Happy Friday, gang! This is our last Digital Culture Playbook of the year as I’m off for a couple of weeks and then it’s Christmas - everyone I have spoken to recently is knackered and needs a break, and I’m no different - so here’s a bumper issue to tide you over until the first Friday of 2025.
Meanwhile, a colleague of mine went to South Korea this week: he’s well known for being a disruptor, so I hope he didn’t have a hand in the alleged coup / martial law debacle! This week, we look into what else is occurring there, backtrack slightly on crypto-crime and offer some left-field cultural recommendations... Let’s get into it!
The layout and premise of the newsletter is simple: an end-of-the-week sheep-dip of tech, culture, policy and research stories, which I hope you enjoy. If you think friends or colleagues would benefit, please share with them so they can subscribe on Substack or LinkedIn.
Best wishes, Alex.
1. Martial law
South Korea's National Assembly overturned President Yoon Suk Yeol's martial law declaration within a few hours this week. This is the first time martial law has been declared since it became a democracy in 1987. The swift response of the country’s parliament to eliminate what could be interpreted as a slide to autocracy shows how delicate the balance of democracy can be.
Most of the discussion in the press around the political turmoil focuses on South Korea’s trade deficit with America and what incoming US47 is likely to do about it (Axios has a good explainer) but some very interesting tech stories are being buried under the noise.
South Korea, the world's 12th-largest economy, is a considerably influential hub for emerging technology and has been a world leader in digital technologies for well over a decade: I was lucky enough to run the D7 summit when the UK government hosted the most digitally advanced nations back in 2015, and Korea was on the map then, alongside the U.S., New Zealand and Estonia.
Home to Big Tech giant Samsung - which has been criticised in the industry for missing the boat on the AI boom - the country’s finance ministry announced $10Bn in loans last week to boost semiconductor development in response to the U.S.-China chip wars: “the government plans to mobilise all available resources and actively support companies in overcoming the industry's crisis and achieving a renewed leap forward”, it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the semiconductor industry has appealed to the government for an exemption to the country’s 52-hour work week, as they are struggling to keep up with global chip demand.
Also this week, ETRI, the Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, signed a strategic agreement with Quantum Sensing to support go-to-market activities for new quantum technologies. Based on what I’m hearing in the R&D space, we’re all going to be talking about quantum a lot more next year, as the research is finally maturing to viable product stage in lots of places simultaneously (even the UK!). South Korea is likely to be one to watch as this space evolves in the coming months.
2. Crypto gangbusters
Only last week, we covered a research report that said criminals are a teeny tiny minority in the crypto space. But when there are bad apples in the barrel, they can turn out to be pretty big apples!
Above the line on yesterday’s Financial Times front page was the arresting headline: Crypto crooks - Laundering ring laid bare, reporting that the National Crime Agency had uncovered a multi-billion-dollar crypto scam being run out of London, Moscow and Dubai, which enabled fraudsters and people traffickers to evade sanctions.
The investigation, known as ‘Operation Destabilise’ is a huge win for UK law enforcement and marked the NCA’s biggest money laundering case for a decade.
With the support of the FBI, Irish and French police, the gangbusters reportedly arrested 84 people, including 70 in the UK, according to City AM. Five people linked to the illicit network have been put under economic sanctions by the U.S. Treasury.
Meanwhile yesterday, cryptocurrency Bitcoin reached a value of $100k, increasing from about $76k before the U.S. election a few weeks ago, based largely on expectations of a more relaxed stance on crypto regulation from the incoming administration.
3. Watch/read/listen
What better opportunity for a year in review than the last Playbook of the year? So in 2024, here were a few of my favourite things:
Film: went to see Wicked last weekend and - while I still don’t believe it needs to be two films - it was gorgeously shot and flawlessly performed. Cynthia Erivo is sensational.
Book: late to the party (it took three different friends to recommend it before I picked it up in an airport), but Yellowface is hands down the novel I most wish I’d written this year. Totally absorbing & highly recommended.
Podcast: I have utterly fallen in love with Marina Hyde and Richard Osman in The Rest is Entertainment. They’ve knocked out over 100 episodes this year and I’ve binged them all. It’s about the inner workings of the entertainment industry and I have learned so many things I never knew I needed to know!
Play: I saw quite a few plays this year but still can’t get over A Raisin in the Sun, which I saw when it was in London, before it transferred to Nottingham. Worth the trip!
Record: yes, proper vinyl, as that’s something I’m very into at the moment. I’d been hunting for a very specific album and my lovely mum found it for me second hand - possibly one of the best albums ever made - absolutely as good as I remembered it… Motown Chartbusters Volume 3. Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, the Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder… every song became a classic and oh it is a joy to dance around the kitchen to!
4. Being more social
I’ve just joined Bluesky, because everyone else seems to be doing it. Not sure how well that will work out, but if you’d like to follow, you’d be very welcome! @vaily.bsky.social
4. Playbook picks & worthy clicks
What the departing White House chief tech advisor has to say on AI (MIT Technology Review)
OpenAI may be moving into the advertising game (FT)
Chicago wants to build the Silicon Valley of quantum computing (WSJ)
Hong Kong is becoming a hub for financial crime, US lawmakers say (CNN)
A simpler Citigroup begins to take shape following Jane Fraser’s massive digital transformation programme (WSJ)
Canada is the latest country suing Google for ‘creating a monopoly’ (NY Times)
What happens when you fall in love with an AI? (The Verge)
‘Brain rot’ from doomscrolling is the Oxford University dictionary word of the year (BBC)
The CMA’s market investigation into cloud computing now won’t be published until January (Reuters)
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Wishing you all a fab weekend!