Frugal solutions – Our brief new pamphlet

At the Universe Foundation we've just published a short, easy to read pamphlet which describes why we see a need for companies to develop more "frugal solutions".

It also features  a toolbox of methods that companies may consider if they want to try lowering prices without comprising the utility for end-users. 

You can download it here.

Obviously, there’s an extensive website as well.

In English - and in Danish

Counterfeit paradises - amazing photo book from China

 

Matthew Niederhauser is a photographer living in China with a keen eye for the absurdity of the ways Chinese developers create completely artificial town as replicas of German villages, French chateaus or Venetian canals. You can see a large collection in his online book, Counterfeit paradises. Very funny, very weird - a bit hard to comprehend, actually.The pdf is rather large, so it takes a while to load. It's worth the wait. 

Foxconn's robots are late

Interesting update on the situation around Foxconn’s plans to deploy massive numbers of robots in their immense factories in China – the ones that, among other, produce phones and computers for Apple.

Several details I wasn’t aware of:

- Foxconn is losing money, $US 316 mio. last year

- Foxcon build their own robots – they call them Foxbots. They started constructing the robots with the help of MIT back in 2009. So far they have only made 20.000, but the plans are to build a million.

- Unusually, there is currently a freeze in hiring at Foxconn, or at least thay was the situation back in february, after the new year holiday.