The news a few weeks back that TCL communication, the world’s seventh largest phone manufacturer, paid €2.1 million ($2.78 million) to test a new technology (link in French) in their devices from an unknown startup, SunPartner, didn’t turn many heads. But if integrating SunPartner’s technology works, it could mean never being stuck with a dead cell phone again.
In any age group, there will always be a group of people who prefer to stay off of social networking sites, and a report by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project suggests that you might be able to quantify that group’s size.
South Korean president Park Geun-hye has issued a press release to announce that her Klout score went up. Seriously.
In 2011, the Saudi Arabian government was afraid. There were pro-democracy uprisings all around the Arab world, even in neighboring Bahrain. What did the Saudi government do? It announced a $130 billion economic stimulus package, purportedly aimed at raising living standards.
Freelancers, small business owners and coffee addicts rejoice: Google announced Wednesday that it will provide free WiFi in 7,000 Starbucks stores in the US within the next 18 months. The company will start rolling out the network across the stores starting in August.
At least at the top line, Ryanair’s quarterly results looked good. Compared to last year’s first quarter, the budget airline saw an increase in both the number of passengers it serves as well as its revenue. At the bottom line it was another story: Profits plunged by 21% to €78 million ($103 million) as the airline was crushed by rising fuel prices.
Hemp fibers are probably something you associate more with ropes, sacks and baggy ethnic clothing than with luxury cars. But in a report on BMW’s new electric car, the i3, Bloomberg notes in passing that the car maker will line the door panels with hemp, as part of an interior design apparently aimed at making the i3’s drivers feel closer to nature and less likely to drain the battery in a speed-freak fit.
Last week, the state-run China Daily ran a feel-good portrait of a Uighur Muslim family in the Xinjiang region in northwest China celebrating Ramadan, the holy month during which Muslims abstain from food and drink during daylight. “My high school has never made any demands as to whether the students observe the fast or not,” the daughter told the paper.
Ikea is looking to set up in Ramallah, making the furniture and housewares retailers among the first multinationals to operate in the Palestinian territories.
The numbers: Not bad at all. As predicted, UK GDP grew by 0.6%, increasing at twice the pace of the the first quarter (0.3%). The economy had been slowing until very recently. In last quarter of 2012, it contracted by 0.3%. Historically, the economy tends to expand at a rate of between 2.25%-2.5% per year. If the trend from the second quarter continues for the year, Britain’s annualized growth rate would be around 2.5%.
When Zimbabwe’s tyrant-cum-president Robert Mugabe last month announced a presidential election date of July 31, there were brief sparks of hope that this set of elections might just be different, thanks to a new tool promising to broadcast information not controlled by the government. Media restrictions in the country are notoriously tight, and only Mugabe has access to state-controlled media outlets. Freedom House recently gave Zimbabwe a low press freedom score of 77 criticizing the lack of promised reforms. But the new tool, Freedom Fone, offered to inform voters about opposition parties.
Don Draper would be proud. A PR firm in Tokyo, Wit Inc, is pushing the bounds of advertising by paying women to wear stickers on their thighs. Advertising on women’s skin appears to be much more cost-effective than forking out exorbitant sums for public billboard space. In 2012, the overall expenditure on ‘outdoor’ advertising in Japan was ¥299.5 billion ($2.99 billion) (pdf). The going rate on each thigh, according to the company, is $121 per day. The 3,000 Japanese women who signed up to participate will slap stickers on their thighs in exchange for that sum. The campaigns, which began rolling out earlier this year, so far have included plugs for the movie Ted and the band Green Day.
It might have been the royal baby who was born today, but the limelight was stolen by the town crier.
