Christina Bonnington
Apr 19, 2012
After releasing two generations of iPhones with exactly the same form factor, Apple is expected to show off a new chassis design — and possibly new materials — in its sixth-generation smartphone. And a little-known alloy that Apple has quietly been using for the past two years could be just the ticket to make consumers swoon.
Motoko Rich
Aug 19, 2011
Forget tie-dyed shirts, lanyards and water games. At summer camp this year, Nautika Kotero, 13, learned to use a drill press, solder electrical wires and build a lamp.
Jun 23, 2010
If you haven’t been paying attention to the news lately, you might have missed some interesting developments: the Chinese government has started allowing the value of its currency to fluctuate, and Chinese workers have begun striking in efforts to increase their wages. Both of those developments are likely to increase the cost of manufacturing in China, and here’s another newsflash: the costs of shipping containers are also going up. Fast.
Hiroko Tabuchi
Jan 27, 2010
As Toyota’s problems mounted in North America with the announcement of a halt to sales and manufacturing of the bulk of its cars, commentators in Japan fretted Wednesday that the automaker’s problems could seriously hurt the reputation of the rest of Japan’s manufacturing sector.
“Toyota’s reputation for safety is in tatters, and it is inevitable that its image among consumers will suffer,” the Sankei Shimbun daily said.
Jun 15, 2009
As I’ve mentioned before I like my entrepreneurs risk-taking and a little crazy. Earlier this week on TechTicker, we ran an interview with a guy who fits that bill: Shai Agassi. at the end of the third segment (embedded below), Agassi said something that’s been sticking in my head ever since: America has to start making things or the economy won’t work. He argues you don’t have a country with just a service economy to support it. I’m starting to fear that he’s right, especially spending time last month in China and this week in central Africa, both places where manufacturing and consumer goods industries are being built fresh and in incredibly innovative ways. It’s a bit like what you kept hearing after the dot com bust: When things turn south it’s good to have hard assets to fall back on.
Davis Thinking
