He's known as 'Lipstick Brother' in China

In a pandemic, Li Jiaqi, sold $1.9 billion in goods on the first day of Alibaba’s annual shopping festival in August 2020

He tries on various makeup products on his show, ranging from brands from top companies including Sheshiedo Co lotions and Apple Air pods - though there's no make up connection there!

It's not as if he has an unusual format. 

The sales are more than what some profitable retail chains in the US would sell in an entire year.

He earned fame by starting off with 'lipstick marathons' - applying several brands of lipstick over several hours. Naturally, he's a Guinness Record holder for applying the largest number of lipstick options in 30 seconds!

Starting off in sales at a L'Oréal store, he developed his own unique style of describing beauty products. That lead to his trying out livestreams which got progressively popular, and he built up a huge following.

For the moment, he seems to have escaped the government's drive against 'effeminate men' The sheer volume of sales he generates on a single day is hard to replicate.

As dialog writers in Indian films have known for long, a single popular catchphrase becomes legendary and builds recognition.

Li's catchphrase is 'OMG sisters, buy this!' Now, that may not be seen as particularly creative but there's no doubt that it works.

On average, he makes about $10-20 million per month.

Making a personal connection with millions of women

And leaving a trail of luscious, glowing and smiling lips.

Which billion-dollar pool should you play in?

If you haven't heard of Anker, you will.

They started out making chargers for mobile phones.

Now, that's not a market entrepreneurs would enter instinctively. But Steven Yang, the founder and CEO saw the long-term potential of a fragmented market that would grow steadily over time.

Apple has now stopped including chargers with new phones. So has Samsung. And the EU has mandated USB-C chargers as a standard. That expands the market for third party chargers exponentially.

Anker has excelled at increasing charging power while reducing the size. They bet on Gallium Nitride which keeps the size small and multiple devices can be charged at the same time.

And they identified the pool they would play in.

Not in mobile phones, which is close to $500 billion annually and the largest product market.

The next is laptops and PCs, which is a $200 billion market.

Then come the tablets which are at $60-70 billion annually.

Followed by smart watches and headphones which make up a growing $40 billion market

So, the markets diminish to 10% of the size of the biggest ones in just a few steps.

But there are a lot of $3-5 billion dollar pools which will grow in future.

That's a great way to understand where the company's strengths lie.

And the options available there are truly widespread.

Plus the realisation that the company's structure is built to generate revenue from the smaller growing pools, not the monolithic ones.

That's the kind of clarity that helps companies and decide where they can play their best game and succeed.

It gives Anker pole status in the smaller categories - and that is a great place to be.

In a goldrush, sell mats

Yoga is getting traction worldwide.

From recommendations by doctors to expensive Yoga studios, it is growing exponentially not just in the US but China and Australia as well.

One of the biggest signs of it becoming a worldwide phenomenon is the number of variations that have been invented.

Superstar gurus wanted their auras to glow brighter and establish their own gravy train of followers.

Like Starbucks has multiple flavours, there's now Kundalini, Hatha Yoga, Restorative Yoga and the controversial Bikram Yoga which has even got its own scandalous Netflix special.

When a movement becomes a gold rush, there's another indicator of success.

The growth of accessories like Yoga mats.

They come in a striking array of colours, materials including thermoplastic elastomers, apart from the basic woven grass mats.

But that does not align with upscale settings.

So, the mats have evolved as well to meet the luxury needs of patrons, who don't want to rest their finely toned bodies on commonplace mats.

As a result, the accessories market in Yoga is taking off faster than the search for salvation.

Like Gucci and YSL totes being carried around, there needs to be a category appropriate brand to flash your Yoga credentials.

And brands have understood that this can be milked for a couple of decades, at least.

The Yoga mat market is projected to grow to $17 billion worldwide by 2025.

Even while proponents and disciples stretch, swivel and contort gracefully, it becomes another thing to talk about on the cocktail and fitness circuit.

The flavour of Yoga, the pedigree of the teacher and the branch of Yoga being practiced.

The pursuit of calm has become a mint!

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Or Korean, for that matter. Or even Russian.

The evolution of subtitles and dubbing in films is going in unpredictable directions.

Streaming services are running into problems with respect to dubbing and generating subtitles in multiple languages.

One runaway hit can change equations.

The Squid Game on Netflix was watched worldwide by audiences who didn't know a word of Korean. But Netflix found another fascinating detail hidden in the data.

People preferred the dubbed version of the film in their local language instead of subtitles. Makes sense because for some, subtitles are a distraction.

The problem is how this can be achieved.

Here comes AI to the rescue. A company called Veritone has access to petabytes of data from media libraries. That is being used to create a synthetic version of a familiar voice speaking a different language, keeping the same tone and emotion.

Nvidia is developing the technology to move lips of the characters to match the audio.

Right now, it is being used in short duration projects like advertisements to get the technology going and iron out the creases.

But in a few years or a decade, we'll probably have actors whose versions of their hits will have them speaking foreign languages as well.

Even if they don't have a clue as to what they're saying.

The translators and subtitling industries may become collateral damage,

But imagine stars who are truly cross border, speaking any language with perfect intonation and emotion.

Now that could create the first global superstar!

Rethinking QWERTY

It has resisted everything.

The so-called 'inefficient' placement of keys was the original design mapped to make typing slow. Created specifically so that they keys did not jam up in the manual typewriter.

Fast forward to the computer and innumerable placement options have been tried without success.

Keyboard design has remained, or at least imitates the original layout of keys.

The T9 that briefly dominated mobile phones in the early days of cell phones did not lead to a long-term change.

Even the 'soft' version on smartphones stays true to the original.

Why has this layout triumphed? One of the reasons is that early laptops may not have wanted to change a design people were familiar with.

Navigating a new paradigm was complex enough.

That's why Chara Corder is a complete rejection of the original keypad layout.

Like a gaming keyboard, each of your finger’s rest on a set of keys. It is supposed to make typing stupendously faster, once you master the basics.

The switches detect finger movement in 3D rather than along a single dimension.

It also looks completely unlike any keyboard you've seen so far.

Each of the keys can be programmed to operate four or more functions.

It looks fiendishly complex but apparently has found a sizeable audience willing to take the time to master it.

And once you do, they promise that you can type as fast as you can think.

It has been breaking all kinds of speed records. Sites like Monkeytype have banned Chara Chord because the speeds are completely off the charts.

Maybe QWERTY has finally met its match.

The shark discovers a whale of an opportunity

Mark Cuban is recognized more for his appearances on Shark Tank rather than his ownership of Dallas Mavericks, a major baseball team.

But his latest venture could impact more than sport.

He's waded into an area where health, politics and policy intersect.

Setting up an online pharmacy for generics.

The high prices of medicines in the US is an intractable problem. People with chronic conditions end up paying a fortune every month, just to get by.

There are currently about 100 drugs on the website and the price differences are revealing. 

The difference is as much as 90%. For a month's supply of Imatinib, the branded drug costs almost $10,000 dollars. He is supplying it for less than $50.

Now that puts him into a major confrontation with the whole ecosystem.

The patients are all going to be on his side because it directly impacts their lives and well-being.

And by cutting out insurance companies from the mix, he's removed one of the key pillars that govern the healthcare business models.

The battle could redefine how the entire health industry works.

There are billions, if not trillions of dollars at stake. And if the drug companies and hospitals are impacted, there will be repercussions.

Mark Cuban knows what he's letting himself in for. He's opted to go against companies with deep pockets who will see this as an existential threat.

Until now, there hasn't been a coordinated effort to cut prices across the spectrum. The loyalty of patients is guaranteed.

The US pharmaceutical market is the largest in the world at nearly $500 billion. And that's what Mark Cuban is taking a hacksaw to.

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It started off as a way of getting paralyzed people to walk.

Now, it has evolved into military, healthcare and industrial solutions.

The basic idea is to enhance human capacity for walking, carrying weights or doing repetitive tasks.

The Exoskeleton will probably transform more industries in future than robotics alone.

The number of applications being simultaneously worked on is staggering.

Helping soldiers manage everything from long tiring treks over harsh terrain to reducing joint strains and fatigue.

The same holds true in warehouses and manufacturing lines where the exoskeletons help workers lift massive weights on the assembly line, or manage delicate tasks which require limbs to be held aloft for long.

It reduces back strain by providing support even while the person is standing straight.

Robotics built into the suit work in tandem with the wearer and the result is fewer industrial accidents and prevention of long-term damage to muscles.

It's early days but there is a definite advantage to making people superhuman rather than have robots develop human capabilities.

That difference in perspective is helping to change what assembly lines look like and function - the idea is to make people manage working heavy tools and at dangerous heights easier.

Over time, as costs drop, they will become a common sight at manufacturing facilities worldwide.

Right now, the costs are quite high because the solutions are in an early stage of development.

But looking ahead, in everything from helping paralyzed people get around to long army marches and building new efficiencies on assembly lines, exoskeletons will become commonplace.

Wearable skeletons are the idea we didn't know we needed.

Corporate bonds you can eat

Paul & Mike make chocolates. World-class stuff.

Their chocolate concoctions win prizes at global competitions.

They have also demonstrated their ability to think differently when it comes to raising money.

Anyone who has ordered online from them in the past would have got a message asking whether they wanted to subscribe to 'chocolate bonds'

The offer is this.

Any customer (up to the first 500) can invest Rs. 5000 in the company. In return, they will get chocolates worth Rs. 6500 over one year.

Basically, the interest component is paid out in extra chocolates.

This will be in force for one year from the date of investment. Since the chocolates cost anywhere from Rs.250 to Rs 375 for a single slab, it means that customers can order what they like for Rs.6500, not including shipping costs and taxes.

They have also been upfront about the way the money will be used - to fund the upgradation of their facilities.

Now, this is a way of ensuring loyalty with an upfront payment - and for customers who are sold on the brand, an investment in pleasure.

The company gets the funding practically for free. The payout is only in the product itself and that means their profit margins may only have to take a small hit. For a short while on a fraction of the customer base.

Paul & Mike have also tied up supplies to these customers for the next 12 months. Now that's called predictable sales figures. And while it is small at the moment, they can go on to increase this over time.

From the comments on the site, it looks like their customers are well and truly sold on the idea.

The simple brilliance of Wordle

The man who created the game is Josh Wardle.

So, there's a bit of serendipity right there, apart from the fact that 'word' in the name already lets you know what you're getting into.

There are numerous word games on the net. So why did this one take off spectacularly?

Here are a few pointers.

First of all, five letter words are easy but not super easy. The UI is crisp. Six rows of five squares, with the keyboard at the bottom.

The second are the rules. You guess full words, not one letter at a time. You know the difference between letters in the target word and the ones that are wrongly placed.

And the ones that are not there in the word at all. Progress is measurable.

Plus, the same colours are reflected on the keyboard, visually helping you focus on guessing options.

The third is rationing. There's only one game a day. Scarcity creates habit, not overload.

The fourth is sharing - the people who have guessed the word in 3 tries want the world to know - without spoiling the fun for others.

The grid is a great way to evoke intrigue and show off. Hordes of people have been drawn into the game because they wanted to know what these green graphic squares meant. And once they arrived at the site, they would certainly attempt it at least once.

The fifth is that it is free. But that's the least important aspect of the game. Wordle would not have succeeded without thinking through the entire experience of gameplay.

Once you get into it, you're guaranteed to spend a few minutes every day.

Attention alternates between frustration and triumph - and that's the cherry on the sundae!

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The tweet set off a firestorm.

Imagine printers not being able to recognise a company's cartridges!

We have all grown used to the cat and mouse games that printer manufacturers play.

Replace all the four-color cartridges even though only one of them is drained.

Having to waste expensive toners because all the cartridges don't get empty at the same time.

Users try and find workarounds or cheaper solutions.

Companies find ways to block them. 

And even though there are entrepreneurs who try to establish a market in the replacement market, they find it hard to succeed or scale.

So, it seems like poetic justice when companies have to deal with systems flagging  genuine cartridges as counterfeits!

This is the problem. A semiconductor chip was the one blocking duplicate cartridges from being installed.

The moment the printer came on, it would check if the cartridge was from the company and if it wasn't, the printer would no longer work.

Now that there is a chip shortage, the cartridges are being shipped without them. And there is no way to differentiate.

And Canon admits that the toner levels cannot be detected.

Here's the formal statement from the company: Due to the ongoing global shortage of semiconductor components, Canon is currently experiencing challenges in procuring specific electronic components that are used in our consumable products for our multifunction printers (MFP). These components perform such functions as detecting remaining toner levels.

Look for the 'counterfeit' market to be rubbing their hands gleefully while the shortage persists.

Getting rid of homelessness

As economies rise and fall, the hardest hit are people rendered homeless.

It could be for a variety of reasons.

Traditionally, the solution has been to provide temporary rooms or dormitories.

That creates another layer of management and oversight - and any funds allocated to these options gets lost in the maze of government spending.

It's also a sticky issue politically - the homeless living on the margins have to use all their wits to merely get through a day and they're political footballs passed around from one constituency to the next one.

Finland is simply giving people homes - no questions asked.

What takes on added urgency is that temperatures in winter drop to -20 degrees and being out in the open means that even survival is in doubt.

While the population is nowhere near as large as some of the developing countries, it is still a tall order to provide a home when necessary. But the effect has been remarkable.

The first goal was to create 2500 homes, but they went up to 3,500.

The number of long-term homeless people has dropped by 35% and there is only one 50 bed shelter that remains from the earlier network.

It's not just space to live - the government follows up with support services like education, training and work placement help. Apart from teaching people to cook and clean the homes.

It may not be the solution that every country can implement but it may be a far better way of solving the problem than anything available today.

The question is, will every country be able to afford it?

5G runs into an air pocket

In most cases, the rollout of a new generation of telecom technology is a highly anticipated event.

However, in the US, the launch of 5G has run into a major problem.

The FAA has warned of 'catastrophic disruption' at airports.

Apparently, 5G interferes with sensitive altimeters inside aircraft.

And for planes coming into land in bad weather or poor visibility, it's a dangerous problem to deal with.

As the wireless spectrum gets more expensive and crowded, we'll face more of these issues.

Technology has to keep pace with spectrum requirements from communication and broadband companies to military and aviation needs.

For telecom companies, the investments they have sunk into purchasing spectrum and upgrading customers will take longer to recover.

For airlines, it impacts bottomlines when flights have to be canceled owing to 5G problems.

Some of the disruption is already evident. Air India and Emirates have canceled some of their schedules to the US.

Now comes the painful part. FAA will have to draw up guidelines for telecom companies to follow. The antenna cannot point upward, for example. And that could have an impact on coverage.

At the same time, it will have to test altimeters and see which models from airplanes are safe to fly in adverse conditions.

Since telecom spectrum is auctioned differently in other countries, they have not faced the problems yet.

There's no doubt, however, that technology cannot be permanently in expansion mode.

The scarcity will no doubt lead to technical innovation and breakthroughs.

But these are air pockets few anticipated. And the 5G rollout in the US is in for quite a bit of turbulence.

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Chatbots have to simulate human conversations.

And we think they're free flowing, the way dialogue is delivered in movies.

In real life, they are halting, awkward and filled with long pauses. Even between friends and colleagues, conversations dry up after the common subjects are exhausted or one of the people conversing loses interest.

There's a lot of 'ummm..', eh.....' and clearing of throats, apart from the same thoughts going around in circles.

At parties and networking events, people play out introductions and opening lines in their minds before actually speaking. Trying to sound friendly, knowledgeable as well as intelligent.

It's a hard act to keep up.

There are times when you know you aren't getting across to the person you are speaking with.

So, why do we assume that chatbots will be able to simulate human conversations without difficulty?

They may go through machine learning on millions of conversations and then reconstruct them for certain contexts.

But how people think and what they say is still unpredictable.

No machine can come up with all the branches of a conversation that humans explore in unstructured ways. Flitting from one subject to another. Starting off at random points and leaving things unsaid midway.

Intense exchanges followed by contemplation and thought.

Plus, no chatbot initiates conversations. It waits for you to ask the question to hopefully provide answers.

Even the most advanced program stumbles.

But then, so do humans!

The yoga in power storage

Compress. Decompress. Compress. Decompress.

The idea has been around for decades. Compress air into underground caverns and decompress when required to release energy.

The problem with managing electricity is that it has to be transmitted and distributed as soon as it is generated.

Storage was not given the recognition it deserved.

Now, wind and solar power generation have improved dramatically - but they're still unpredictable and the power generated needs to be stored, so that it can be supplied to the grid during lean times or when demand hits new peaks.

Hydrostor, a Canadian company has breathed new life into the storage idea.

Using electricity, a fixed amount of water is run through a complex system of pipes to compress air stored deep within the ground. When required, the water is pushed back through decompression and that generates electricity.

Several versions of the idea being tried out across the world, including in India but that's more on the lines of a closed loop power generation system.

This one focuses on compressed air generating power to be fed back to the grid.

They have built a 2-10MW hour project as proof of concept and it is already generating profits.

Goldman Sachs has invested $250 million into the company. The potential for energy storage is massive as the electricity market shifts to 'power on demand'. Optimizing that is only possible by building storage solutions that can tide over situations of alternating scarcity and excess.

Like yoga calms the human system through a series of breathing techniques, Hydrostor may be the answer to what future power markets need.

Deep storage.

VR programming for cows

Cows don't need multiple entertainment options.

Or role-playing games filled with fast-paced action.

All they require is immersion in a pasture.

In today's confined spaces, letting them out to graze is not an option.

They're lined up next to each other and even the space to move is limited.

A Turkish farmer came up with the idea of using a VR headset on a cow.

Imported from Russia, it puts the cow in a completely outdoor environment.

It does make a difference apparently - milk production is up and the cows seem happier.

There are a few tricky questions that come up.

When the cow sees grass and attempts to eat it, what happens? Has the farmer placed fodder in the right place, so when the cow goes for it, the assumption is that it is eating fresh grass?

Humans are harder to convince. They are far more finicky about the environment and have suggestions as well as ideas on the kind of environments they would like to immerse themselves in.

But cows have no such problem. Put them into a VR headset makes them believe they are out in the pasture.

They don't need a change of scene or anything more exciting - what can they get anyway?

Maybe they will simulate calves to nuzzle close when they tire of this, or when milk production goes down.

And will there be resistance when VR headsets are removed at the end of the day?

As far as cows are concerned, the metaverse is already here!

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His name is Nasir Ahmed and it won't ring a bell.

But hang on a minute because it will all make sense.

He went from Bangalore to the US in the early 60s for higher studies and for his PhD, he came up with the Discrete Cosine Transform - an algorithm that would prove to be crucial to the future of the world.

It compressed images and later was applied to video compression as well.

The major use at the time was for defense. The military had a massive network but it was next to impossible to send images over it with limited bandwidth.

As the web took root, Nasir Ahmed's algorithm became the default for sending images.

It was built into browsers and email programs by default.

Users, of course were oblivious of how images were moved across the net. All they had to do was attach a file and hit the 'Send' button.

The man who made it all possible languished in complete obscurity. He was well-known in academic circles and the enormity of what he achieved came into focus during the pandemic.

Zoom or Facetime or Google Meet. None of these would work without deploying the algorithm.

His net worth is a micro fraction of the wealth these companies have amassed. But he isn't bitter about it, merely bemused.

He speaks of the scientists at the time who developed the base technologies that drive today's internet focused only on their vocation.

And he changed the world by making the real time transmission of images and video long before anyone had found widespread global use for it.

Was the makeover only for the cameras?

It's one of the popular sub-genres on TV, but not in India as yet.

In the US, home makeover shows are quite popular.

Practically every channel has a take on how to do home arrangements, or cut clutter or tips to modify the home.

But there appears to be a seedy side to the sub-genre where reality stops with showing what's good on camera.

The format is quite simple - a home or a room is chosen for a transformation and while the family leaves town for a couple of weeks, the makeover team arrives to work their magic.

It's supposed to be done for free and viewers think that the chosen family probably has saved a ton of money by being selected.

It turns out that the reality is not as rosy.

Buzzfeed profiles several makeovers that went completely wrong and the residents ended up with a huge cleanup bill after the camera crews left.

Some of them complained that the whole thing was more like a set with everything held together with staples and glue.

The problem is that most of these shows start off with good intentions. But then, every makeover can't be a repeat of a previous episode. They have to riff off the themes.

And the final result has to be dramatic enough for viewers to tune in week after week.

That's probably where the divergence between expectations and reality happens. 

And keeping TV viewers happy and coming back for more is quite different from making homes livable!

The soap, shampoo and toothpaste wars

In this one, the customers aren't involved at all. It's all behind the scenes.

The distributors of these products are the last place you expect an all-out flaming war.

For decades, they have followed a regular plodding cycle.

The distributor sends a sales team to collect orders, deliveries are made. Every year, the distributors and manufacturers haggle over the profit margin and compromises are made.

It was a system that sustained close to 600,000 distributors and the small shops they supplied to. 

Then came the disruptors with the big bucks. Udaan, Jio mart and Big Basket had the capital to strike massive deals with manufacturers and pass on some of those profits to small store owners, cutting the distributors out.

It would also make small stores dependent on the larger suppliers over time, given that once the power shifts, the small stores would have less bargaining power.

And the distributors have decided they will do all they can to make things difficult.

So, they issued ultimatums to the big manufacturers - give the same rates to them as well or else they would boycott the brands altogether.

Now, manufacturers treat distributors with kid gloves because they know the havoc they can wreak on the supply chain, at least for now.

It's a cycle that repeats time and again. Remove the inefficiency from fragmented distribution networks and there's lots of money to be made - at the regional level, the state level and the international level.

For the moment, the boycott has been postponed because the manufacturers have bought time. 

Distributors in India and small shopkeepers are wily and have quite a sting in the tail.

Especially when they assemble their collective firepower and disrupt the disruptors.

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Imagine eye drops that improve eyesight.

It's the decision most people confront late into their 30s or early 40s

Probably the first sign is when distant objects look clear and one has to hold books a little further away to focus.

Then comes the hard part. Mentally admitting that one needs reading glasses.

The first time is self-conscious. The emphasis on telling people 'I only need it for reading' is repeated several times a day.

Some self-deprecating jokes among close friends about finally 'growing old'

Dyeing hair is easier because it retains youthful looks. But eyeglasses are a definitive giveaway.

That's why Vuity, a new approach to handling presbyopia - the loss of eyesight that comes as part of the natural aging process, is getting attention.

The way it works is that you put in the drops, wait for about 15 minutes and like magic, your ability to read improves.

Unfortunately, the effect lasts for about 6 hours after which your eyes go back to their earlier state.

But it is a huge improvement from actually having to wear glasses - and the audience would be those who want to delay the inevitable.

It's going to be another stealth weapon for those who insist on staying young - and depending on how the early reviews are, it should be an easy sell.

How many products are focused on preserving and extending our youthful state?

The fountain of youth has more devotees than the fountain of wisdom!

A dark rum is about to become famous

Diplomats are rarely, if ever, involved with product promotions.

And the circumstances were bizarre.

Lithuania grows no sugar, so it imports the rum base, sugar cane molasses from Trinadad & Tobago.

The distilled rum, called Propeller Dark was marketed as a Caribbean original to China.

Then Lithuania made a misstep. It opened an embassy in Taiwan.

20,000 bottles of rum floating in mid sea were not allowed entry into Chinese ports.

Taiwan stepped in and bought out the entire shipment.

The national development council even created a series of ads with recipes of how the rum could be used.

Even if it was to help an ally, marketing realities can't be ignored.

Since the government cannot advertise a private brand of liquor, it built awareness of how rum could be used to spice up a meal or make exotic cocktails.

The ads show a bottle without the label and feature in social media.

Must be one of the rare occasions where the government is forced to play an anchor role in promoting a product category.

It was simply to make the point that they would not let down a country who supported them.

But in the process, Propeller Dark has got a dream launch in a country that was not part of the forecast!

It remains to be seen if they will use this story to get a foothold in other geographies.

But they have to win hearts and minds through the product, even if they've got a launch story for the ages!

Chal meri Luna - on Hydrogen

First things first - this is not an Indian product.

It's a new hydrogen fuel cell two-wheeler from a company in France.

However, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Indian Luna from the 70s.

That became a major hit. Though it didn't have the design dynamism of the swankier 100 cc bikes.

But it had what mattered - amazing fuel efficiency and great carrying capacity.

For Indian small towns, it was a godsend. Good to load all kinds of things and transport them to the nearest marketplace.

There may still be pictures in newspaper and magazine archives of Luna becoming the all-purpose two-wheeler in India.

But then, things changed. Fuel costs increased. The Luna evolved but not enough to withstand the competition from the Japanese bike JVs. 

The Alpha from Pragma Industries rides on hydrogen with a range of 100 kms.

he hydrogen filling station can be connected to a renewable energy source and the two-wheelers can be filled in less than a minute.

Obviously, buying the filling infrastructure is part of the deal and it makes the most sense for captive fleet operators.

Hydrogen is among the cleanest fuel sources in the world but the competition from lithium-ion batteries is stiff.

So the company is sensibly targeting those who have a fleet of vehicles and want to keep fuel costs down to the minimum, without significant increases over time.

And that benefit beats looks and design hands down.

Will it succeed? Let's check back in a few years.

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User manuals are dry and factual.

They tell you how to use a product but never how the experience can be enjoyable.

But we need user manuals because that's where user experiences begin.

Take a simple thing like getting the best out of your fridge.

The user manual tells you how to make ice, what different compartments are for and how to maintain the fridge.

But a personal user experience of fridges tells you how to stack things up inside, how to make out if stuff in the fridge is past its prime and how to remove icky smells.

Similarly, take Twitter.

It is basically status updates, links and now, threads.

But people have found that much more can be accomplished.

They have found friends, co-founders and collaborators.

All through a series of unconnected messages posted on an impersonal platform.

There have been terrible experiences for people as well - no denying that.

The question is how to find enclaves of tolerance and goodness and make that your place of bliss.

Though Twitter was launched way back in 2006, it's the people who grew with the platform who are able to define and communicate the experience for others.

This may work for some, not for everyone. Tasshin's blog post, is not a user manual as much as an exploration of the various facets of Twitter.

And that's the enriching part. You can follow this or devise your own ways of exploration.

There are times when nothing will happen, and your tweets will be lost in the vastness of the chatter.

But the spark of happenstance is just around the corner.

The chaos in human logistics

Thousands of flights were canceled everyday in peak holiday season in the US.

The reasons given were that crews affected by the Omicron variant of Covid were grounded and that sent schedules haywire.

But when the New York Times dug deeper, additional reasons came to the fore.

Airlines were badly affected by the pandemic. That lead to a government bailout to keep them running - over $54 billion was paid out.

To get the money, they had to accept strict limits on layoffs, dividends, stock buybacks and pay increases for senior executives.

They were, however, permitted to reduce head count through early-retirement incentives and voluntary furloughs. They did, and those job cuts have been only partially reversed, even when the market revived.

Passengers were encouraged to do their own checking and baggage tagging.

Optimisation, code for doing more with fewer employees, became the default for airlines looking to survive.

They tried to increase capacity and raise it to previous levels without adding the same ratio of people.

For a time, it worked.

But the recent wave showed that there was little room for error, or even comfort.

Without spare capacity, there is no room in the system to shift things around.

And what started off as a few cancellations went on to become a rolling snowball.

Every canceled flight is revenue loss that can't be made up. 

And the fragility of business models and supply chains is being exposed like never before.

How computer punch cards launched a giant - IBM

Anyone who's been though a computer science class would have heard about it in a historical context.

What exactly did programming a card mean?

An article in Ars Technica showed how it was an elegant solution for the late 1800s - and transformative as well. 

The problem was tabulating census figures in the US. Conducted in 1880, it took over 8 years to collate.

When the first census was done in 1790, only age and sex in addition to a person's name was recorded. Later occupation, marital status, education and place of birth was added. Each parameter added increased the complexity of the data to be processed.

Herman Hollerith was the inventor of the punch card and he phrased it this way, in the 1889 revision of his patent application, “A hole is thus punched corresponding to person, then a hole according as person is a male or female, another recording whether native or foreign born, another either white or colored, &c.”

Special machinery had to be developed to punch holes with accuracy and efficiency.

Next, Hollerith devised a machine to “read” the card, by probing the card with pins, so that only where there was a hole would the pin pass through the card to make an electrical connection, resulting in advance of the appropriate counter.

This accelerated the counting to the point where the entire census tabulation was completed by 1890, just a year later.

Hollerith went into business selling the technology by incorporating Tabulating Machine Company, which went on to become International Business Machines - IBM

The semiconductor revolution in computing would take a few more decades.

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Or teacup, for that matter?

Some people prize massive mugs that hold large amounts of coffee and nurse it for hours.

So, why do we slip into these habits?

Why do we want to repeat the familiar?

There's an aspect of selecting cups that we're hardly conscious about.

The mouth comes in contact with the rim and unconsciously drives our preferences when we make a choice.

The fancy ceramic designs with delicate handles and ornate graphics have a different texture when your mouth settles on it. Think about the feeling and you'll recall it.

The same is true of the earthen 'kullar', the terracotta cups that are simply smashed after use.

There's a way your mouth feels around different cups - the thicker the rim and the more the curvature, the more your face 'dips' into it.

Some love it steaming hot - where the liquid is close to scalding temperatures. Others like it lukewarm and a few are perfectly happy to keep sipping on something that has gone completely cold.

You've seen people wrap their hands around hot cups in winter. The warmth from the cup is a source and a daily ritual of pleasure and sustenance.

The morning cup is an ingrained habit. It's makes people less irritable and willing to face up to the day. Delay it and you delay the pickup.

We've built some strange affinities. But it has a cascading impact on the way the day unfolds.

It's the first of many comfort zones we enter on a habitual basis - whether we're aware of it or not.  

The Ratan Tata effect

You can't miss him on LinkedIn.

Every day on the feed, you're guaranteed to see at least 2-3 selfies put up by adoring fans.

They've probably waited months for the day.

And it's gone down in their personal history - the few moments they had with him. Captured in a frame where they're listening attentively or gazing at the screen in pride.

What everyone notices about Mr. Tata, however, is the gaunt, slightly bent figure, with the kindly smile.

Everyone else is a footnote - and that's the way it will be because people only notice the famous figures in any picture.

So scrolling through the feed, especially when it was his birthday recently is seeing a succession of pictures of Mr. Tata with dedicated fans.

Personalities like Mr. Tata and the former President Mr. Abdul Kalam are 'like' magnets and used to drum up attention.

Their quotes may be authentic or made up. But that is not the point.

The Ratan Tata effect generates a small spike of attention in a sea of posts which are just pictures. Like this one as well - guilty as charged!

I first began to see one occasionally a few months ago and then, there were breathless comments and congratulatory messages on getting an audience with the great man.

Now, of course, it has become the standard 'bucket list' item.

In most cases, the interactions are little more than an exchange of greetings, which is how this works. How deep can anyone go in a conversation that barely lasts for a minute?

A brush with fame, no matter how fleeting, is irresistible!

Does 31st December matter?

We've had lists, lookbacks, love and loathing for the year gone by.

And yet, when the countdown begins and the clock strikes 12 to indicate that we're in a 'new' year, there's a curious sense of things being exactly the same.

Change, for each one of us comes at different times.

No announcements, no calendar connections.

We see it when students get their final year college marks.

The haves and the have nots.

The ones who get distinctions and the ones who think they've been left behind.

The first time you fall in love.

The birth of a child.

The death of a parent.

The disappointment of losing out on something you worked for years on.

The small victories and moments that you recall after decades.

The music in the car on a long drive to nowhere.

Heartbreak.

The designation that finally gets attached to your name after slogging for years.

And then finding that it doesn't matter in the long run.

Lusting for one possession after another.

Left to languish after the thrill of acquisition passes.

Like forgotten trophies in a musty cupboard. Symbols of victory and pride that seem to be as fleeting as the ceremony and the applause.

They don't come on a schedule or follow the metronome of time.

Some dates we remember.

Others we purposely forget because we don't want to be reminded of what we felt like at the time.

Time, the cliché  goes, is the great healer.

We look in a mirror and see a wrinkle we didn't notice before.

Then, we realise that time ripples through our life marking its passage exactly as it pleases.

Tomorrow is a mirage.

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There was a camera called Flip before smartphones in the early 2000s

It did just one thing well - video and made it easy for just about anyone to make and edit video. 

As it soared in popularity, it was bought by Cisco for almost $600 million.

It proved to be a purchase fraught with problems. Cisco was geared to sell to enterprises and Flip was essentially a consumer product.

Somewhere within the company, it got stuck in the red tape and Cisco decided to completely withdraw it from the market.

That brought about a great deal of hand-wringing from customers who had committed to the camera and recorded several home films on it - but to no avail.

Now, here's another similar story.

We all have a pileup of remote controls for different devices at home. Part of the problem is that the gadgets use different base technologies and integrating them into a single remote is a technical challenge.

But a company called Harmony did do it. It provided one of the best examples of being able to use one remote to control practically every entertainment device at home.

However, Logitech bought Harmony a few years ago. And now, they've decided to stop production altogether.

Looks like it's not profitable for the company or they haven't figured out a way to make it work - even though the article below says it was deliberate. No company deliberately decides to lose money.

It’s tragic when concepts have been developed into successful, full-blown products are simply lost in the wilderness of the corporate woodwork.

Maybe there is a logical explanation but no one's willing to say what happened.

The camera doesn't forget

Our memories may dim over time, but cameras don't.

Unless the software that manages the images gets corrupted, for some reason.

Face recognition is already being used for everything from unlocking phones to identifying travelers at an airport.

Now that seems like perfectly legitimate use of the technology.

But once the genie is out of the bottle it can go anywhere.

When Facebook said it would no longer use its tagging system to identify people, it was a temporary blip because people saw how easy it was to track individuals for no reason whatsoever.

With technology that has legitimate uses, things can evolve both ways.

Police forces would want to keep tabs on those identified as criminals to track their movements. And that opens up different kinds of intrusions into a person's private space.

Banks would justify face recognition to identify customers when they're opening an account or transacting, so that the wrong people are not able to access an account.

But hackers can find all kinds of uses that simply go against the grain. If a face tagged to a real person exists in a database, it can be used for things without the person's knowledge.

Let us say a company enables face recognition within the company for access.

If attackers gain access to this database, they can 'spoof' employee identities and then access proprietary information.

And governments would want to track opponents - the number of potential uses and misuses just keep multiplying.

It's a hard question to answer - whether facial recognition solves problems or creates new ones.

A test case for renewable energy

Is the future inevitable?

Media stories drive the narrative that renewable energy is the way of the future along with the gradual easing of fossil fuels.

Puerto Rico is one of the staging grounds of future battles.

When the electricity grid was flattened by a couple of hurricanes, the emphasis shifted to rebuilding.

It was clear that existing electricity companies wanted to get back to the regular generation mode, utilising the funds allocated by the US government.

In other words, it should go back to business as usual.

But renewable energy companies see this as the perfect opportunity to make the switch - and the case that electricity generation should not go back to the old mode of working.

So, will decentralised power generation where solar panels are put up on homes and industry roofs to generate power become the new model? 

There's no clarity on which way will work better in the long run. Scaling the power from each rooftop and then creating an overall grid to distribute it will take time. But people and industry need power here and now.

It's a tricky rope walk to manage needs now while creating a fresh infrastructure. If people make the investment in their own power, who pays for the overall power generation as a backup? There are no easy answers to that question

For both the segments involved, it's a battle for survival. One into which politicians, consumers, companies and policy makers will take up positions and fight tooth and nail.

Whichever way this plays out, similar battles will open up everywhere.

A transition on such a scale is like pulling out teeth without anesthesia! 

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