Quartz Daily Brief—Hong Kong protests cleared, Xiaomi’s India ban, Peter Thiel disrupted, burning money for power
Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Sony takes the PlayStation to China. The struggling electronics giant is expected to announce a revamped gaming console that is tweaked to allow for Chinese censorship. Video game consoles were banned in the People’s Republic until earlier this year.
Adobe’s subscription switch. The Photoshop maker, which reports full-year earnings, has moved to recurring fees instead of one-off licenses, but some users have resisted.
RadioShack tries to keep the lights on. The electronics retailer reports third-quarter earnings and will brief investors on plans to cut employee retirement payments and possibly health benefits as well. The company is also trying to shut more than 1,000 stores.
US retail sales get a lift. Wages, hours worked, and hiring firgures have all been on the rise, which ought to be good news for retailers; analysts expect a 0.3% increase in November sales.
While you were sleeping
Police cleared Hong Kong’s main protest site. The main pro-democracy camp was dismantled by police and bailiffs enforcing a court order, and several dozen protesters were arrested. The movement’s leaders are vowing to regroup.
Xiaomi was banned from selling in India. Sony Ericsson obtained an injunction against the Chinese smartphone maker, after it alleged that Xiaomi’s handsets infringe on its patents. Xiaomi said it has yet to receive an official notice in its second-largest market.
Peter Thiel was disrupted. Activists protesting the police killings of two unarmed black men took over a University of California-Berkeley venue where the PayPal founder was speaking. The demonstrators also shut down three metro stations in the area, in the fifth night of occasionally violent protests.
Russia tried to salvage the ruble. The central bank raised its benchmark rate from 9.5% to 10.5%—its fifth hike of the year—in an attempt to combat inflation and bolster the ruble’s value. The currency has fallen 40% against the dollar this year, going increasingly haywire as oil prices slide and Western sanctions bite.
Google News will close in Spain. The search giant’s move was forced by a new “Google tax” law that allows Spanish media to charge websites that aggregate their content. The site will close in Spain on Dec. 16 and Spanish publishers will be removed from global Google News search results.
Japanese businesses stopped spending. Machinery orders fell 6.4% in October from the previous month, a far steeper drop than the 1.7% decline expected. Prime minister Shinzo Abe faces elections this weekend, but the recent spate of bad news is unlikely to unseat him.
Australia’s unemployment rate ticked up. The jobless rate rose to 6.3% in November, from 6.2% in the previous two months, though the total number of employed people rose by 42,700.
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Quartz obsession interlude
Caitlin Hu on the Dutch tradition that still turns heads. “Every year around this time, people in the Netherlands paint themselves in blackface and go around pretending to be Santa’s African slaves. According to polls, 92% of Dutch people think this is just fine. They call themselves Zwarte Piets (Black Petes). According to Dutch legend, they are the ‘Moorish’ entourage that arrives with Santa Claus by steamship to deliver pre-Christmas presents to good children and carry away bad ones.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
A sense of privilege is lucrative. Private-school graduates earn more, regardless of what job they hold.
Europe is facing a new age of artistic censorship. Liberals are leading the charge.
Photography is not art—it’s technology. Even though photographer Peter Lik just sold a print for $6.5 million.
The US is experiencing Weltschmerz. That’s how you feel when you realize the world isn’t what you expected it to be.
Surprising discoveries
The US Army is 3D-scanning its soldiers. Anything for better body armor.
A Chinese power plant is burning money. Old and damaged bank notes are cleaner than coal.
Dressing like Santa is a human right. New York’s SantaCon is lawyering up to defend its annual pub crawl.
Vikings took their families to work. New evidence suggests they brought their wives and children on pillaging trips.
American vegetarians lack willpower. Eighty-four percent go back to eating meat after just one year.
Click here for more surprising discoveries on Quartz.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, money to burn, and Santa-themed cocktails to [email protected]. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day.