Technology – like sport – shouldn’t mix with politics
for one week in May, the world went a little bit crazy. Here in the UK, our politics were turned upside down as a newly formed party swept aside established names in the European elections. Milkshake sales went through the roof, and Theresa May set a date for her departure.
Elsewhere, Huawei’s global business was being shaken to the core. Thanks to pressure from a US administration, against the backdrop of an ongoing trade feud between China and America, a number of major companies decided they could no longer do business with Huawei. First came Google, then Arm and then Microsoft. By the time you read this, that list could well be longer – or it could all have been reversed, such is the volatile nature of global politics.
What a strange and annoying situation, when decisions made in an oval office a continent away can impact the smartphone sitting in the pocket of the proverbial man on the Clapham omnibus. Gavin White puts it well in his letter to the magazine this month ( see p26) when he describes us living in a digital vassal state. Yes, the UK is a free country in name, but in truth we kowtow to the European Union, the US and China.
I was even tempted to write that “we need them more than they need us”, but that oversimplifies things. The inconvenient truth – for us, China and the US – is that we all depend on one another. Sure, Apple’s products are proudly “designed in California”, but they sure as heck aren’t made there. Apple relies on Foxconn, or some other Chinese subcontractor, for such mucky work. What’s more, our smartphones need rare minerals such as dysprosium to work, and where are they produced? China. And so with one sweep of a pen, the price of every new phone could be pushed up by $10, $50, $100… or whatever a politician whose main motivation is winning a trade war decides.
And while China and the US are the two superpowers, the market of goods and services is global. The UK has its interests, but so do Angola, Belgium, Costa Rica… you get the message. We’re all interconnected, which means that stamping down on China – and whatever retaliatory measures it may take – will have an effect on every country around the world.
What’s most annoying about this political interference is that the technology companies themselves get along so well (if you ignore the constant lawsuits over patent infringements, that is). While we’re deeply sceptical of the Lenovo Yoga Book ( see p48), it’s a great example of a Chinese company – Lenovo – taking inspiration from all-American Intel’s chips to produce something truly innovative. Crazy, but innovative.
Then we have Japanese companies leading the way in miniaturisation, typified this month by the re-emergence of the VAIO brand after a five-year hiatus. Again, we have our criticisms of the 999g VAIO SX14 ( see p54), but there’s no denying its beauty or its ingenuity. And while Britain may not be creating world-beating computers anymore, Cambridge-based Arm is the birthplace of the CPU architecture that powers the world’s smartphones.
The point is that we’re better as a world when we work together. This doesn’t mean the world’s 195 countries should unite to become one – and I’m steering well clear of Brexit! – but politically motivated trade wars are anathema to invention. To paraphrase a well-known saying, I may disapprove of the Oculus Quest ( see p51), but I will defend to the death Oculus’ right to sell it.
In reality, I probably wouldn’t defend anything to death apart from my own family; I’m far more likely to raise an angry eyebrow and mutter something under my breath, such is my level of Britishness. But if we keep going as we are, putting up artificial fences guarded by barking dogs, the innovation we all love so much will be as forgotten as that guy who threw milkshake over Nigel Farage.
Tim Danton Editor-in-chief