Tim Culpan

Kids Love TikTok for the Reason Others Fear It

TikTok is a happy place. From cute kitties to lip-syncing stars, the Chinese short-video service is a place where people go to entertain and to be delighted. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, the site is abjectly apolitical. Yet, politicians increasingly find it quite objectionable. This is not…

Xi’s Covid Zero Is Killing China’s iPhone Advantage

The scenes out of Henan province look dramatic. Workers walking down highways, clutching plastic bags filled with belongings in what was described as a mass exodus from Foxconn Technology Group’s iPhone factory in Zhengzhou. Fearful of catching Covid-19, and fed-up with being kept on campus,…

Tech Investors Overreact Like They’re Yelling at a Cloud

Microsoft Corp. reported 35% growth in cloud services. Alphabet Inc.’s own cloud unit beat estimates and narrowed its losses. Yet both stocks slumped. Two tech titans post solid numbers in strategically important businesses in the middle of a stock market rout, rising US dollar and looming…

US Focus on Chips Could Prove to Be a Fatal Flaw

US politicians, business leaders and think-tank analysts seem to believe that locally made chips will fortify the nation’s technology supply chain at a time when global tensions are running hot. They’re mistaken, and that error could push the US into even greater dependence on foreign manufacturers…

The One Thing Xi Needs to Give Chinese Tech Firms

Every Chinese leader stamps their mark on the country they rule for five, 10, (or 15) years. Xi Jinping’s brand is indelible, but the technology companies which have powered China’s economic rise over the past decade will be searching for clues on how to navigate his third term. When Xi took…

Cybersecurity Needs Its Own Sarbanes-Oxley

Two decades ago, a cascade of accounting scandals in the US led to one of the most comprehensive packages of financial rules of the past century. Now, it’s time for regulators to act on escalating cybersecurity breaches to offer similar protections to consumers and investors. Within the span of…

Moore’s Law Keeps Chip Leaders Ahead of the Pack

“Cramming more components onto integrated circuits.” That was the blunt title of Gordon E. Moore’s essay on silicon chips published in Electronics magazine in April 1965. In the space of just three pages, the director of semiconductor R&D at Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. outlined one of…

US Chip Curbs Will Highlight Cracks in China’s AI Strategy

Tighter restrictions on US semiconductor and equipment sales are set to test China’s artificial intelligence superpowers as Washington removes a key plank of next-generation technological development. The Biden Administration plans to broaden curbs on shipments of AI chips and chip-making tools,…

Apple Is Finally Chasing the Lucrative Ironman Crowd

In the seven years since Apple Inc. released its first Apple Watch, the device has sold more than 100 million units, catapulting it to 30% of the global smartwatch market. Yet it’s struggled to grab a small but important niche: endurance sports. Peruse the start of any Ironman triathlon race and…

The Whole World Could Do With an Early iPhone

On the surface, it’s just a smartphone — little more than a very slick, rather pricey, well-built gadget. But the iPhone is much more than that, and this year the world could do with having one released just a little earlier than usual. That’s because the global smartphone market is in a funk, with…