SEOUL, South Korea — It’ll smack you in the face the instant you walk into any decent Korean restaurant: the pungent smell of kimchi — the piquant pickled cabbage whose bold tanginess is increasingly exalted by Western foodies.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Aug 18, 2014
SEOUL, South Korea — It’s been a while since horse-galloping YouTube celebrity Psy followed up on his first global hit, “Gangnam Style,” and its less famous successor, “Gentleman.” For a while, it appeared the eccentric Korean rapper would fall into the abyss as a one-hit wonder — all despite the fact that, a little over a week ago, “Gangnam Style” reached two billion views, the most ever for a YouTube video.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jun 10, 2014
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Geoffrey Cain on Investigative Journalism, Authoritarian Power, and The Perfect Police State | In a wide-ranging conversation with Jennifer Grossman, CEO of The Atlas Society, investigative journalist Geoffrey Cain reflects on years spent reporting inside some of the world’s most restrictive regimes — and on the research behind his book The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.
For years, Tim Cook insisted Apple could change China from the inside. Instead, China changed Apple.
The latest evidence? Apple spent billions developing cutting-edge electric vehicle battery technology with Chinese automaker BYD, only to watch its innovations become the cornerstone of BYD’s rise to global electric vehicle dominance. Apple walked away with nothing. China walked away with everything.
This isn’t just another story about corporate research and development gone wrong. It’s a cautionary tale about how even America’s most valuable company has become trapped in China’s web of technological control — and how that web is about to tighten even further.