The Week (December 10)
“Fresh off her first solo state visit to Laos, Princess Aiko has become the face of a Japanese royal family facing 21st-century obsolescence.” Under current succession law, however, her male cousin Prince Hisahito of Akishino will succeed to the throne. The question is when Japan will be “ready for change.” As demonstrated by Japan’s election of “conservative Sanae Takaichi as its first woman prime minister in October,” public support exists “for the notion that Aiko, or ‘any other woman in the future,’ could be made royal successor, which has led to a grassroots effort to readdress the rules.”
Tags: 21st century, Aiko, Change, Grassroots, Hisahito, Japan, Laos, Obsolescence, Prime minister, Public support, Royal family, Succession, Takaichi, Throne
The Economist (February 28)
As the “defining technology” of the beginning of the 21st century, smartphones “matter partly because of their ubiquity. They have become the fastest-selling gadgets in history, outstripping the growth of the simple mobile phones that preceded them. They outsell personal computers four to one. Today about half the adult population owns a smartphone; by 2020, 80% will.” Smartphones also matter because of the tremendous empowerment they bring users. Today, even the most basic smartphone “has access to more number-crunching capacity than NASA had when it put men on the Moon in 1969.” In their day, the clock and the car brought revolutionary change. “Today the smartphone is poised to enrich lives, reshape entire industries and transform societies.”
Tags: 21st century, Car, Change, Clock, Gadgets, Moon, NASA, PCs, Smartphones, Technology, Ubiquity
