June 13, 2013
A MAP was once a sheet of paper. The information it could impart—natural features, political boundaries, streets and railway lines—was limited by space and scale. Getting an update meant buying a new one. The modern map is almost a living thing. Its habitat is the personal computer or (increasingly) the smartphone. It can carry layer upon layer of data, from traffic conditions and public-transport routes to reviews of local restaurants and indoor plans of shops, museums and airports. And as...
- “MAN OF STEEL”, the new Superman film, opens on June 14th in America and some other countries. In the film, Superman dons his cape and (spoiler alert!) saves the world single-handedly. Turning comics into films has produced superheroic profits. Since 1978, when the first Superman epic...
“CAN’T innovate anymore, my ass,” growled Phil Schiller, an Apple executive, as he helped unveil the firm’s new offerings at its annual conference on June 10th. He was addressing the growing ranks of doubters who say Apple has peaked since the death in 2011 of its former boss, Steve Jobs (its share price has fallen by 20% so far this year). The sceptics were not swayed. Among Apple’s modest innovations were a new operating system, iOS 7, and a music-streaming service that resembles what...
- IN A windswept Castilian town 300km (190 miles) north of Madrid, Europe’s largest biscuit plant is churning out digestives, wafers and crackers around the clock. The economic crisis has not really hurt Galletas Gullón, a...
Baking biscuits round the clock
- DEALS for oilfields can be as opaque as the stuff that is pumped from them. But when partners fall out and go to court, light is sometimes shed on the bargaining process—and what it exposes is not always pretty. That is certainly true in the tangled case of OPL245, a massive Nigerian...
“AT BOOZ ALLEN, we’re shaping the future of cyber-security,” trumpets a recruiting message on the website of Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting and technology firm. It is hard to argue with that blurb right now. Edward Snowden, the man who revealed he was responsible for leaks about surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency (NSA), was a contractor working for Booz Allen. That has turned a spotlight on the extensive involvement of private firms in helping America’s...
- RIO DE JANEIRO is proof that even nature’s most lavish blessings cannot guarantee success. Rio lost its position as Brazil’s political capital to Brasília in 1960 and its status as the country’s business capital to São Paulo over the following decades. Gang wars and poor infrastructure...
June 6, 2013
- “IT WAS an amazing golden age,” reflects Guillaume Brochard of Qeelin, a Chinese jeweller. From 2007 to 2011 many luxury-goods firms enjoyed double-digit annual growth in China, which became their most important market. The first blows came last year, with an economic slowdown and jitters...
THESE days going home from his university job in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, means 45 minutes on a plane for Walther Onyango. Getting to the lakeside city of Kisumu used to require a bone-shaking eight-hour bus ride for the engineering professor. Now he pops back for the weekend. He says the bus is for “people who have nothing to do” and that when you factor in time, it is cheaper to fly.A one-way bus ticket is $15, but the arrival of Fly540, a budget airline, means he can fly for $110....
- THE patrons of Manda Hill, a shopping centre in a posh part of Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, like their beef and chicken extra lean and in big portions. The meat on sale at the mall’s branch of Shoprite, a South African...
From beef to chicken to yogurt drinks
