WATCHING TODAY:

1. Kim Jong Un-ism: Leader seeks 'new' ideology for North Korea: The third Kim is trying to build an image distinct from his father and grandfather.

2. Intel is about to relinquish its chipmaking crown to Samsung: Bloomberg reports it’s a symbolic blow for the US at a time when the geopolitics of semiconductors are trickier than ever.

3. Inflation up, virus down as priorities in US: AP-NORC poll: Heading into a critical midterm election year, the top political concerns of Americans are shifting in ways that suggest Democrats face considerable challenges to maintaining their control of Congress. A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that management of the coronavirus pandemic, once an issue that strongly favored President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, is beginning to recede in the minds of Americans. COVID-19 is increasingly overshadowed by concerns about the economy and personal finances — particularly inflation — which are topics that could lift Republicans.

4. Will journalism survive the internet? The internet is not about just replacing newspapers. It’s about how the news ecosystem is now organized. Journalism used to have a monopoly over news delivery and agenda-setting. This monopoly is now gone. New mechanisms for the search, selection, and delivery of content are not just replacing journalism – they are better.

5. How Mongolians came to dominate sumo, Japan’s national sport: The emergence of Mongolian wrestlers, with new techniques, skills and philosophy, and a dearth of home-grown talent, has created a new era for the sport.

GLOBALIZATION:

Globalization was supposed to prevent war; Russia may be showing the opposite
WSJ

+ Economic globalization was supposed to make wars harder to start. What if the experience with Russia right now is demonstrating that globalization actually makes them harder to prevent?

+ The head of Britain’s armed forces warned Russia over the weekend against any attempt to sever the underwater communications cables on which the world’s financial system is increasingly dependent.

China is rolling out its digital yuan to athletes and spectators ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the first major test of the virtual currency’s appeal among foreigners.

#CBDC

Kim Jong Un-ism: Leader seeks 'new' ideology for North Korea: The third Kim is trying to build an image distinct from his father and grandfather.
Nikkei

+ Portraits of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and the late Kim Jong ll are seen in a Workers' Party of Korea meeting in Pyongyang in 2018, left. The portraits were missing at a meeting in September.

+ Kim Jong Un-ism could be a kind of "marketing" strategy to put the spotlight more on him, and less on the country's founder and second leader

+ "Just like Kim Il Sung had 'juche' and Kim Jong Il had 'songun,' Kim Jong Un too is trying to create his own thought form, by combining these two ideologies and naming it after himself"

Facebook’s data center plans rile residents in the Netherlands: Locals say Big Tech data centers will siphon away all their green energy.
Ars Technica

+ Attitude reflects a wider shift against Big Tech's plans to flock to the Netherlands, one of three key hubs for data centers in Europe alongside the UK and Germany, turning the issue into a national debate ahead of local elections later this year

+ Meta's plan for the Zeewolde site, known as Tractor Field 4, is by far the biggest yet. It would span 166 hectares, equivalent of more than 1,300 Olympic swimming pools, and would devour 1,380 gigawatt-hours of energy a year, at least double what the 22,000 residents consume

+ Meta are also encountering a new type of data nationalism, where people protest Dutch resources being used to power Internet use beyond Dutch borders

These boats are really big, but Barcelona has the room: The city has become a hub for billionaires’ superyachts, banking on the strength of the “blue economy.”
NYT

+ Worldwide about 5,700 yachts are over 30 meters long (just under 100 feet), and this fleet is set to expand 15 percent by 2025, according to industry projections

+ At the pinnacle of this market are about 370 megayachts of over 60 meters, whose number has risen 70 percent in the past decade and is forecast to reach 500 in about seven years

America’s new moonshot: Getting Europe to sign up to its space rules: Paris and Berlin are still mulling whether to join US’s space coalition.
Politico

+ The text, dubbed the Artemis Accords, sets out Washington's preferred principles for a new era of space exploration

+ It aims to set accepted standards on everything from the exploitation of natural resources on the moon, comets, and asteroids to governments' ability to protect access to lunar bases or mining zones

DISRUPTION

Uber has quietly shut down its Apple Watch app.

30+ trending products to sell in 2022
Exploding Topics

Massage Gun = 5-year search growth: 7200%

Smokeless Fire Pit = 5-year search growth: 3150%

Laundry Strips = 5-year search growth: 9000%

Canned Cocktails = 5-year search growth: 2100%

Will journalism survive the internet? The internet is not about just replacing newspapers. It’s about how the news ecosystem is now organized. Journalism used to have a monopoly over news delivery and agenda-setting. This monopoly is now gone. New mechanisms for the search, selection, and delivery of content are not just replacing journalism – they are better.
Andrey Mir

+ The 1980s, roughly, was the demographic watershed between the Gutenberg era and the digital era

Into the metaverse: How sci-fi shapes our attitudes to the future: From the Terminator to Japanese manga, powerful narratives drive fear or reassurance around tech.
FT

+ “We get ideas about what AI should look like from Hollywood, that’s where the idea of the humanoid robot comes from. We did a survey in the UK. If people are concerned about AI, they cite The Terminator.” -- Kanta Dihal, the researcher behind AI Narratives

+ In sharp contrast, Japanese attitudes to AI are dramatically less dystopian. Two of the country’s most famous animated series, Astro Boy and Doraemon, have been around since the 1960s and have influenced people’s positive associations with AI.

POLITICS:

+ Polite society is all abuzz with talk of civil war and the dissolution of the Union. It's really something.

Fortune: An Arizona GOP candidate raised $575,000 in 36 hours selling NFTs as politicians look to a new kind of fundraising tool

Inflation up, virus down as priorities in US: AP-NORC poll: Heading into a critical midterm election year, the top political concerns of Americans are shifting in ways that suggest Democrats face considerable challenges to maintaining their control of Congress. A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that management of the coronavirus pandemic, once an issue that strongly favored President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, is beginning to recede in the minds of Americans. COVID-19 is increasingly overshadowed by concerns about the economy and personal finances — particularly inflation — which are topics that could lift Republicans.

+ Goli Sheikholeslami, the head of New York Public Radio, will become Politico’s new chief executive, Axel Springer announced on Monday.

YouGov / Sky News poll: Do you think Boris Johnson should resign from his role as PM?

+ 56% Should resign

+ 27% Should remain in his role

+ 17% Don't know

5,931 GB adults surveyed today, Jan 11

NOTABLES:

+ NBA stars Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala will take part of their salaries in the form of Bitcoin

Football’s future is in the metaverse: Virtual stadiums will kick off a new debate over the sport’s ‘real’ fans.
FT

+ When European football was having conniptions last year over plans for a breakaway Super League, a key theme in the row was the concept of the “real fan”

+ The metaverse will push us towards a situation where certain “realities” are defined by experience rather than physicality. As millions of fans flock to virtual “concerts” in games such as Fortnite, it’s clear that the reality lines are already blurring

Bloomberg: Super Bowl LVI plans are full steam ahead in LA, NFL says

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc

Curation and commentary by Marc A. Ross | Founder @ Caracal

More @ caracal.global