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🗞 News
China is forcing tourists crossing the border to install apps that scan their phones. China is using tech to build a real-world panopticon (and most of this tech is a commodity - no-one in the West can stop them doing this). Link
The UK's competition authority (the CMA) is launching a review of the digital ad market, driven by the substantial market share of Google and Facebook. Link
Separately, the CMA has also put a hold on Amazon's purchase of a minority stake in Deliveroo, the leading restaurant delivery platform in the UK. Attitudes have changed - especially given this is only a minority stake. Link
Huawei staff have links to Chinese intelligence agencies, according to an analysis of their CVs. If true, this would not exactly be a surprise. Link
'DeepNudes': a small team of developers made an app in their spare time that takes a photograph of a clothed woman and generates a naked version, using machine learning. Once people noticed and loudly criticized them, they had a change of heart and pulled it. Deeper lesson: this tech is now a commodity and there are millions of people around the world who can make such things: peer pressure won't work next time. (The biggest barrier might just be that Apple and Google would block it from their app stores - otherwise this would be on every smartphone in high school). Link
🔮 Reading
FT profile of Facebook’s information warfare team. Link ($)
Amazon Is using computer vision to track inventory in its warehouses. Link ($)
Interview with, Federico Marchetti, the CEO of Yoox Net-a-Porter: “We sit on a gold mine of data". Link
Fred Wilson on VC time-lines: seven to ten years. Link
Deep dive into 'Catalyst', Apple's new framework for moving iPad apps to the Mac (remember when it was all about moving in the opposite direction?). Link
Bloomberg on Chinese attitudes to state surveillance" "Why Big Brother Doesn’t Bother Most Chinese". True? Link
(Very) long piece on redesigning supermarkets to compete with online. All about experience. Link
Trends for Japan: renting a car as a space, and not actually driving it anywhere. Link
😮 Interesting things of the week
This was the week when Americans celebrate independence, and so it's worth rereading ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’, by Frederick Douglass. Link
The Economist has an essay competition for young (<25) people. Link
📊 Statistics
Interesting McKinsey report on China and International trade, and Chinese companies' market share inside and outside China. Link
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