The Waiting Game

August 29, 2018 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

Hot Novelties

July 18, 2018 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

Self-Cleaning Sunglasses, Sacuba

Smudged lenses are the bane of anyone who dons a pair of shades. To prevent obsessive-compulsive cleaning, Sacuba Eyewear has built cleaning pads directly inside the frame – so removing sweat, oil, dirt or water is a simple matter of moving the lenses up and down in one quick action. Available in black, red, lime green, blue and orange, these wraparound sunglasses have a durable frame with flexible arms and adjustable nose pads. They offer 100% UVA and UVB protection, and feature changing technology, so you can easily switch between amber, yellow and smoke polarised lenses. (sacubaeyewear.com)

Solar Charger Hat, Solsol

Solsol brings new meaning to the term “sun hat”. This cotton cap, available in 13 colours, has five solar panels on the brim that power a USB connection on the side. When sunlight hits the panels, charging of your personal device will activate, giving about two-thirds the power of a laptop. You can charge while wearing it or place it on any flat surface, including your car’s dashboard. The Solsol can also charge a battery device, so you can have unlimited juice and protect your head from UV rays – perfect for adventure holidays and camping trips. (solsolhat.com)

All the Answers

June 20, 2018 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

Image above: Zhihu's logo

If you have a burning question of an intellectual nature, where do you turn for help? Traditionally, you might have consulted some smart friends or a mentor, or headed to the library for some solid fact-checking. Nowadays, of course, most people just prefer to ask online. 

In 2008, the chief technology officer of Facebook, Adam D’Angelo, quit his job to ultimately start Quora, a question-and-answer site where users can create and respond to questions upon registering with their real names – a strategy aimed at differentiating from other Q&A sites and increasing credibility for a multitude of answer-seekers. 

Quora began by gathering some of the brightest brains, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who asked a question in 2010: “What start-ups would be good talent acquisitions for Facebook?” Soon after, Zuckerberg acquired social travel recommendation site Nextstop, one of the companies suggested by a user. Quora claims to have 200 million unique visitors monthly, as answered by D’Angelo in a question asked on his own site. 

In 2010, after a failed attempt at developing a search engine marketing tool, Chinese software engineer Zhou Yuan began his second start-up venture: Zhihu, a high-quality Q&A website for the Chinese community. He was certainly inspired by Quora, a platform that he felt “connected the dots” but wasn’t available in the Chinese language. 

Like D’Angelo, Zhou is also a famous user of his own site, with approximately 880,000 followers. Following Zhihu’s launch, the knowledge-sharing platform received investments in 2011 from top Chinese angel investors including ZhenFund founder Bob Xu and venture capitalist and tech entrepreneur Mike Cai. 

The tagline of Zhihu is “Discover a bigger world”; the name actually comes from classical Chinese language, meaning “Do you know?” To accumulate a base of high-quality users in China, Zhihu adopted an invitation-only registration system in the beginning – this required a referral from an existing user, otherwise one had to apply to join by filling out a good deal of personal information. When open registration started in 2013, the number of users soared tenfold within a year.

According to a 2015 report from Zhihu, 87% of its users have a bachelor’s degree or above – that same year, the percentage for all internet users in China was 11.2%. In 2017, Zhihu had more than 100 million registered users and 780 million unique monthly visitors, the latter figure far surpassing Quora. 

Recognised for its signature sky-blue colour, the site and the two Zhihu apps have become a popular destination for Chinese-language internet users to make enquiries for expert insights, to share knowledge or to simply get a different point of view. Other services such as live-streamed talks and e-books are also available. Zhihu Weekly, a free digital publication released every Thursday since 2013, has covered nearly 200 intriguing topics, including sleep science, Chinese rock ’n’ roll development, Japanese decluttering skills, family psychology and a survival guide for smoggy days. 

As follows are some of the questions on Zhihu with an answer that attained a high number of likes (more than 50,000). 

What are some important qualities that can’t be learned from books? 

The top answer has 174,000 likes. The answerer suggests a few things, including “expectation management in interpersonal relationships”, “awareness to self-regulate thresholds” and the “ability to manage time meaningfully by stepping out of one’s comfort zone”.

What are some basic but useful cooking tips? 

Top answer: 143,000 likes. The answerer gave a list of tips, including “not adding salt too early for stirred vegetables”; “adding a tomato or potato when making a soup, which can bring out a savoury flavour”; and “marinating white rice with a little bit of salt and oil before making rice porridge, then putting two porcelain spoons in the cooker, which can spiral in the boiling process and grind the rice better”. 

What are some high-IQ-required thriller movies? 

Top answer: 98,000 likes. The answerer first clarified that the definition of “high IQ” is subjective, then suggested some films including Witness for the Prosecution, The Usual Suspects and Perfect Blue.

What is love? What’s it like to be falling in love? 

Top answer: 57,000 likes. The answerer said: “Like suddenly you have a soft spot and also a hard shell.”

Mr and Mrs Robot

April 6, 2018 / by Paul Frost

Image above: Gardens by the Bay

Sophie and Xavier are standing up against a wall on the fifth floor of the Sofitel Singapore City Centre – and they’re looking a wee bit pensive… well, as pensive as you could ever look when you’re a pair of robots waiting for orders to come through from the hotel guests you were built to serve. Welcome to Singapore in 2018, where science fiction has become science fact, and where the city of the future has become the city of today.

This notion started to take root in my brain while watching Chris Pratt battle the bad-guy aliens in the 2014 film Guardians of the Galaxy. Director James Gunn was supposed to have taken us into a world of make-believe and a vision of what the future might look like on a planet far, far away. 

But there was something strikingly familiar about the city of Xandar, the capital of the Nova Empire, with its towering hanging gardens, its inhabitants scooting their way around contently on all manner of personal mobility devices (PMDs) and, yes, all those robots.

The feeling struck again last year as I checked out what Chris Hemsworth was up to in Thor: Ragnarok. When director Taika Waititi took the action to Asgard, the fabled city of the gods, I started to wonder whether I’d sort of seen this place before. There, again, was all that greenery flowing down the sides of the skyscrapers, and while the fact that everyone was concerned with fighting for survival meant the PMDs were in park mode, the robotic technology seemed to be making life easier for everyone.

And then it dawned on me: it’s Singapore. There’s the abundant greenery, with Gardens by the Bay, the 101-hectare futuristic nature park in the heart of the city. There are PMDs, employed by the public and politicians alike – with a few new rules regarding their usage now being enforced. And now there are robots. 

Numerous cities in the region are trying to incorporate robots into their infrastructure, including Hong Kong, where the government recently earmarked HK$10 billion to support the establishment of a research cluster for artificial intelligence and robotics technologies in the city’s 2018/19 budget address. And though it’s not yet reached the advanced development of Tokyo, Singapore has recently embraced robots at several hotels around town.

As of March, Sophie and Xavier are ready to serve at the Sofitel, after a few months of trials and training for the hotel’s human staff. The 223-room luxury hotel opened in October last year and is part of the AccorHotels group that has long established the likes of the Fairmont and the Swissôtel, as well as the famed Raffles, as key players in the Singapore market. 

“We wanted to do something a little different,” explains Sofitel’s marketing manager, Walter Navarro. “It’s a lot of fun for the guests and for the staff, learning how to work with the robots.” So you can now watch in awe as Sophie and Xavier communicate directly with the lifts that take them off to fulfil their chores, which include delivering drinks and other items desired from room service.

At the M Social Singapore, you’ll find Aura (an acronym for “automated room-service associate”) parked just inside the front doors, also ready to cater to guests’ needs – as she has done since 2016. Designed by American robotics firm Savioke, this Relay robot can also deliver drinks and various other tasks while throwing a few corny robot-inspired jokes into the party mix.

Next door at the Beast & Butterflies restaurant, you can find the Ausca (“automated service chef associate”) prototype that’s taking technology to another level. Singapore-designed and produced by Kurve Automation, the robot has found its home; each day it duly delivers freshly cooked eggs (sunny-side up or in an omelette) to feed the hungry hordes.

“Singapore is at the forefront of technology and innovation, and this is the result,” explains the Millennium Hotels and Resorts group’s content manager, Lester Wong. “The guests love to see the robots working and they are doing the smaller stuff that no one wants to do anymore, so our staff can improve their skills in other areas.”

Robots are taking root at hotels around the city, an initiative spurred by the government’s Hotel Industry Transformation Map – a call issued in 2016 for the hotel industry to innovate. The combined effect has many visitors suitably impressed – including America’s Michael Whan, who spends most of the year travelling the globe as the commissioner of the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

Print the Future 

January 26, 2018 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

Qiongyou

In Chinese, “qiong” means poor and “you” is travel. Fourteen years ago in his student dormitory in Hamburg, Germany, Chinese student Xiao Yi found a “one-euro” special offer for a night at a four-star hotel in Switzerland. After successfully making the booking, he was inspired to build a website gathering travel tips for independent Chinese student travellers in Europe. Now the company aims to spread its reach across the globe – by rendering a full suite of services for travel planning and a substantial offering of 600 independent travel guides (Qiongyou Jinnang) covering more than 300 cities and regions, compiled by travel veterans and Qiongyou editors, presented in a consolidated e-booklet format. 

The travel guides can be downloaded freely within the app so you can also read them offline. For example, if you’re going to Japan, there are 25 guides available. Some are city guides – including the popular destinations of Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka – alongside less-travelled destinations such as Aomori, which is the northern-most prefecture of Japan and contributes the largest production of apples for the country. Other intriguing themes include “Hokkaido Onsen”, “Taste of Tokyo”, “Japanese Architecture”, “Tokyo ACG (Anime, Comic and Games)” and “Hokkaido Railway”.

WeChat

Initially released in January 2011, WeChat is now China’s most-used app, combining multiple functions including instant messaging, social media and payment services. Its monthly active user count approached 1 billion by the end of 2017. Besides its chat functionality, which keeps travellers connected with friends and family, its WeChat Pay system has also moved beyond the country’s borders to help Chinese travellers make payments overseas. 

In the romantic destination and the shopping haven of Paris, WeChat Pay is now accepted at two major department stores – Galeries Lafayette Haussmann and BHV Marais. The parent group of the former, the upscale department store chain Galeries Lafayette, revealed that Chinese visitors remain its top customers, spending an average of 1,400 euros per visit. 

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco launched its public WeChat account a year ago, on which its followers can receive updates about the museum, as well as access audio guides, maps and more. In July 2017, it also began accepting WeChat Pay for admission. It’s among numerous businesses and institutions around the world that are opening their arms to Chinese travellers – and both sides are reaping the rewards.

Red

“I don’t want the world; I just want all of the world’s good things.” That’s the tagline used by the e-commerce community app Red (or Xiao Hong Shu in Chinese, meaning “Little Red Book”) in an advertisement on the Beijing subway. Launched in 2013, the versatile app gathers user-generated content on the worldwide shopping experience, mainly for sourcing the “good things” overseas. By May 2017, users of Red exceeded 50 million. 

Log in the app with your WeChat, Sina Weibo or Tencent QQ account, or register with your phone number (though an English version is not yet available for the app). Follow the bloggers you’re interested in or who you share a similar style with – those who shop extensively are able to provide information on good deals around the world. Many specialise in beauty products and luxury goods; you can also be a blogger yourself by sharing on your own account. 

Take the example of “CKlam at Aus” (CKlam在土澳), a Red blogger based in Adelaide, Australia with 2,000 fans since she started her account in July 2016. If you’re travelling to Australia and looking for some shopping deals, her posts could be helpful. She shares her experience of buying and using La Mer treatment lotion at a considerably discounted price; she also reviews a box of Australian-made Koko Black chocolate, which she thinks offers better value for money compared to a box of La Maison du Chocolat she bought at the Hong Kong airport. 

Print the Future 

January 26, 2018 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

Image above: Ice House, designed by Space Exploration Architecture/Clouds Architecture Office

The history of 3D printing may be longer than you think. It’s commonly believed that the prototyping system was created in 1981 by Japanese researcher Hideo Kodama. Three years later, US engineer Charles Hull invented SLA 3D printing, the stereolithography method that uses UV light to harden resins to form polymers. Since then, designers have been able to use digital data to create tangible objects.

The possibilities that 3D-printing technology have created are simply spectacular, from handy gadgets such as jewellery and stationery to sophisticated medical replacements. Among the innovations, a team of researchers from the Netherlands has developed 3D-printed ammonium salt teeth that have the ability to kill bacteria instantly. 

One of the most practical 3D-printing projects could be houses and apartments. In February 2017, Russia and US-based mobile construction 3D printer company Apis Cor printed a house in Russia in 24 hours on site (pictured left). The cosy-looking shelter measures 400 square feet at a cost slightly more than US$10,000 and the developers have claimed it’s capable of lasting up to 175 years. At the beginning of 2015, Shanghai-based Winsun Global (also known by the name Yingchuang Construction Technology Co) brought a five-storey apartment house to life, together with its first 3D-printed villa, the latter at nearly 12,000 square feet.

The “ink” that the construction-based 3D printer uses includes a considerable proportion of waste materials from construction and industrial use as well as mine tailings, meaning savings on the total cost of at least 50% if you also consider the manpower saved. 

In the pursuit of another universal good, NASA and its partners launched the multi-phase 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge in 2015, welcoming public proposals on how to build an off-world 3D-printed habitat for deep-space exploration. The Phase 1 winner was the Ice House (pictured right) by New York-based Clouds Architecture Office, which could use water to create a multilayered shell of ice as a protective home for explorers under the harsh atmosphere of Mars. Phase 2 followed in August 2017, with a focus on creating the technology necessary to print a structurally sound habitat. The next phase of the challenge involves the creation of miniature habitats for astronauts using “indigenous materials” from the intended location, such as Mars or the moon. 

Eyes in the Sky

January 26, 2018 / by Simon Webster

From taking your ultimate selfies from the sky to streaming dizzying videos of scenery or experiencing the high-speed thrills of F1-style racing, drones have brought a new dimension to outdoor leisure. But beware – there’s a lot more to piloting a drone than unpacking the box and sending it flying over the nearest mountain for a peek at the other side.

The earliest drones – or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to give them their correct name – were developed for military use. But in recent years, rapid advances in technology, combined with lower prices, have brought the drone experience within easy reach of both recreational and commercial users.

An entry-level drone can cost as little as around HK$3,000 (US$380). For that, you get a palm-sized device weighing 300 grams that’s capable of flying at 30mph and sending back streaming video from its built-in camera from more than a mile away.

The urge to send your drone skywards once you get it unpacked might be overwhelming – but if you do, it might be the last time you see it, says Ashley Cox, general manager of UAVAir, one of Australia’s biggest drone training schools, which is about to open its first international branch in Hong Kong.

“When you open the box, the drone doesn’t know where it is, so there are software updates and calibrations to do,” he says in an interview from the company’s headquarters in New South Wales. “It takes a bit of time, but if you don’t do it, then the drone might fly back towards its last known address, which could be where it was manufactured in China.”

Safety is paramount when operating drones and the Hong Kong government – like other authorities – has clear guidelines on where you can and cannot fly, although most of the rules are pure common sense.

No-go zones include near Hong Kong International Airport and its take-off and landing paths, helicopter landing pads, Victoria Harbour and designated coastlines, and near large crowds and built-up areas – so forget using your drone to get a bird’s eye view of the Formula E Grand Prix or the Rugby Sevens. If you do, you might face charges of “recklessly or negligently causing or permitting an aircraft to endanger other persons or property”, to quote the Civil Aviation Department regulations.

You also have to use your drone in daylight, keep it within line of sight and fly it no higher than 300 feet. Drones for personal use can weigh no more than seven kilos, and if you want to turn professional and operate for profit, then you have to register with the Civil Aviation Department.

And when you finally get your drone airborne – using a handset that is similar to a computer game controller – just remember it might not be as simple as it seems.

“The problem with drones is that they are easy to put in the air and fly, so people get overconfident,” says Cox. “And the next thing they know, they’ve crashed into a tree or a power line.” Another hazard is birds, which see drones as a threat. Large birds can attack them and knock them out of the sky – or be injured in the process.

The world’s biggest drone manufacturer is the Shenzhen-based Da-Jiang Innovations Science & Technology Co, which is marketed as DJI. For those wishing to get an initial taste of the drone experience, DJI’s flagship store in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay has its own flying area for demonstrations.

On an amateur level, drones are mainly used for shooting photos and video and in the fast-growing sport of drone racing. Equipped with FPV (first-person view) goggles, drone racers have a virtual-reality view of the course as it flashes towards them.

 “This is on a Formula One level in terms of reaction times,” says Cox. “The top racers have usually acquired their skills from gaming, and many are in the 15 to 17 age group, with super lightning reflexes.”

Drone racing has moved far beyond its origins as a bit of fun with some friends over an improvised course. The inaugural million-US-dollar World Drone Prix was held in Dubai in 2016 and the winner, 15-year-old Luke Bannister from the UK, finished at the top of a field of 150 racers to scoop the first prize of US$250,000. Racers flew their drones around a spectacular night-time circuit made up of illuminated hoops, and spectators watched on big screens or followed the action up close with their own FPV goggles. For the overall effect, think F1 meets Star Wars.

On a professional level, drones are being used for everything from crop spraying to surveying rail lines and construction sites, and to search and rescue. Their uses are almost limitless.

You’re a developer building a luxury apartment block and want to show potential buyers the view? Then send a drone up to where the 40th floor will be and beam the images straight back to your mobile phone. Drones are also being increasingly used in journalism and have captured powerful images of natural disasters and conflict zones.

Cox says taking out insurance is a must and it is essential to check on local regulations if you are travelling with a drone. Many countries have strict rules over where you can fly them, including bans on going airborne anywhere near sensitive military or other strategic locations.

The UAVAir course, which will be run out of Hong Kong’s Discovery Bay, is aimed at professional users and is being launched with the approval of the SAR’s authorities. The company is also launching an online course for recreational users that will be tailor-made to the particular challenges of flying in high-density Hong Kong.

Smart Art

October 27, 2017 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

Look, No Hands

September 29, 2017 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

I Get So Emotional, Baby

May 26, 2017 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

image above: Adam Wright stands in front of a couple of his submersible toys

Check your answers:

(1) “Street-style star”
(2) “A-line dress”
(3) “I’m/You’re not on the list”
(4) “Hold up, I/you can’t”
(5) “No time, don’t care, bye”

Unlike most languages you’re familiar with, emoji effectively has few rules for grammar, vocabulary, syntax or semantics. The term was born in late-1990s Japan as “picture” (e) + “character” (moji) and featured prominently in electronic messages and on web pages. This quirky Japanese idea became popular on a global scale with the development of social media and the use of the emoji keyboard on Apple’s iOS operating system.

The history of humans using symbols to express ourselves dates back some 5,000 years to the Egyptians, who developed hieroglyphics to communicate and document their traditions. Although emoji are very different, according to Vyv Evans, a professor of linguistics at Bangor University in the US, they “have already far eclipsed hieroglyphics, its ancient Egyptian precursor, which took centuries to develop.”

One of the major reference points for the modern emoji era was the original version of the iconic yellow smiley face, created in 1963 by American graphic artist Harvey Ross Ball. He never applied for a trademark or copyright, however, so French journalist Franklin Loufrani registered the mark for commercial use when he used it in the newspaper France-Soir in 1972. Today, there are thousands of emoji available in digital communication and it has gone far beyond that humble smiley face.

“Emojis are the first time we’ve had a universal method of sending emotions as pictures,” says Jeremy Burge, founder of reference website Emojipedia, which he launched in 2013 to document all the emoji symbols and meanings in the Unicode Standard system. “The way I see emoji is as a one-off event that will never happen again as long as we use text keyboards for communicating. It’s remarkable that, seemingly overnight, we got an additional keyboard that’s installed by default on every phone in the world.”

Nowadays, the influence of emoji is everywhere – and brands and celebrities are all catching the wave. “I see a whole new industry rising out of the emoji phenomenon, with sideline merchandise such as manga, animation, stuffed animals, clothes and shoes,” says Lin Zhang, a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California, whose expertise covers the politics, culture and economy of new-media technologies, “Sometimes it’s hard to tell which comes first – the featured emoji or the sideline products. But the fact that people use those characters on a daily basis to express themselves definitely improves the ‘stickiness’ of those icons.”

There are celebrity emoji packs by Karl Lagerfeld (emotiKarl), Kim Kardashian (Kimoji), Justin Bieber (Justmoji) and Ellen DeGeneres (Ellen’s Emoji Exploji), as well as branded emoji from Versace, Ikea and Harper’s Bazaar. There’s even Book from the Ground, an entire tome written in emoji by Chinese artist Xu Bing.