Categories
Design Economics Innovation Trend Watching

Watch Eduardo Paes’ “The 4 commandments of cities” talk at TED

Eduardo Paes is the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, a sprawling, complicated, beautiful city of 6.5 million. He shares four big ideas about leading Rio — and all cities — into the future, including bold (and do-able) infrastructure upgrades and how to make a city “smarter.” […]

Categories
Economics Trend Watching

Obama says U.S. wants to invest in infrastructure in Brazil

The U.S. president, Barack Obama said during his trip to Brazil, during the closure of the CEO Forum at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry — which brought together representatives of some major companies from both the United Stats and Brazil — that United States have an interest in investing in infrastructure in Brazil […]

Categories
China Design Economics Innovation Readings Trend Watching

Exploring Brazil at Shanghai World Expo

BBC’s Mishal Husain visited the Brazilian pavilion at Shanghai World Expo to find out how it brings samba, soccer and the spirit of Ipanema to China.

Categories
China

Living in China: Chinglish to get the axe in Shanghai for World Expo

Shanghai is looking to get rid of poorly translated English signs as it readies to welcome 4 million foreign visitors to next year’s World Expo.

Categories
China

Living in China: Air Quality in Beijing is… well… depends on whom do you ask

Associated Press has got the news on a recent report which claims that Beijing’s air worse than at past Olympics, while Just ten days later, Xinhua News just boasted about how Beijing records best air quality in nine years […]

Categories
China

Living in China: Beijing to set new vehicle rules as post-Olympics limits cut jams, pollution

New vehicle restrictions are likely to be announced soon in the Chinese capital, given that a post-Olympics system has “significantly improved” traffic conditions and air quality, Beijing officials said recently. “New car restrictions will be unveiled soon to replace the current ones,” said Wang Zhaorong, spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications […]

Categories
China Trend Watching

Intelectual Property: China handles 56,634 trademark infringement cases in 2008

China investigated 56,634 trademark infringement cases in 2008, up 12.55 percent from the previous year. Statistics released by the Chinese State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) on revealed recently that these include 45,492 domestic cases and 11,142 foreign-related ones, up 13.74 percent and 7.97 percent, respectively.

Categories
China Consumer Behavior

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: Beijing has more cars on roads

Beijing registered 65,970 new motor vehicles in the first 45 days of 2009, with a daily increase of 1,466, according to the municipal traffic authority. That brought the total number of automobiles in the city to 3.56 million as of February/2009, according to figures from the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau […]

Categories
China Consumer Behavior Economics Trend Watching

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: auto prices to fall in Q4/2008 on slowing demand

Auto prices in China were expected to fall in the fourth quarter led by slowing demand, the price monitoring center under the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a report on recently. Prices fell 2.09 percent in the first nine months due to excessive output and oversupply of new models in the second and third quarters, it said…

Categories
China Trend Watching

Internet in China: Overview of the Chinese Internet Market

In the Olympic spirit, TrendSpotting has drilled down on the dynamics of the Internet in China in a new report entitled ‘Handbook of Online China‘. The report focuses on three key themes – China as an online leader, the competitive landscape, and business in online China – that are key indicators of the ongoing development of the dynamic Internet market in China […]