baby using only his smartphone, the dad finally sets the device down. As the music swells, he picks his daughter up from her crib—apparently for the first time—and like magic, she stops crying and gives papa a big smile.
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Tokyo is the undisputed champion of mega-cities. With a population of 37.8 million, it dwarfs second-place Delhi. The Japanese capital has such a big lead in population that even though it’s expected to lose about half a million people over the next 16 years, it will still be the world’s biggest metropolis in 2030, according to a new report by the United Nations:
Another day, another foreign app blocked in the world’s biggest mobile market.
When culinary historians chronicle the Great American Cupcake Bubble of the early 21st century, it will open with the improbable “Sex and the City”-fueled success of Magnolia Bakery in 2000, chronicle the apogee of cupcake mania that was rival Crumbs Bake Shop’s high-flying IPO in 2011, and end with the abrupt closure of the 48 remaining Crumbs outlets on the evening of July 7, 2014.
When the world’s biggest smartphone maker posts ugly financial results, you can be sure that the whole industry is feeling some pain. Samsung Electronics said today that its second-quarter earnings would fall $1.4 billion short of analysts’ expectations, citing low demand for its devices in an increasingly saturated global market, and increasing cannibalization of tablet sales by ever-larger “phablet” phones.
Now there’s a new reason to be anxious about the rapidly dwindling battery meter on your smartphone or tablet.
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The violent Vietnamese riots against foreign-owned factories in May took a heavy toll in life and property and threatened the country’s massive influx of foreign investment. But they don’t seem to have cooled the enthusiasm of Samsung, one of the Vietnam’s biggest foreign employers, which just received the go-ahead for a new $1 billion factory complex.
Xanthan gum really doesn’t sound that appetizing: The food additive is excreted by a strain of bacteria, Xanthomonas campestris, that is also responsible for the black slime that forms on broccoli and cauliflower when you leave them in the fridge too long. After X. campestris chows down on high-fructose corn syrup, it basically poops out xanthan gum.
Tech companies often urge employees to “drink their own Kool-Aid” by becoming heavy users of their own products, but Alibaba co-founder and chairman Jack Ma apparently refuses to drink a drop.
The despotic North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un just can’t seem to cut its downtrodden citizens a break, even when it comes down to black-market baked goods.
Alibaba may be in the midst of a multi-billion-dollar acquisition binge and on the verge of a blockbuster IPO, but a look at China’s most-used mobile apps shows that archrival Tencent has the edge in the world’s largest smartphone market:
China’s higher education system got a big boost this week when the top 100 of annual Asia Universities Rankings included 18 mainland Chinese schools, a 20% increase from last year. But if you ask China’s university students, things could be a whole lot better.
Even though it competes in the cutthroat world of smartphone marketing, Samsung is taking a softer approach in China. It has unveiled a series of ads that feature disabled children and don’t show any Samsung products at all—but rather the “human triumphs” that the company’s charitable programs help make possible.
Nestle’s popular Nespresso machines can already slake your need for caffeine with surprisingly decent cappuccinos. Before long, they might also serve up a custom blend of vitamins and minerals that will eliminate the need for food altogether.
The Japanese telecoms firm Softbank has unveiled a humanoid robot named “Pepper,” promising that it will be able to read and express emotions, and eventually serve as a medical worker, party companion, or even a babysitter.
What to watch for today
With Steve Ballmer’s record-setting $2 billion purchase of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, there are now 12 technology moguls occupying the owner’s suites in US baseball, basketball, football, and hockey (for a full list, see below).
