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The 5G iPhone 12 is leading the charge. Apple’s latest signature phone comes in three sizes—but will no longer include a charger or wired headphones. Verizon used the iPhone reveal to announce the rollout of its US 5G network. Meanwhile, Amazon was hoping for its own big buzz on Prime Day.
China’s trade is booming. As the country’s economy recovers swiftly from the pandemic, imports and exports hit record highs in September. Although China’s trade surplus with the US dropped somewhat from August, the country is far behind its purchase agreements set up in the phase one trade deal. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund revised its economic outlook to predict 1.9% GDP growth for China this fiscal year, and a 10.3% contraction for India.
China, Russia, and Cuba are joining the UN Human Rights Council. Activists had opposed seats for the three countries, as well as Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and non-winner Saudi Arabia, based on their human rights records. The US withdrew from the council in June 2018.
Xi Jinping gives a key speech in Shenzhen. Forty years after it was designated a special economic zone, the Chinese leader is set to lay out his vision for the city, including reforms to cement it as a leading global fintech hub, and a launch pad to more closely integrate China with global financial markets. Hong Kong’s chief Carrie Lam is nixing her own annual policy address to attend.
A major Indian jeweler pulled an ad that depicted an interfaith couple. Following a conservative backlash on social media and TV news channels, Tanishq withdrew a commercial that showed a Hindu woman being thrown a baby shower by her Muslim in-laws. The company is owned by Tata, one of India’s biggest conglomerates.
The next step for reparations
Last week, our “How to Do Reparations” series thought through how reparations would actually work in practice, asked what the UK owes, and started adding up the debt to Black Americans US companies have accrued. We’re taking it a step further this week.
- What Africa is owed. The loss of human life from the African continent due to the transatlantic slave trade had a real cost, but how can we calculate it?
- What we can learn from Germany. There’s a blueprint from not-too-distant history that the US could follow.
Charting Disney’s streaming metamorphosis
Disney had no streaming platforms three years ago. Today, its business revolves around them. On Monday, the company announced a “strategic reorganization” to further prop up its streaming services: Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu. Effective immediately, Disney will separate content creation from distribution.
The Mouse House will not abandon cinemas, but its reorganization is an admission that theaters do not represent the future of the company—or perhaps of any Hollywood content company. Adam Epstein tunes us in on Disney’s fast-forward to streaming.
Whither the whiteboard
When lockdowns forced consultants the world over to work from home, one of the first challenges was how to replicate the on-site experience normally so central to their work. More specifically, they had to find a suitable stand-in for, you guessed it, the humble, powerful, usually ubiquitous whiteboard.
The sudden need to replicate brainstorming online has increased the popularity of collaborative, digital whiteboards. But it’s also led to other creative in-house solutions.
“We found both the value of some of the new tools has surprised us, [as well as] our workarounds to creating great experiences with clients…it has created its own interesting kind of energy,” says Clark Scheffy, a partner and managing director at IDEO, a global design consultancy. “I believe when we return to whatever this next world is after the pandemic, many of the things we’ve discovered and created will continue because they provide a unique value.”
Consultants keep many industries moving smoothly along, but how to consult during Covid? Read this week’s field guide to take a lesson from how the consulting world is coping.
✦ We consulted our whiteboard, and on it was written the code QZTWENTY, which will give you 20% off a year of field guides and presentations without a paywall in sight. It’s all part of a Quartz membership.
Obsession interlude: Rethinking Cities
If we ask you to think of climate change and urban design, you might conjure an image of solar panels and sea walls. But for many cities around the world, an even more important project will be improving access to affordable housing. As people are forced to move away from communities that flooding, wildfires, and other climate impacts have made unlivable, they will need somewhere to go. A recent study projected that there may be 13 million such climate migrants in the US alone by 2100.
The trouble is, the housing market in cities that could be “climate havens”—those that are relatively isolated from environmental impacts and have room to grow—is trending in the opposite direction. Of 10 US cities researchers identified as likely climate havens, all but one have seen the availability of affordable housing decrease in recent years, most faster than the national average:
Read more about the effort to prepare cities for climate migrants—and take a stab at designing your own climate haven—in our Green Haven package, part of our Rethinking Cities obsession.
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Surprising discoveries
Machu Picchu reopened… for a single tourist. The Japanese man has been stranded in Peru for months, after arriving to see the Inca ruins in March.
If you’re up for a Nobel, keep your phone on. Robert Wilson had to ring fellow economics prize-winner Paul Milgrom’s doorbell in the middle of the night.
Polish divers are defusing a giant World War II bomb. Dropped by the British during a 1945 air raid, it now lies at the bottom of a Baltic Sea shipping canal.
A designer created a “self-picking” guitar. Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien is a fan.
Stealing from Pompeii brings bad luck. At least according to a woman who sent back artifacts she took from the site 15 years ago.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, self-beating drums, and self-singing microphones to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our iOS app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Tim McDonnell, Adam Epstein, Susan Howson, and Liz Webber.