Author: Newley

Hi. I'm Newley Purnell. I cover technology and business for The Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong. I use this site to share my stories and often blog about the books I'm reading, tech trends, sports, travel, and our dog Ginger. For updates, get my weekly email newsletter.

Categories
India

Video: Why Did the New Delhi Street Dog Cross the Road?

 

Here’s a video I captured recently of a street dog near New Delhi’s busy Connaught Place.

The pooch caught my eye because he or she seemed to be waiting patiently near a curb. When the traffic stopped, sure enough, the canine sauntered across the street. I was interrupted by a call and the video shut off prematurely, but I can confirm his or her journey continued safely to the median.

I jokingly said on Twitter and Instagram that the dog looked both ways before crossing. That may be a stretch, but it clearly stood still until there were no vehicles approaching. Or maybe I’m anthropomorphizing?

I wonder how many household pet dogs would do the same. Street dogs the world over don’t survive long unless they’ve got their wits about them.

Previous posts on New Delhi’s street dogs:

Categories
India Journalism Tech

By Me Today: India’s Ola in Talks to Raise Up to $2 Billion

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The story begins:

NEW DELHI—Uber Technologies Inc.’s rival in India, Ola, is in talks to raise as much as $2 billion, a cash injection that would provide added fuel to fight the San Francisco ride-hailing giant in the world’s second-most-populous country.

ANI Technologies Pvt.’s Ola, based in Bangalore, is in discussions to receive the funds from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. and possibly one or more other backers, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ola, which launched in 2011—two years before Uber’s arrival in India—is locked in a tight battle with the U.S. firm for control of the Indian market, which could prove lucrative as millions of people join the internet economy via inexpensive smartphones.

Click through to read the rest.

Categories
HOWTO Life

Warren Buffett’s System for Sharpening Your Career Focus

Image result for warren buffett

James Clear shares an interesting anecdote, reportedly based on advice legendary investor Warren Buffet (pictured above) gave to his personal pilot, Mike Flint.

If you don’t want to click through, here’s the TLDR for how the Oracle of Omaha said to focus on what’s most important in your work:

  1. List your top 25 career goals
  2. Circle the 5 most important
  3. The key: Avoid the other 20 “goals” until you’ve accomplished the first 5

That’s it. Do what’s important until the big stuff is taken care of.

I like it. 

Related: my Book Notes entry from last year on “The One Thing,” By Gary Keller with Jay Papasan:

Brief re-cap: This is a short book with a simple thesis: In every job, there is one single activity that you should focus on that will improve your value to your company or your customers. You should focus on that, above all else, even if it means neglecting other responsibilities, the authors argue.

Categories
India Snippets

‘Slow Down. Puppies Ahead.’

Spotted here in Delhi. Not sure if this is officially sanctioned signage, but I support the effort. 🐕

Categories
Newley's Notes

💃 Newley’s Notes 108: Netflix Gems, Musk’s Mars Dreams, Airport Dancing

2017-10-01earth

Edition 108 of my email newsletter, Newley’s Notes, just went out.

To subscribe, simply enter your email address at this link. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s brief, and few people unsubscribe.

Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest issue of Newley’s Notes, a newsletter in which I share my Wall Street Journal stories, posts from my blog, and links about tech and life.

So, I got sick this week – don’t worry, it was a brief illness and I’m fine now. As I was laid up in bed for a bit, I took to Netflix to see what was new, (or new-ish), to pass the time. Here are a few items I enjoyed:

  • “Betting on Zero.” – This 2016 documentary tells the story of billionaire investor Bill Ackman’s big bet against nutritional-products firm Herbalife, which he contends amounts to a pyramid scheme. A fascinating look at the man, and the company he wants to topple

  • “Last Chance U.” – A Netflix original show about the players and staff at East Mississippi Community College, a junior college football powerhouse where players who’ve had troubles in the past often come for a shot a redemption. As much about American society as it is about sports. The first season debuted last year, and it’ll be back for a third one (this time set in Kansas).

  • “Ozark.” – Another Netflix original, this one stars Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, who play parents who flee Chicago with their two kids to start life again in the Missouri Ozarks. (There’s some good acting here, but I after several episodes I’m losing interest; for one thing, I just can’t seem to imagine Bateman as anyone other than Michael Bluth from “Arrested Development.”)

📲 5 Cool Tech-ish Reads This Week

1. Amazon upped its war for the living room, unveiling new Echo connected speakers, a new Fire TV set-top box, and more. Axios has a round-up. Bezos’s firm is also working on smart glasses, according to the Financial Times.

2. Elon Musk outlined his vision for Mars missions. The SpaceX founder is working on huge rockets that would put humans on the Red Planet by 2022 or 2024. That’s “more than a decade before the U.S. or any other governments anticipate coming close,” my WSJ colleague Andy Pasztor wrote.

3. Sign of the times: Pop songs are now tailored for streaming services. An illuminating PitchFork piece shows how songwriters are ratcheting up the catchiness at the very beginnings of songs to ensure listeners keep the track going long enough to trigger royalties.

4. Are college textbooks dying? Perhaps. Reflective of a larger trend, Glen Hubbard, dean of Columbia University’s business school, is ditching his printed economics tome for a virtual version.

5. Not all global financial titans think Bitcoin is bogus. Some corporate, academic and regulatory bigwigs aren’t as pessimistic about cryptocurrencies as you might think, this Quartz roundup shows. (Many of them reckon Bitcoin’s a fraud, to be sure.)

💫 1 Silly Thing

1. Video: “‘All Night Long’ at the Airport.” Mahshid Mazooji got stuck overnight in the Charlotte airport, so she made a video with airport staff and fellow travelers set to the Lionel Richie classic.

💬 Quote of the week

Not giving a shit takes the wind out of an asshole’s sails.

That’s according to Stanford psychology professor Robert Sutton, who spoke with Vox about his new book, “The Asshole Survival Guide.”

What’d I miss? Send me links, rants, raves, juicy news scoops and anything else. Thanks for reading, amigos, and please do forward this email to friends or mention it on Facebook or Twitter.

Fist bump 👊 from New Delhi,
Newley

Categories
Journalism

By Me Today: China Tech Firms are Leading Asia’s Mobile Money Race

2017-09-22smartphone

The story begins:

NEW DELHI—Silicon Valley is home to the world’s most influential consumer-tech firms, but China’s online corporate titans are way ahead in the race to build mobile-payment services in many of the world’s fastest-growing consumer markets.

China’s digital-payments market, by far the world’s largest, is dominated by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and social-media champ Tencent Holdings Ltd. Now these giants have started transferring money, product advice and technical know-how to mobile money startups in other Asian markets, from Indonesia to India.

As people across Asia increasingly move from cash to smartphone apps for buying goods and transferring money between individuals, U.S. firms remain “still very focused on their home market” and trying to increase usage there, said Shiv Putcha, an analyst at research firm IDC in Mumbai.

Click through to read the rest.

Categories
India Journalism Tech

By Me Today: Google Wants a Piece of Mobile Payments in India

2017-09-18rupee

The story begins:

Alphabet Inc.’s Google is aiming for a piece of India’s booming—but increasingly crowded—mobile-payments business.

The Mountain View, Calif., tech giant on Monday launched its first-ever smartphone app that lets users transfer money to individuals and businesses in the country without the use of a credit or a debit card, a crucial factor since many here lack plastic.

Click through to read the rest.

So, to re-cap the state of play as people leapfrog from cash (over credit cards) to payments via smartphones here:

  • Paytm — which we profiled back in June — is the market leader, with more than 225 million users. There are other popular services here, as well, like Mobikwik.
  • WhatsApp, with 200 million users in India, is exploring a payments feature.
  • Hike, India’s biggest home grown app, added a payments feature a few months ago.

Watch this space.

Categories
Humor Misc.

Story of the Day, Arkansas Pug Tuxedo Edition

The AP reports:

A former administrative assistant to an Arkansas county official has pleaded guilty to fraudulent use of a credit card after prosecutors accused her of using public money to buy personal items, including a tuxedo for her pet pug.

Lest you think all the purchases were frivolous, among them were not just diamond jewelry and “sequined throw pillows” but also pet insurance, the AP says.

So there’s that.

Categories
Newley's Notes

#️⃣ Newley’s Notes 104: Social Media and Harvey, Decade of Hashtags, ConfirmShaming

2017 09 06abstract

Edition 104 my email newsletter, Newley’s Notes, went out on Sunday.

To subscribe, simply enter your email address at this link. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s brief, and few people unsubscribe.

Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest issue of Newley’s Notes, a newsletter in which I share my Wall Street Journal stories, posts from my blog, and links about tech and life.

📲 5 Cool Tech-ish Reads This Week

1. On social media and Hurricane Harvey. A WSJ story looks at how people are using big platforms like Facebook and Twitter to summon help following the massive flooding.

Meanwhile others are using lesser-known services like Zello, a walkie-talkie like app, and neighborhood-based network Nextdoor, Buzzfeed reports. Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, was quoted in our story as saying:

People have gotten used to this idea that if you are stuck in an airport and you tweet at an airline, sometimes they will find a way to swoop down and save you when the system isn’t working.

2. The Twitter #hashtag turned 10. Over the last decade, hastags have powered everything from social movements (#BlackLivesMatter) to bad punchlines. And of course, the convention is commonly abused (i.e., #blessed). Some 125 million hashtags appear on Twitter daily.

3. Can’t stand Burning Man? Read these stories. It’s time for the annual festival in the Nevada desert popular with hipsters, bohemians, anarchists – and wealthy tech types. LAist provides a list of the “10 Best Burning Man Hate Reads.”

4. Apple watchers: Put Tues., Sept. 12 in your calendar. WSJ broke the news, later confirmed by Apple, that the tech behemoth will hold an event that day. They are likely to unveil three new iPhones and a smartwatch, just in time for the holidays. There could also be a new Apple TV.

As ReCode notes, the event is an important one for Apple because it needs to show it can still create innovative new products without Steve Jobs at the helm.

5. For serious travel/tech nerds only: here’s an exhaustive oral history of online travel from the early 1990s through 2005, recounting the rise of companies like Hotels.com, Travelocity, Booking.com, Orbitz and many more.

💫 1 Silly Thing

1. Term of the week: “confirmshaming.” A new-to-me Tumblr highlights instances in which links visitors must click to opt-out of special offers contain ridiculous text, like “no, I’m ignorant and complicit in hate,” “I don’t read,” or “I don’t want smarter email.”

What’d I miss? Send me links, rants, raves, juicy news scoops and anything else. Thanks for reading, amigos, and please do forward this email to friends or mention it on Facebook or Twitter.

Fist bump 👊 from New Delhi,
Newley

Categories
Newley's Notes

➡️ Newley’s Notes 103: Page 1 Uber Story, Amazon v. SoftBank, Tito the Raccoon

2017 05 13water

Edition 103 my email newsletter, Newley’s Notes, went out yesterday.

To subscribe, simply enter your email address at this link. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s brief, and few people unsubscribe.

Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest issue of Newley’s Notes, a newsletter in which I share my Wall Street Journal stories, posts from my blog, and links about tech and life.

NN returns today after a two week hiatus. A and I are back in New Delhi now after a fantastic holiday in Greece 🇬🇷 .

We caught up with some close friends, swam in the Aegean Sea, consumed incredible food, read books, took in incredible views, and generally recharged the old mental batteries.

(I’ve been posting some images from the trip on my Instagram feed, and will likely post a round-up all the pics on Facebook later.)

On to this week’s NN!

📝 What I Wrote in The WSJ

📰 1. Smoke, Then Fire: Uber Knowingly Leased Unsafe Cars to Drivers – this story ran just before we left, and you may have seen it as I mentioned it on social media. It’s a page one story with my colleagues about how the world’s most valuable startup bought Honda SUVs in Singapore – that were subject to a recall – and rented them out; one caught fire.
Our exclusive was followed by news outlets around the world, including Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC, USA TODAY, CNN, Axios, Quartz, and more.

🛒 2. Amazon, SoftBank Battle for One of Last Untapped Internet Markets – Jeff Bezos is pouring $5 billion into his company’s operations here. Now he’s facing off against SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, who’s injecting some $2.5 billion into India’s Flipkart, Amazon’s biggest rival in India.

📲 5 Cool Tech-ish Reads This Week

1. Here are some of the best #SolarEclipse2017 photos, courtesy of NASA.

2. What new features will the iPhone 8 introduce? According to this Bloomberg run-down, the device, due out this fall, could include a facial recognition sensor, wireless charging, and new cameras.

3. Book publicists are now pitching Instagram stars. A pic from an “influencer” may now be better than a blurb from a bestselling author.

4. “The Death and Life of Helicopter Commuting.” An eye-opening video about the ill-fated New York Airways of yesteryear, and how we could be using a new breed of choppers to get around in the future.

5. Check out the configuration of New York City subways with these cool x-ray maps of various stations.

💫 1 Silly Thing

1. Video: Tito the pet Raccoon goes swimming with a canine pal. More Tito goodness is available on his (owner’s) YouTube channel. Happy Friday.

What’d I miss? Send me links, rants, raves, juicy news scoops and anything else. Thanks for reading, amigos, and please do forward this email to friends or mention it on Facebook or Twitter.

Fist bump 👊 from New Delhi,

Newley