The reason behind Trump's presidential run

Trump doesn't want to release his tax returns not because it would show him not paying any taxes (which he probably doesn't), but rather it would expose how far his wealth hyperbole is from reality and thereby damaging his brand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/donald-trump-debt.html

At the core of Trump "empire" is his "brand" and his ability to sell it to partners and debt holders. His presidential run promotes this brand, whether he wins or not. I bet that he will comment how, once he has lost the election, he actually won as the run didn't cost him much money, that he reaped major business deals from it, and that the exposure he got made him richer.

So, when Trump says something that resonates with people, it isn't because he believes it, it is because it gathers support for the Trump brand. That is why he is short on details but high on claims; he is the master of selling sizzle over steak...

This is also what makes an eventual Trump win dangerous: a narcissistic man willing to do whatever is necessary to build his persona. We have example of those types of men leading nations right now in Russia, China, North Korea.

That would not be a recipe for a stable world, nor for a great America...

Samsung S7, iPhone6+, and Sony RX100 M2 Low-light shootout

We set out to compare the new Samsung S7 with the iPhone 6+, adding the Sony RX100 M2, and the Canon GX7 for reference. Unfortunately, some problems with the lens on the GX7 forced me to exclude its shots (basically, pictures taken were blurry even in broad daylight).

In any case, it seems that Samsung now takes the prize for best low-light Smartphone camera, and we are getting very close to the day when there will be no need to carry around a good-quality point-and-shoot to get decent night shots.

Picture 1. iPhone6+

Picture 1. Samsung S7

Picture 1. Sony RX100 M2

Picture 1. Zoomed comparison

Picture 2. iPhone 6+

Picture 2. Samsung S7

Picture 2. Sony RX100 M2

Picture 2. The iPhone6+'s shows its limits. S7 performs quite well.
The RX100, as expected, keeps the most accurate level of details

A trifecta of crass ignorance, intellectual dishonesty, and grand-standing for Alex Lo and Michael Chugani

Letters to the Editor (SCMP). March 4^th, 2016

A trifecta of crass ignorance, intellectual dishonesty, and grand-standing for Alex Lo and Michael Chugani in Marchst 1^st pages of the SCMP.

Lo asks: “But how does becoming a city state shield us from “mainlandisation”, when we are already a kind of a city state, with our own border control, separate law, taxation, government, currency and international representation?”
Because then Hong Kong wouldn’t be accountable to Bejing, would be on the fast-track to Democracy, and would be able to ensure that the values it cherishes and that have made it what it is today (the rule-of-law, independent judiciary, freedom-of-the-press, respect of private property and initiative, etc…) would be enshrined in a constitution that is not the product of a dictatorship.

A few pages later, Michael Chugani’s piece “Just imagine an independent Hong Kong” gets the prize for ridiculous; I understand he tries to be cynical (funny?) with his story-line reversal but it is such a fabulation that it loses any relevance. An independent Hong Kong would buy food, water and welcome visitors the same way it is doing now. We could in fact argue that it would get better quality version of all of them from somewhere else!  Actually, mainland China already tried to impose Putonghua, has shown numerous times that it will crush protests, and has little regards for the rule-of-law… no need to wait for 2025.

Luckily, Mike Rowse has brought some clarity (and sanity) to the rule-of-law debate on his 28^th of February article titled “Hong Kong’s rule of law is safe from street rioters” where he rightly explains the concept as “the legal principle that law should govern a community, as opposed to being governed by arbitrary decisions of individual officials”. Or simply, that everyone is equal before the law (no matter what Mr. C.Y. Leung might say). It can actually be read as such, straight from the Hong Kong’s Department of Justice’s publications and website (go have a look!).

I invite Hong Kongers to study the struggle for democracy, its essential pillars, its progress and achievements in the last few hundred years and contrast it with the outcomes of one-party systems.

I invite Mr. Chugani, and Lo to reflect on what is going to happen in 2047, once “One country, two systems” is no-more…

JC Clement

Tai Kok Tsui

Star Wars

Now that most of us have seen The Force Awakens at least twice, I thought I'd share my opinion on the matter. There are spoilers but if you haven't seen the movie yet, you obviously don't care all that much.

I did enjoy it. More so the second time than the first. From the previews, I was afraid it was going to try to please the wrong way; having token character multi-ethnicity/women because people blamed George Lucas for not having enough, having a cute round robot because they can and it is cute (also, it is cute). I also didn't care for the aesthetics of the previews either.

I was pleasantly surprised that my fear about the previews didn't materialize in the actual movie; BB-8 is cute but not ostentatiously so, and it is quite funny, possibly more so than the combo C3PO/R2-D2 ever was. John Boyega's Finn and Rey never felt forced and were certainly acted much better than many of the prequels' characters. I cared for them and could relate to their stories. Well done J.J. as far as I'm concerned.
On the aesthetics... I don't know... not convinced. Everything felt so "earthly". I didn't feel I was in a galaxy far far away. Jakku is a recycled Tatooine, that doesn't count, and the death-star... same.

For some of the planets' terrains, I turned to my wife a few times to say "Mmm, that looks like Scotland" (Ireland actually). I wanted to be in another universe. This impeded my suspension of disbelief.

Moreover, all the environments felt small and constrained to me. For example, the resistance's bunkers look, well, like tiny nondescript WWII bunkers, while Episode's IV and V's rebel bases were nothing I had seen before and the matte paintings were effectively used to add to the illusion. They had character, and an architectural presence. Better camera work was used to showcase them.



Rebel base on Yavin 4 in  Episode IV



Rebel base on Hoth in  Episode V

Speaking of architectural presence, I have always loved what Ralph Macquarrie and Doug Chiang did for the original series and the prequels; the out-wordly scale of the environments, the continuity in the difference between movies, the cohesiveness and sculptural beauty of the Star Wars universe. I didn't find much of this in J.J.'s StarWars, not enough to my taste anyway.





Now, my bigger problem... Have a read at this little movie synopsis I wrote and think of a StarWars movie that fits...

"A young adult, full of dreams, is stuck on a sand planet. The character's life changes when he/she encounters a cute robot containing plans that could save the universe from an evil empire if only they could be delivered to the small pocket of resistance.

That robot incidentally escaped during a battle led by the master of  the evil side of a strange force, during which the said plans were placed within the robot's to hide from grasp of the empire.

The black-hooded master of the dark side of the force is the spiritual, right-brain side of evil, in opposition to the military leader, a rational general which is in charge of the planet-sized (and shaped) death-star.

Meanwhile, we learn that our young protagonist is also strong in this Force. She/he has to decide whether or not to leave his/her past (childhood) behind and fight for the good cause.

Using the death-star, the Empire's general, destroys one/a few planets.

Heroes are captured and tortured but finally escape, just in time to mount a plan  involving shooting down one of its components that would eventually create a chain-reaction and destroy the death-star.
One of the heroes must manually deactivate the shields to give the rebels access to the death-star for this attack.

Meanwhile, lightsaber fights occur. A major character dies to the hands of the black-hooded evil-force master.

The heroes manage to blow-up the death-star and escape. The leader of the dark-side escapes in-extremis."

The Force Awakens works beautifully because of its references to A New Hope. These were more than winks and nods, The Force Awakens is A New Hope re-imagined for 2015. So much so that when trying to think of what is original to the new movie, the principal (only?) thing is the new characters.

I enjoyed it enough to see it twice because the images were still new to me. But beyond that, will I long to see this story told to me again in the future the same way I do for the other movies in the series (except for Attack of the Clones, but that's another discussion), at this point, I am not sure. Because there's an episode that has told that story as well and, more importantly, before...

JC

P.S. Hate to say this but I don't think it is John Williams' most memorable work either. I liked 'Rey's Theme', 'The Scavenger' (which introduces 'Rey's Theme'), and the second half of 'Torn Apart'. The rest is mostly ambiance or reminiscence of canon themes, which doesn't conjure the images in my mind that previous work of Williams' did.

Hong Kong's small house policy; unfair, ineffective, unnecessary, and threatens Hong Kong's most prized asset...

"The Small House Policy (SHP) (小型屋宇政策) was introduced in 1972 in Hong Kong. The objective was to improve the then prevailing low standard of housing in the rural areas of the New Territories. The Policy allows an indigenous male villager who is 18 years old and is descended through the male line from a resident in 1898 of a recognized village in the New Territories, an entitlement to one concessionary grant during his lifetime to build one small house"

The state of affairs in 2015

• 256sq.km of Hong Kong's 1100sq.km land mass is urban built
• Of this urban built, 33.4sq.km is used for village land (13%)
• There are a lot of "buildings" in villages which are not connected to sewer systems. Nearby stream are heavily polluted by the rubbish and waste products from the villages
• According to the think-thank Civic-Exchange, there might be close to 100,000 individual with potential claim for the SHP

Unfair, unsustainable

• It allows construction of a 3-storey house (27 ft. high) of up to 2100 sq. ft, over 700 sq. ft. of land, which, by Hong Kong standard, is a very large house., thereby creating a privileged group of citizen while the initial idea was to bring their housing standard up to a one which would be consistent with that of the majority of Hong Kong residents
• The number of new potential applicants grows as more male villagers reach the age of 18, to be really low-density housing. Such an open-ended scheme obviously cannot be sustainable

Ineffective, abused, discriminatory

• There is a large backlog of village house. It would be far more effective to reclaim that village land, build towns instead and allocate flats for the ex-villagers in medium to high-density towns
• A large proportion of villagers sell their houses as soon as they can
• Why men only? Why would some antiquated rule giving privileges to a few impact the lives of many?

What to do

• Do not delay, abolish the policy and compensate the villagers. There will be a cost to it but incommensurate to the cost of building in country parks or continuing at the slow-pace of New Territories development
• The Hong Kong government could, for example, immediately announce that eligibility stopped in 2015 and therefore, any villager not 18 at the time would not be eligible

Sources: 

• "Hong Kong public wants contentious policy on rural housing overhauled", May 18th 2015, Ernest Kao, South China Morning Post
• "Fixing the Small House Policy", September 9th, 2014, http://webb-site.com/articles/smallhouse.asp
• "Rethinking the Small House Policy", Lisa Hopkinson and Mandy Lao Man Lei, September 2003, Civic Exchange. http://www.civic-exchange.org/Publish/LogicaldocContent/200309LAND_RethinkSmallHouse_en.pdf
• "Small Houses, Big Effects: Public Opinion Survey on the Small House Policy", Michael E. DeGolyer, Mandy Lao Man-lei, Carine Lai, May 2015, Civic Exchange. http://www.civic-exchange.org/en/publications/166723602
• "The Small House Policy; A brief investigation on illegal structures in Hong Kong", http://www.designinghongkong.com/v3/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/SHP.pdf

Charlie Hebdo

I originally meant to write a piece on the Charlie Hebdo events way back but finally decided against it. Instead of one more opinion article, I thought that it would be more interesting and, hopefully, more valuable, to list a few data points and quotes and let you ponder about them.

On the ability, willingness of religions to change with society...
"So much is written of the gay lobby. I still have not met one who will give me the identity card with “gay”. They say that they exist. I think that when one meets a person like this, one must distinguish the fact of being a gay person from the fact of doing a lobby, because not all lobbies are good. That’s bad. If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this in such a beautiful way, it says, Wait a bit, as is said and says: “these persons must not be marginalized because of this; they must be integrated in society.”
The problem isn’t having this tendency, no. We must be brothers, because this is one, but there are others, others. The problem is the lobbying of this tendency: lobby of the avaricious, lobby of politicians, lobby of Masons, so many lobbies. This, for me, is the more serious problem."
Pope Francis, July 22nd, 2013

On religion and freedom of speech...
'Asked about the attack that killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo – targeted because it had printed depictions of the prophet Muhammad – he said: “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.

“There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity … in freedom of expression there are limits.”

He gestured to Alberto Gasparri, who organises papal trips and was standing by his side, and added: “If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”'
Reported in The Guardian, on January 15th, 2015

On the integration of religion, and specifically Islam into western liberal societies...

BBC RADIO 4 TODAY MUSLIM POLL, February 25th, 2015

Src: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/

15 years of new growth economics: what have we learnt?

I want to highlight a few passages from Xavier Sala-i-Martin's paper titled "15 years of new growth economics: what have we learnt?" 

"Abstract
Paul Romer’s paper Increasing Returns and Long Run Growth, now 15 years old, led to resurgence in the research on economic growth. Since then, growth literature has expanded dramatically and has shifted the research focus of many generations of macroeconomists. The new line of work has emphasized the role of human capital, social and political variables, as well as the importance of institutions as driving forces of long-run economic growth. This paper presents an insight into the theoretical and empirical literature of the past fifteen years, highlighting the most significant contributions for our understanding of economics."

A good part of the paper discusses the technicalities of economic data modeling. While interesting, they are not the key teachings I wanted to bring out in this blog entry. 
I only quoted the parts which are my key takeaways...

First quote:   "The cross-country regression literature is enormous: a large number of papers have
claimed to have found one or more variables that are partially correlated with the growth rate: from human capital to investment in R&D, to policy variables such as inflation or the fiscal deficit, to the degree of openness, financial variables or measures of political instability. In fact, the number of variables claimed to be correlated with growth is so large that the question arises as to which of these variables is actually robust.
Some important lessons from this literature are:

1. There is no simple determinant of growth
2. The initial level of income is the most important and robust variable (so conditional convergence is the most robust empirical fact in the data)
3. The size of the government does not appear to matter much. What is important is the “quality of government” (governments that produce hyperinflations, distortions in foreign exchange markets, extreme deficits, inefficient bureaucracies, etc., are governments that are detrimental to an economy)
4. The relation between most measures of human capital and growth is weak. Some measures of health, however, (such as life expectancy) are robustly correlated with growth
5. Institutions (such as free markets, property rights and the rule of law) are important for growth
6. More open economies tend to grow faster"

Second quote:
   "Notice that since technology is non-rival, it must be produced only once (once it is
produced, many people can use it over and over). This suggests that there is a large fixed cost in its production (the R&D cost), which leads to the notion of increasing returns. The average cost of producing technology is always larger than the marginal cost. Hence, under perfect price competition (a competition that leads to the equalization of prices with marginal costs), the producers of technology who pay the fixed R&D costs will always lose money. The implication is that in a perfectly competitive environment, no firm will engage in research. Put another way, if we want to model technological progress endogenously, we need to abandon the perfectly-competitive-pareto-optimal world that is the foundation of neoclassical theory and allow for imperfect competition. And this is another contribution of the literature: unlike the neoclassical researchers of the 1960s, today’s economists deal with models that are not Pareto optimal."

Third quote:
   "The new growth models of technological progress have clarified some important issues
when it comes to R&D policies. Perhaps the most important one being that, despite market
failures (because of imperfect competition, externalities, and increasing returns), it is not at all obvious whether the government should intervene, what this potential intervention should look like and, in particular, whether it should introduce R&D subsidies. This is important because there is a widespread popular notion that countries tend to underinvest in technology and that the government should do something about it. The models of R&D highlight a number of distortions, but it is not clear that the best way to deal with them is to subsidize R&D. For example, the one distortion that is common across models is the one that arises from imperfect competition: prices tend to be above marginal cost and the quantity of ideas generated tend to be below optimal. The optimal policy to offset this distortion, however, is not an R&D subsidy but a subsidy to the purchases of the overpriced goods.
(...)
The main point I wish to highlight is that, although the new generation of growth models
are based on strong departures from the old pareto-optimal neoclassical world, it is not obvious that they call for strong government intervention and, when they do, it is not obvious that the intervention recommended coincides with the popular view that R&D needs to be subsidized."

Fourth quote:
   "Another important lesson we have learned from the new economic growth literature is
that “institutions” are important empirically and that they can be modeled. By “institutions” I
mean various aspects of law enforcement (property rights, the rule of law, legal systems, peace), the functioning of markets (market structures, competition policy, openness to foreign markets, capital and technology), inequality and social conflicts (the relation between inequality and growth has been widely studied)13, political institutions (democracy, political freedom, political disruption, political stability), the health system (as previously stated, life expectancy is one of the variables most robustly correlated with growth), financial institutions (like an efficient banking system or a good stock market) as well as government institutions (the size of bureaucracy and red tape, government corruption).

   Institutions affect the “efficiency” of an economy much in the same way as technology
does: an economy with bad institutions is more inefficient in the sense that it takes more inputs to produce the same amount of output. In addition, bad institutions lower incentives to invest (in physical and human capital as well as technology) and to work and produce.
(...)
   Although the new economic growth literature has quantified the importance of having the
right institutions, it is still at its early stages when it comes to understanding how to promote
them in practice. For example, the empirical “level of income” literature mentioned above has demonstrated that the “institutions” left behind in the colonies directly affect the level of income enjoyed by the country one half century later: colonies in which the colonizers introduced institutions that helped them live a better life in the colony, tend to have more income today than colonies in which colonizers introduce predatory institutions. This seems to be a robust empirical phenomenon. However, it is not clear what the lessons are for the future. In other words, can we undo the harm done by the “colonial predators” and, if so, what can we do and how can we do so.
Although these are important questions currently being dealt with in the literature, the answers are still unclear.

   Indeed, we are still in the early stages when it comes to incorporating institutions to our
growth theories. Empirically, it is becoming increasingly clear that institutions are an important
determinant of growth."

"15 YEARS OF NEW GROWTH ECONOMICS: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT?"

Working Paper #172, Central Bank of Chile, July 2012
Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Columbia University and Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Cities are the engine of economic, social, and cultural progress

Here are a few interesting articles and research papers on the economic angle of one of my favorite subjects; the link between urbanization and economic, social and cultural progress.

URBANIZATION AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS
2008, David E. Bloom, David Canning, Günther Fink, PGDA Working Paper No. 30
"The proportion of a country's population living in urban areas is highly correlated with its level of income. Urban areas offer economies of scale and richer market structures, and there is strong evidence that workers in urban areas are individually more productive, and earn more, than rural workers. However, rapid urbanization is also associated with crowding, environmental degradation, and other impediments to productivity. Overall, we find no evidence that the level of urbanization affects the rate of economic growth. Our findings weaken the rationale for either encouraging or discouraging urbanization as part of a strategy for economic growth."
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/program-on-the-global-demography-of-aging/WorkingPapers/2008/PGDA_WP_30.pdf

THE PRODUCTIVITY OF CITIES 
1975, Leo Sveikauskas, The Quarterly Journal of Economics
"This paper examines one possible reason for the prevalence of large cities; we consider the possibility that productivity may be systematically higher in large urban centers.' The empirical evidence indicates that a doubling of city size is typically associated with a 5.98 percent increase in labor productivity. These productivity gains are likely to be a central influence on the existence and prevalence of large cities."
http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/89/3/393.full.pdf

SETTLEMENT SCALING AND INCREASING RETURNS IN AN ANCIENT SOCIETY
2015, Scott G. Ortman, Andrew H. F. Cabaniss, Jennie O. Sturm, Luís M. A. Bettencourt, Science Advances
"A key property of modern cities is increasing returns to scale—the finding that many socioeconomic outputs increase more rapidly than their population size. Recent theoretical work proposes that this phenomenon is the result of general network effects typical of human social networks embedded in space and, thus, is not necessarily limited to modern settlements. (...) these results provide evidence that the essential processes that lead to increasing returns in contemporary cities may have characterized human settlements throughout history, and demonstrate that increasing returns do not require modern forms of political or economic organization."
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400066

NEW IDEAS IN THE AIR: CITIES AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
2014, GERALD A. CARLINO, Business Review
"While many factors contribute to growth, economists believe that educating workers plays a critical role. (...) For example, the collaborative effort of many educated workers in a common enterprise may lead to invention and innovation that sustains the growth of the enterprise. Some economists believe there is an important link between national economic growth and the concentration of more highly educated people in cities.These economists argue that the knowledge spillovers associated with increased education can actually serve as an engine of growth for local and national economies. They also argue that the concentration of people in cities enhances these spillovers by creating an environment in which ideas flow quickly amid face-to-face contact."
http://www.philadelphiafed.org/research-and-data/publications/business-review/2014/q4/brQ414_new_ideas.pdf

DO BIGGER CITIES CONTRIBUTE TO ECONOMIC GROWTH IN SURROUNDING AREAS?
2011, Yan Liu, School of Economics, Fudan University. Xingfeng Wang, China Academy of Urban Planning & Design. Jianfeng Wu, School of Economics, Fudan University
"This paper focuses on the role of city interaction in influencing local economic growth using county-level data in China. (...)The empirical evidence in this paper illustrates that higher-tier cities have positive effects on economic growth for nearby counties, suggesting the dominant growth spillover effect over agglomeration shadow effect. This analysis also reveals the negative effect of institutional barriers associated with spatial deprivation and local protectionism on the interrelationship between a higher-tiered city and its neighboring counties."
http://www.ires.nus.edu.sg/researchpapers/Visitors/Do%20Bigger%20cities%20Contribute%20to%20Economic%20Growth%20in%20Surrounding%20areas.pdf

Reducing Potentially Excess Deaths from the Five Leading Causes of Death in the Rural United States
Garcia MC, Faul M, Massetti G, et al. Reducing Potentially Excess Deaths from the. MMWR Surveill Summ 2017;66(No. SS-2):1–7. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.ss6602a1
"In 2014, the all-cause age-adjusted death rate in the United States reached a historic low of 724.6 per 100,000 population (1). However, mortality in rural (nonmetropolitan) areas of the United States has decreased at a much slower pace, resulting in a widening gap between rural mortality rates (830.5) and urban mortality rates (704.3)
(...)
Barriers to health care access result in unmet health care needs that include, but are not limited to, a lack of preventive and screening services, treatment of illnesses (25) and timely urgent and emergency services (26). Residents of rural areas experience many of these barriers. Specifically, rural counties in the United States have a higher uninsured rate (27); experience health care workforce shortages (approximately only 11 percent of all physicians choose to practice in rural settings) (28); often lack subspecialty care (e.g., oncology), critical care units, or emergency facilities (29); have limited transportation options; and experience longer time to services caused by distance (26). Differential access to quality health care (25), including timely access, likely contributes to rural-urban gaps in mortality rates and potentially excess deaths. For example, persons with CLRD and unmet health care needs in rural areas can experience serious life-threatening respiratory episodes, and the lack of timely access to emergency care could affect survival"
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/ss/ss6602a1.htm

Opinion piece: Big consumer electronics vendors in search of the next gizmo

Big consumers electronics vendors are in search of the next gizmo that will drive-up revenues. Looking at the past few years in tech, it seems that many don't know how to introduce technology nor what makes it great for their target customer. Let's start by listing a few examples.

Curved screens

Let's give them a curved TV and curved phones, because we can, and because there's an odd chance people may find them cool. This was a failure from the get-go and the reason for it is quite simple; the designers and marketing guys didn't focus on answering the primordial question; are we significantly improving the user experience with this product?
The answer is a resounding no and here are a few reasons why:

• A curved screen doesn't significantly enhance the viewing experience; large TVs are still used in the living room where they are watched by more than one person, which defeats the purpose of a curved screen that requires the viewer to sit at a special focal point to be most effective. For smartphone screens, it just is too small to make any difference whatsoever
• A curved TV screen imposes a configuration of the environment surrounding it instead of the other way around: a curved screen has a narrower viewing angle which means furniture will need to be placed accordingly. Furthermore, the screen almost needs to be placed on a pedestal (it looks silly otherwise) which prevents or makes it cumbersome to use any kind of wall framing. This rigid framework is too limiting for most people
• Seems that the hard-curved screen goes against the other trend of providing ever thinner screens. A curved screen is by definition going to be requiring more depth or real-estate

• Existing protective covers no longer fit on that fancy curved smartphone you just bought. Quick personal branding is more difficult

The technology itself does have its applications: computer monitors may benefit from 180 degrees screens, the obvious Imax-type theaters were the screen can surround a large audience, soft-screens which be easily customized to their physical environment, etc. Similarly, for applications such as a watch face, a curved screen makes sense. But as a mass market TV or smartphone element, curved screens were dead-on-arrival. Hint Samsung: your S6-edge smartphone will fail if the only differentiation from the regular model are the curved edges.

3D screens and movies
A screen that has a reduced resolution, viewing angle, and/or requires goggles. Is the experience significantly enhanced by being 3D? Not for a fixed-plot story... Videogames will benefit significantly as the player is immersed in an universe it interacts with, and a visual story-line created in real-time (VR-headsets will be successful), while a movie/TV is a linear and 3rd person medium where 3D detracts from the narrative. Unless the plot is strictly eye-candy, in which case it is a sub-market which may or may not justify the premium.

Smart watches

My question for the big consumer tech vendors is; when are you going to make one?
I would argue that the current Samsung/LG/Motorola/whathaveyou smartwatch offerings are not smartwatches at all. That is, they are not watches that are smart. They are smartphones with a wristband. Because they lost the essence of what a watch is; to tell time in the easiest, prettiest and/or ruggedest way possible.
I mean easiest in the largest possible sense of the word; a watch that you don't have be concerned about. You should be able to put it on in the morning and not worry about it being scratched, being destroyed because you forgot to take it off in the shower, being unable to read time because of viewing angle/abundance or lack of light. And certainly not have to fiddle with it to get the very basic of its function... giving you the current time!

What comes closest is still the Pebble which has not compromised on being a watch for the sake of becoming a smartphone-on-a-wrist.

Now, maybe it will be that consumers will make the shift and ditch watches altogether and replace them all by smart-wrist-gizmos, but I doubt it.

Apple might have done it by appealing in to the very highest segment with super-premium, uber-expensive watches. But then, the question is whether a smart-watch will have the same appeal and timelessness as a proper "dumb" timepiece. Provided that in 5 years, a smartwatch you bought today will have zero residual value, and when compared to a proper "time-piece" which is likely to increase in value with time, I would say it is highly unlikely...

The race to increasingly ludicrous smartphone pixel density

The meaningful limit on the number of pixels that makes sense to put on a screen should, at least in theory, be what your eyes can see. I would argue that it translates to about 200 pixels per inch. This is plenty to make any curved or diagonal line appear smooth as if drawn (as opposed to being made of little square-ish dots).
That limit was reached with full HD screens for smartphones of size around 5 inches. But when the 4k screen technology became available, big tech decided to package it into their phones as a differentiator. The results is that customers get very little additional viewing benefits, yet have to pay the price in terms of battery consumption, reduced performance, and higher cost.
I see little evidence that demand has supported 4k smartphone screens. True, users keep buying those newer phones but they are also doing so for a myriad of other reasons.

Smart wear
2014 saw the "failure" of Google Glass. I double-quoted failure because Google Glass didn't fail to provide compelling enough technology. Being able to see, at a quick glance, which restaurants surround you (with superimposed reviews, menu highlights, then make a reservation by looking at it), receive a warning that you are about to cross a street and  there's a car coming, automatically and transparently translate a foreign language ... Those are all very desirable and marketable applications of smart-glasses. Having an augmented reality environment is something that will eventually become mainstream in one form or another. It is not a question of "if" but rather one of "when" and in what form. The problem is that Google Glass failed to provide it in a container that customers wanted. The glasses portion was mostly a support for a bulky computer and screen. It screemed "nerd"!

Any wearable is a reflection of the person wearing it. No matter how cool the technology may be, it also needs to be visually acceptable to the person wearing it.

To be fair to Google, greenfield inovation always need some tweaking and there are indications that they will come back with a better end-user product soon.

Technology for the sake of it won't drive demand

In all the examples above, we see big tech pushing for technology for the sake of it, seemingly without asking itself some basic marketing questions about demand, in the hope that something sticks. That sometimes work. Most often it doesn't.

I am not saying that technology cannot be its own driver for customer demand, it can and it has (numerous times) in the past. We can think of Apple introducing the iPhone; it provided a compelling technological solution to a world need that was mostly created. So did Facebook. There are countless others...

The difference is that between a successful technology push and a failed one is those key questions that should always be answered as part of a go-to market strategy:

• Who's going to use our product?
• Why are they going to use it?
• How enhanced is the user experience of this technology? (in terms of enjoyment and ergonomics)
• What is the image/branding of this technology? And does the branding conflict with the values and personal branding of our target customer? (the projected image; that is, what the promoter of technology intends, and the experienced image; what the product makes one feel)
• Are there a lot of people who are likely to be interested by and buying that technology, and at what price-point (can we build it at that price?), and how do we find out?

Apple has been quite good at this fine balance of design-marketing and technology. Their branding is so good that they can release average products (iPhone 5) and still command a huge premium... and adulation. But that's another story...
Tesla Motors is another example of this fine balance. Tesla didn't just make an electric car because technology was available, as many other vendors have; they understood that to command the premium that electric cars do, they had to make not only a premium branded car, they had to make the sexiest, best darn car you can buy for that price.

Looking ahead... If I apply the same trends and questioning in a forward-looking manner, I would venture to say that we'll see the following over the next few years:

• 8k screens which will be successful for TVs, 4k might be abandoned for smartphones (or become so cheap that there's no cost incentive in offering lower resolution)
• 16k screens will be tried and will fail for mass consumption. There is no life beyond 8k
• Augmented reality contact lenses. Should have some success if the ease of use can be dealt with (basically, putting them on)
• 3D TV screens will go the way of the Dodo. And hopefully in theaters too
• Modular smart wear-ables; smartbands with standard-size easy clips to an existing watch, with dedicated functions (GPS, camera, heart monitor, etc). Bands that will attach to other body parts for activity specific functions (running, hiking, swimming, etc). Essentially, we'll see the equivalent of Project Ara for wear-ables.

Blog mergers and somewhat new direction...

Blog mergers and somewhat new direction...

I merged my Quebec/Hong Kong blog into this one. Not that I may post more often, but the content was similar albeit more subject focused for Quebec/Hong Kong.

However, I also want to post content where opinions and hypothesis have a greater place now and then...

JC

STM vs MTR; mass transit can work, and how Montreal could do better

Having lived and worked many years in Canada and then Hong Kong, I have been able to get what I believe is a deep understanding of what really makes mass transit a true alternative to cars.
I can only think of two group of people that would chose one mode of transportation over the other, everything else being equal: people who prefer driving over being driven for the sheer enjoyment of it, and people who will use mass transit no matter how inefficient it is as a matter of principle.
I believe those cases to be marginal.
I believe that when given equal choices, people will chose a mode of transportation that (in order of desirability):

1. Gives them independence of movement, implying:
   a- can get anywhere they want or need to be (work, home, recreation, shops)
   b- can do so reliably and predictably
   c- can do so efficiently (ie. quickly)
   d- can do so without requiring advance planning
2. Won't expose them to additional risks or inconveniences:
   a- is safe
   b- won't expose them to vagaries of nature (cold/hot/rain/snow/etc)
   c- will shield them from vagaries of the transportation system (modal shift, payment modalities, lack  of comfort, etc) 
3. Is cheapest for the individual, or at least, within what they can afford
4. Align with their values (protecting the environment, sharing, etc) and lifestyle (individual, outgoing, importance of ownership, social class distinction, etc)

I also believe that failure to acknowledge that the first two points trump the third is one key reason for under-performing mass-transit system. Another one is the over-emphasis of the fourth point in promoting one mode of transport over the other.

Comparing Hong Kong and Montreal can give us great insight as to what works and doesn't in building a successful mass-transit system (in this case, our focus is on the subway). Note that I picked both because I know them. Hong Kong just happens to be the most efficient mass transit system in the world. Montreal is middle of the road.

Hong Kong's mass-transit has been the natural option as the land-mass is small and urban development is constricted by its landscape. So, while we will see later that judicious mass-transit development choices were made, geography has forced efficient use of land, conducive to mass-transit.

40% of Hong Kong's territory is occupied by country parks which are not and cannot be developed

The vast majority of Hong Kong is mountainous, which has forced development in valleys, naturally lending itself to rail transit.

On the other hand, Montreal is mostly flat land with little natural obstacles to urban development and sprawl, making it difficult to service with efficient mass-transit.
So while a lot of the new development in Hong Kong is dense as a matter of necessity, it is less so in Montreal as a matter of choice and development costs.

But while Hong Kong's topography gave it a mass-transit edge, deliberate choices made it the most transit-efficient place in the world. The MTR corporation is entitled to develop and profit from areas surrounding its train stations. In return, development around its stations ensures a critical mass of users for its transport operations. The integrated functions of development of rail, housing, commerce and offices, combined with the limited government red-tape in approval of projects generates of virtuous circle which has led to the development of mass-transit facilitating initiatives such as:

• development of elevated, covered walkways segregating pedestrian from car traffic, ensuring fluid and safe traffic flow for both, and protecting pedestrians from the elements when transiting between their home an the MTR network, or to work
• development of transport hubs over or under the train stations
• development of commerce/office hubs over or under the train stations

The shops, offices, apartment buildings within 500m of stations become destinations in themselves while in Montreal, the stations are merely entry points in and out of the transit network.

From top-left, clockwise: Hong Kong elevated walkways map, examples of walkways in Central and Mongkok, and a 3D map of the protected pedestrian network around the IFC mall in Central

In contrast, the Champs-de-Mars station, in downtown Montreal is isolated, sparsely developed, and has weak connections to workplaces, entertainment, housing, shops within a 500 meters radius

Similarly, in one of the densest area of Montreal, the Mont-Royal station, while architecturally attractive, has a single function of in-out gateway to the Metro, with no development above, little in the way of shops, and virtually no connectivity to work within 500m. While there is decent amount of housing within those boundaries, there is no protected direct connectivity with the Metro

As we move farther from downtown Montreal, the situation gets worse. The Rosemont station has a parking and significant space that can be better leveraged as TOD (transit-oriented development)

In contrast, even Hong Kong's Fanling station, about 20 km north of what could be referred to as "downtown", still maintain the same TOD principles; housing, recreation and commerce (in red) directly connected to the station (in green), and serving as a transportation hub for collector buses, mini-buses, and taxis(1)

Another example, in Ma On Shan, a remote area of Hong Kong.
High density housing, leisure, commerce within 500 meters

In fact, in 2012, 43% of Hong Kong's population, and 57% of its jobs, were within 500 meter of a MTR station, compared to 22% & 43% in London and 25% & 37% in NewYork. Although I do not have the statistics for Montreal, we can suppose it would be lower than any of those cities.
When taking into account that the metro service is complemented by bus and mini-buses networks which feed it, it is no a surprise that 90% of all motorized journeys are completed via public transport in Hong Kong.

Another virtuous circle created by density and use is the convenience related to the frequency of service; in order to handle the volume of people caused by high use of the network at any hour of the day, the passenger collection frequency needs to be high. This ensures, in return, a great user experience as wait times are short (usually less than 4 minutes) and journey time planning unnecessary (as it is constant each time).

For anyone living in Hong Kong, it becomes rapidly evident that not only is your workplace and home close to a MTR, everything else in your life is; markets, grocery stores, movie theaters, restaurants, art center, etc. There is truly no place that you may want to go in Hong Kong that is not reachable by mass-transit. Mass-transit de-facto becomes an alternative to the car. The same cannot be said of Montreal.

Last but not least, I believe that Hong Kongers market-driven spirit has also played a big-part in the ultimate success of MTR Corporation: while in Montreal, the profit motive is virtually existent, it is at the center of the operations of MTR Corporation. This is not meant to say that MTR Corp doesn't take the needs of the population and its core mission to move people, but rather, its structure and impetus promotes fiscal efficiency; the Hong Kong government gives it a social direction (I would say, the "collective strategy") as a majority shareholder, and the private operator gives it its drive and efficiency (the profit motive). Even the MTR's. I doubt that the Octopus payment would have seen the light of day and taken the amplitude it has without that market-driven spirit. Fiscal and system efficiency go hand in hand and it is only logical that at one point, the payment system for your daily transit would also extend to most of your daily activities, as the Octopus card does.

So, now that we have briefly compared both systems in terms of the benefits they deliver to their users, what about the costs?

MTR Corp is highly profitable...

... while the STM is not. And it is not getting any better, even as usage is forecast to increase

As those charts from MTR and STM's financial reports attest, the fiscal differences are important. Not that this is a problem specific to Montreal; many occidental cities have let their mass-transit systems become engines of highly protected job creation, rather than keeping to the unique vision of efficient transportation.

Cost of staff compared (HKD)

The chart above (my calculations based on 2012 financial and activities reports of the various transit corporations) clearly highlight the staff cost structure differential; it costs about 2.6 times more to offer the same service in Montreal as it does in Hong Kong.

Unless human resources costs are reigned in, there's little advantages in increased ridership, which is opposite to the very concept of mass-transit.

In conclusion, here are my recommendations for Montreal:

• Change the corporate culture at STM (might have to be privatized to achieve such goal) so as to focus on the goals of fiscal and system efficiency as well as increased ridership. 
• Reign-in operational costs of its system so as usage increases, cost per passenger can and should actually go down instead of staying constant or worse, increasing. There are many ways to achieve this, including increased competition and automation
• Target a minimum level of workplace, commerce, recreation and housing within 500 meters of any Metro station.
• Grant the development privilege around metro stations to private developers so that development is market-driven, to respond to a true demand rather than social-engineering
• Streamline the approval/development process so as to make turnaround time on projects shorter and more accessible to smaller developers, thereby fostering increased competition and lower development costs
• Explore ways to further facilitate the development of measures making the system more competitive to car ownership in terms of comfort, convenience, safety and protection from the elements (rain, snow, extreme temperature) by making it easier to build protected links between the various modes of transportation, stations. Sky bridges, underground Montreal extension, sheltered bus stops
• Zero-tolerance and immediate action for behaviors such as graffiti-making, begging, littering, loitering, destruction of property. A clean metro projects a sense of safety. Until a culture of respect for shared-use property exist, why not crowd-source the supervision? (ie. install web cameras and have the public report infractions in real-time). The key to change is not the severity of punishment as much as it is about addressing crime as it occurs
• Building true transportation hubs at places of work, leisure, and residence

Sources:
www.epd.gov.hk
www.efcd.gov.hk
www.census2011.gov.hk/en/district-profiles.html
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/08/hong-kong-city-without-ground/3000/
Montreal Census tracts
2012 activities report, p30
Going Green, How cities are leading the next economy, Rode and Floater, 2013, London School of Economics