Taipei Taxis usually have some surprises up their sleeves, with multiple DVD players, karaoke systems, and imaginative nicotine delivery systems. Here are a couple of recent ones that made me smile sitting in the back listening to wailing Chinese pop music. This one was great – the guy had two cell phones that perfectly squeezed…
There is quite a backlash against Chinese produce at the moment, and it is affecting the well-known scare stories like eggs and milk, but also spilling over into other products that I suppose the marketers believe can get some traction with. Hence, batteries; the sticker says “Not Made in China” (非中國： fei zhong guo). Made…
Cycle Lanes in Taipei The incredible increasing interest in cycling in the last year is encouraging the city government to install cycle lanes along some of the major streets in the city. It’s a great initiative, and I appreciate the spirit, but next time, how about guiding them away from fire hydrants, up steps less…
Markus, clearly pulling the wool over the eyes of his client in Seattle, chose the best weekend of live music on the island to return for a few days of business. It kicked off in fine style with an impromptu photo session with insane just-graduated Masters students in one of the local “Re Chao” restaurants,…
The wheels of steel One of my unguilty pleasures in the last two months has been the move to cycling to work. My estimation that the DEM office was the same distance from my house as Dell was slightly off, and a 30 minute walk in the Taipei morning heat is not an awful lot…
Oh my god. Is this the future? This makes me feel sad. Soon, everyone will have an MBA Time to take some pictures of reflections to cheer myself up! The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…
I was contacted by the good people at Jack Magazine in Italy last year – they look for ‘influential bloggers’ in obscure locations around the world to contribute articles. The angle is in the T3/Stuff orientation, featuring a flotilla of gadgets, babes and other manly things … and I was rather surprised and flattered to…
QR codes are big in Japan – you’ll see them everywhere, from posters, to concert tickets and even the stamp for your passports. As a kind of 2D barcode, they are doing the thing that RFID tags were supposed to a few years ago, albeit in a rather lower tech form. Just point your QR…
After rather too much alcohol from the night before showing the British design delegation Shilin nightmarket, I got up early and met up with the team of riders from Asus as they attempted the ascent up the deadly Yangming Mountain. As is often the case in Taiwan, there are trends in the air … and…
Last week, amongst trying to relax with the family, I hosted an online ‘Webinar’ for a company called Pure Insight. The title? “The Next Logical Step? Outsourcing Your Innovation to Asia“ I have used online meeting tools a fair amount in the past, but this was the first time I was driving a session, with…