Hi / Kia ora,

Welcome to this year’s penultimate Memia scan across emerging tech, global change and the unfolding future, as viewed from this self-isolating corner of the world, Aotearoa New Zealand.

The most clicked link in the last issue (~16% of openers) was Siouxsie Wiles’ raw takedown of the UK’s hurry to vaccinate.

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Positive externalities➕

As trailed way back in Memia 2020.12 (end of April, can you believe it…) the Aotearoa government’s COVID-19 Tracer app finally got its bluetooth upgrade thanks to iOS and Android updates.

Given all of the “break them up” loudness reverberating around the online echo chamber, I think it’s fair to reflect for a moment on a few of the *positive* externalities of having a US Adtech giant here in Aotearoa (top work Ross and Google AoNZ team👏):

A tangled knot🏘️🪢

House prices, eh.

Even the banks are calling for bold policy action!

Sharon Zollner @sharon_zollner

Housing unaffordability is an enormous problem in New Zealand. It requires big, bold, urgent policy action. Engineering an orderly response that leads to better outcomes is absolutely possible. See our latest @ANZ_NZ Property Focus bit.ly/ANZ-PropertyFo…

I was batting emails back and forth on the topic this week with regular correspondent Andrew Leckie: it’s a tangled, tangled knot. On the one hand, there are many interrelated outcomes that the govt is trying to achieve…

…and on the other, there are many interrelated levers which the govt, reserve bank and businesses can try to pull (click to magnify):

(Any suggestions on what’s missing… please add into comments below.)

I sense that this is a much more complex data model than any government agency *or even bank economist* has to hand…anyone trying to take a crack?

Perhaps Aotearoa could look north to Finland, the only EU country where homelessness is falling. Its secret? Giving people homes as soon as they need them – unconditionally:

“We decided to make the housing unconditional…To say, look, you don’t need to solve your problems before you get a home. Instead, a home should be the secure foundation that makes it easier to solve your problems.”✔️

Put to sea⛵

Stuff reported this week that cost blowouts on 17 roads cost NZTA NZ$1.1 billion. Waka Kotahi/NZTA is quoted:

“The funding range for State Highway improvements for 2018-21 is between NZ$3b and NZ$3.85b.”

This seems like rather a lot of money, even by 2020 QE standards.

Here in Aotearoa truckers demand billion-dollar spend to fix 'dilapidated' roads while environmentalists argue that AoNZ roads will never cope with heavier trucks.

But over in Norway, shipbuilder Vard has just handed over the world’s first zero emissions, autonomous container vessel to conglomerate Yara International:

Memia @memialabs

Yara takes delivery of autonomous boxship Yara Birkeland - Splash247

Yara takes delivery of autonomous boxship Yara Birkeland - Splash247In one of this year’s most eagerly anticipated ship deliveries, Norwegian shipbuilder Vard has handed over the zero emissions autonomous container vessel to Yara International. Yara says the vessel wibuff.ly

…and in Stockholm archipelago just last weekend they have been trialling a scale model of the Oceanbird wind-powered car carrier.

In Memia 2020.02 I flagged the work of Tāmaki Makaurau startup FreightFish working on autonomous hydrofoils and the future of shipping:

Also based in Auckland, ZeroJet are working on electric jet powered watercraft, which with a bit of capital could no doubt be scaled up fast. (🙏 Blair Harrison at ASX for the link).

Here’s a play: take just some of that roading budget and instead invest it into making Aotearoa a global regulatory sandbox for autonomous, carbon neutral sea freight - like is being done for aerospace. AoNZ is not short of coastline. Why not autonomous floating platforms carrying shipping containers between coastal towns with “hands free” micro ports? Take those long truck journeys off the roads…and then go export the technology and regulatory framework all around the world in 10 years’ time. How about a concept feasibility study Rob Warner?

[Weak] signals

The future keeps on signalling…

Changing this world:

Human-made materials now equal the weight of all life on Earth…

Memia @memialabs

Human-made materials now equal weight of all life on Earth buff.ly/2W0QdwY

…and China is forging ahead with a weather modification service projected to cover 5.5 million sq. km for artificially induced rainfall, and 580,000 sq.km for for hail suppression by 2025.

Getting off this world:

SpaceX carried their first test of the enormous “Starship” rocket intended to take humans to Mars this decade. It ended with a big bang but, wow…not bad for a first attempt.

Steve Jurvetson @FutureJurvetson

An incredible testament to the enginerring skill and power of simulation tools that all of the crazy new capabilities tested here worked the first time. A softer landing should be pretty straightforward the next time around. Check out this inbound flip:

Starship | SN8 | High-Altitude Flight TestOn Wednesday, December 9, Starship serial number 8 (SN8) lifted off from our Cameron County launch pad and successfully ascended, transitioned propellant, an...youtu.be

Cheap robots:

Hyundai became the third owner in seven years of robot maker Boston Dynamics, for a surprisingly low US$1Bn.

🏗️Big sheds:

Electricity generator Meridian is backing a new proposed 40,000 sq.m “hyperscale” data centre in Invercargill from Datagrid, founded by Remi Galasso (Hawaiki cable) and Malcolm Dick (Callplus). Meridian has agreed to supply Datagrid’s proposed development with 100 megawatts of green electricity from the nearby 800MW Manapouri hydro scheme. (Aluminium smelter Rio Tinto conveniently exiting soon…bye bye). The project also involves laying 2900 km of subsea cable between Invercargill, Sydney and Melbourne, and another to Hawaiki Cable’s landing point at Mangawhai Heads, north of Auckland. Audacious vision, well done!👏 (It works in Iceland.)

An artist’s impression of what the Datagrid data centre would look like. — Source: Datagrid

Hack attack:

US government departments were severely hacked by a sophisticated “supply chain attack” involving IT provider SolarWinds. Russia suspected. Ouch.
Dustin Volz @dnvolz
New: CISA just issued a rare emergency directive instructing federal civilian agencies to review their networks and immediately power down SolarWinds products, saying the hack "poses unacceptable risks to the security of federal networks." wsj.com/articles/agenc…
December 14th 2020
1,186 Retweets2,071 Likes
🔋Better batteries:

Memia @memialabs

New Material Can Store Energy From The Sun For Months or Even Years buff.ly/3gGpnUx

🧬Injecting CRISPR:

In a first for gene editing, a CRISPR complex was injected directly into a human - into a patient's eye to combat a form of hereditary blindness.

Mind expanding

Exercising my neurons this week:

After decades of exploration, physicists have finally found evidence that anyons exist: particle-like objects which only arise in realms confined to two dimensions.
A machine learning study challenges the “creative destruction” paradigm of evolution - discovering surprising patterns in Earth’s biological mass extinctions.
SF author Cory Doctorow is scathing in this thread about Uber, Softbank and the Saudi royal family:

Cory Doctorow #BLM @doctorow

When they write the history of this era, one of the strangest chapters will be devoted to Uber, a company that was never, ever going to be profitable, which existed solely to launder billions for the Saudi royals. 1/

Rollcall

VCs, VCs, everywhere:

Australian angel investors Matt and Aprill Allen launched Tractor Ventures with an attractive value proposition for founders:

Memia @memialabs

Angel investors Matt and Aprill Allen launch Tractor Ventures

Angel investors Matt and Aprill Allen launch Tractor VenturesTractor Ventures wants to give access to capital to founders who don’t want to take VC and give away large chunks of the business.buff.ly

And last week it was fun to catchup in Ōtautahi with newly imported VC Rob Vickery, GP of new NZ$40M Kiwi fund HillFarrance (random fact: named after his ancestral village in Somerset, England).