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Showing posts from July, 2015

Zhao Wei: So Young So Successful - And A Billionaire!

It's fantastic that Chinese actress/director/singer Zhao Wei , about whom I blogged repeatedly in 2013, is now a billionaire, according to Forbes.   Her directorial debut, So Young , about a group of college students, was a huge success, earning $118 million in mainland China alone and making it the fifth highest grossing Chinese movie of all time when released.  (I wrote about the film's opening week success in a post titled Zhao Wei's So Young So Successful In China. I also posted video of Zhao Wei on the set of her directorial debut, So Young .)  As Forbes reports, it is Zhao's shrewd investments, as much as her huge success across many fields of entertainment, that have earned her the nickname, "China's show-business Buffet." In particular, Zhao acquired a 9.18% stake in her close friend Jack Ma's company Alibaba Pictures in 2014, for an investment of $400 million. Ma had invited Zhao to invest, in order to add so

Dash Robotics' Bio-Inspired Bugs

Photograph copyright © 2015 Alexander Chow-Stuart. A couple of weeks ago, our family was lucky enough to have a tour of Dash Robotics' facility in Sunnyvale, California, where Nick Kohut and his partners have a young startup designing and manufacturing remarkable little robot bugs that you can control with your smartphone or tablet.  My son, Hudson, and I had first seen these at a tech convention in San Francisco organized by getgeeked  and SVEntrepreneurs . We had been impressed by both the robots' speed and agility - as well as by the fact that you can build the robot's "skin" from a single sheet of plastic, and swap it out later if you want to change the robot's color or design.  Photograph copyright © 2015 Alexander Chow-Stuart. Nick Kohut, cofounder of Dash Robotics. Photograph copyright © 2015 Alexander Chow-Stuart. Nick, who showed us around the Dash facility himself, met his partners, Andrew Gillies

Loving the Logitech Keys-To-Go Keyboard!

Our six year old daughter Paradise loves the Keys-To-Go keyboard, too. Photograph copyright © 2015 Alexander Chow-Stuart. When our son Hudson and I recently attended the getgeeked event in San Francisco , one of the products that most impressed us was a simple bluetooth keyboard from Logitech, called Keys-To-Go. Slim, light, colorful and with models for both iOS (including Apple TV) and Android, perhaps the best feature of Keys-To-Go is its FabricSkin coating, a pleasing waterproof (or at least water-resistant - not sure you can surf with it) plastic coating that can be wiped clean after any unfortunate spills, and is also great for working in sandy or wilderness environments. The keyboard is surprisingly light and portable. While it's not full-size, it has really comfortable spacing, and despite its ultraslim 6mm depth, the keys actually tap like a "real" keyboard, giving you a satisfying sense that you are actually writing! It's great for an iPad or

Happy Birthday Miso!

Photograph copyright © 2015 Alexander Chow-Stuart. It's also our lovebird Miso's seventh birthday today! He's been a part of our family since he was six weeks old! Happy Birthday Miso!

Happy Independence Day, Sitting Bull!

We should all reflect on what Independence Day means to our entire nation. America was born as an idea, which is fairly unique among nations. But for those who already were guardians of this land, and who lived in greater harmony with it than we have managed, Independence Day is hardly that. History and progress are complex. Enjoy the day but remember we are all interconnected. And the land belongs to no one, ultimately. We are lucky to enjoy it and its vast startling beauty.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day! Love Everyone! "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses!" Be One 🌎🌏🌍