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Re:China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech by seanmcdirmid on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @02:38AM (#12216055)
And they did it way before...

But China invented the fruit lockers: you want fresh fruit, it gets delivered to a locker in your apartment everyday. I haven't tried it, but was a bit floored when I saw one.

We personally just have them leave packages at the wuye (apartment management), any high end apartment just has a counter that will keep your package for you, no need for a locker solution.

Re:China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech by jerf on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @09:47AM (#12217839)
That's a cost-of-labor problem. Obviously there's no particular technological trick to it; the West had milk deliveries decades ago which is fairly similar. But cost-of-labor makes that impossible to do economically here today; you can't afford to pay someone to deliver something as cheap as fruit or milk in the US, because nobody will pay the requisite markup.

Whether that's advantage China or advantage US depends on your perspective.

Re:China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech by billconan on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:07AM (#12217967)
it's a matter of cost-of-labor and population density.

I heard that railway systems in most countries are not profitable, they have to be funded by the government.

But the Chinese railway system is so advanced and profitable, due to cost-of-labor and population density. Even high speed railway wasn't a Chinese invention. As a comparison, the U.S. railway is so old and kinda desolate.

Most ideas are not originated from China, but they grow better in China.

Because of the population density, the network effect is stronger in China.

Re:China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech by s_q_b on Thursday August 04, 2016 @08:20AM (#12224991)
There's also the fact that China is not as burdened by legacy infrastructure and business models.

For example, consider high speed rail in California. Due to the existing rail system, the marginal increase in economic benefit gained by building a new high speed system is fairly small.

Compare this situation to high speed rail in China. Without the existence of a fairly efficient existing system, the economic benefit to building the high speed lines was massive.

This historical pattern is somewhat common.

Rising societies have all of the latest advances gained by building previous systems, and none of the existing societies' technical debt.

They get the newest and shiniest technological base, simply because they're building it now.

Re:China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech by hx87 on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @12:57PM (#12219459)
> the U.S. railway is so old and kinda desolate

That's only true of passenger rail though--freight rail in the US works really well.