Tag: china
The Price of the Badge: What is a car brand worth when horsepower is free?
For a century, a car brand sold something scarce: engineering competence that ordinary buyers had no way to verify. China has made that competence cheap. The question is not whether Porsche can beat a 1,400-horsepower Chinese EV. It is what a brand can still own once winning has stopped mattering.
Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 08-06-26
Is it safe to say the daily Pook-Emu Bee links are "daily" again with three posts in a row? [caption id="attachment_6703" align="aligncenter" width="800"] I did laundry yesterday evening.[/caption] 1 - Video Game Accounts Can Be Inherited, Chinese Court Rules (Li Xin for Sixth Tone. August 6, 2026.) The game account inheritance news from China you...
Trump’s Sloppy, Incompetent Chinese Protectionism Expanded To Robot Vacuums, Lawnmowers
Ideally, I think it makes sense to open up the U.S. market to Chinese goods (AI, EVs, robots), but have functional and well-funded regulators that policy all labor, competition, environmental, privacy, and consumer rights abuses. But big companies don't much like that because it would boost competition and accountability, eroding quarterly revenues.So instead we get...
The Trump FCC’s Chinese Drone Ban Continues To Be A Sloppy, Protectionist Mess
Last year the Trump administration announced it would ban Chinese-made drones from the U.S. As I noted at the time, the plan had several problems, not least of which being the Trump administration is a racist, corrupt, dysfunctional mess filled with weirdos and lazy incompetents, primarily interested in assorted personal investment grifts and protecting less...
Xi rallies Brazil behind BRICS and Global South alliance
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on Brazil to stand with China in strengthening BRICS and giving the Global South a bigger voice in world affairs.Speaking by phone with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday, Xi said China and Brazil should "firmly stand on the right side of history" and...
Xi Jinping surprises Mutharika
Malawi President Arthur Peter Mutharika has revealed that Chinese President Xi Jinping surprised him with a personal birthday gift and message as he celebrated his 86th birthday, describing the gesture as a symbol of the enduring friendship between Malawi and China. The birthday gift and personal greetings were presented to Mutharika by China's Ambassador to...
Birthday surprise for APM: Ansah celebrates Mutharika’s birthday with prayers for health, strength
Malawi Vice President Jane Ansah has led tributes to President Arthur Peter Mutharika as he celebrates his 86th birthday, offering prayers for his health, wisdom and continued strength. Ansah, one of the first senior political figures to publicly honour the President on Saturday, described Mutharika as a leader deserving of God's continued blessings. "Happy Birthday,...
Absolute Xinema
just some iconic images turned into iconic memes
Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 06-11-26
I missed Pook-Emu Bee links yesterday, but I am making sure to make up for it by starting this post yesterday. [caption id="attachment_5798" align="aligncenter" width="1008"] I took this photograph of the Marina at Brooklyn Bridge Park on the morning of June 7, 2026.[/caption] 1. Uzbek Fighters in Syria Face Tensions with Al-Sharaa’s Government (Jacob Zenn...
Beba Água Quente, Fique de Cocoras e Conheça a Internet em sua Fase mais Chinesa
Foi em abril de 2025 que tudo começou. Uma conta no X (antigo Twitter, atual 4chan) chamada @firl_virus postou uma frase solta. You met me at a very Chinese time in my life. Hoje, esse post tem mais de 27 mil curtidas. E de lá pra cá, a frase não parou de se espalhar. Se você passa algum tempo no TikTok, Instagram ou Bluesky, já deve ter esbarrado nela. Aparece em vídeos de gente bebendo água quente de manhã. Aparece em alguém se agachando pra descansar em pé. Aparece em caras brancos comendo ar...
Electric Truck Sales Have Already Crossed 50% in China. What That Means for Australia.
In December 2025, more than half of new heavy trucks sold in China were electric. Australia has a long-haul electric prime mover already running on its busiest corridor. The economics are no longer hypothetical.
The Weekly Planet #19: The China Shock, Part 3: AI.
When UBTech robots walked onto the factory floor at Zeekr's electric vehicle plant in March 2025, they did something no humanoid robots had done before: they worked as a coordinated team, lifting boxes, assembling car parts, and performing quality checks - all without human supervision. Powered by DeepSeek's reasoning model, these machines represented more than a manufacturing curiosity. They embodied a fundamentally different vision of artificial intelligence, one that may reshape the global technology competition in ways Silicon Valley hasn't fully grasped.
The Daily Planet #117: The China Shock, Part 18
And finally, any country that's rapidly becoming more technologically capable and dominant in some industries is going to get adverse attention. Are they trustworthy? Will they eat us alive? These are fair questions, and it's instructive to see how the official Chinese sources are responding to them. This is what they have to say:
The Daily Planet #115: The China Shock, Part 16
The race to develop humanoid robots is unfolding along two very different paths in China and the United States, reflecting contrasting philosophies about how robots should learn and improve. China is taking a bold, fast-paced approach by deploying large numbers of robots directly into real-world environments like factories, streets, and homes. This “learn-on-the-job” strategy allows robots to gather vast amounts of real-world data, which is then used to continuously improve their artificial intelligence. Companies such as Unitree and Agibot are leading this effort, with Agibot even offering an open-source operating system called Lingqu OS to encourage collaboration and innovation across the industry. By flooding the market with task-specific robots, China creates a massive, living laboratory that accelerates progress through collective learning and rapid iteration.
The Daily Planet #114: The China Shock, Part 15
Embodied intelligence refers to intelligent agents that have a physical or virtual body and interact with their environment through continuous sensing, decision-making, and action. Unlike traditional AI that processes static data, embodied intelligence emphasizes the dynamic loop where perception guides action, and action changes what is perceived. This interaction involves three key components: intelligence (the computational brain), embodiment (the physical or simulated body), and environment (the external world with its objects and dynamics).
The Daily Planet #113: The China Shock, Part 14
China is advancing its artificial intelligence (AI) efforts in a way that differs significantly from the United States. While the U.S. mainly focuses on developing large language models (LLMs) to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) - a future AI that can outperform humans in all cognitive tasks - China is taking a broader and more balanced approach. Instead of putting all its resources into one method, China is investing in multiple paths to AGI simultaneously.
The Daily Planet #112: The China Shock, Part 13
China is making a major push into embodied AI, which means creating smart robots and AI-powered machines that can sense, understand, and interact with the physical world. Unlike many Western countries that focus mainly on digital AI like large language models, China aims to combine its strengths in AI software with advanced robotics hardware. This approach is part of a national strategy to boost the economy, address social challenges like an aging population, strengthen the military, and gain a global technological edge.
The Daily Planet #110: The China Shock, Part 11
It's clear that renewables will not lead to a common human goal of addressing climate change; in fact, renewables might be a better hedge against foreign sources of energy than for climate action. In this world, China is both a supplier of energy technologies and an adversary worth hedging against.
The Daily Planet #109: The China Shock, Part 10
China is the world's largest consumer of coal, burning nearly half of the global total in 2024. This massive use is driven by its huge economy, high electricity demand, and abundant domestic coal resources. China generates about a third of the world's electricity, with coal as the dominant source. Despite rapid growth in renewable energy, China's increasing electricity needs mean it is not on track to meet its carbon intensity targets set for 2030.
The YouTube Boogie
A livestreaming pianist accidentally steps into an international incident—and nobody ends up looking particularly good.
On “Ernie”
Having learned that Baidu is about to steal my first name for its AI chatbot that’s launching this month, let’s talk about the name Ernie for a bit. (Can I stop them?)