9 ms·

Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

123 points by bmuppireddy 10y ago

aaron-lebo 10y ago
I find this fascinating and troubling. From a hacker perspective it is incredible. On the other hand, this is all driven by a profoundly illiberal government that has no goals other than its own survival and that's supported by a lot of human misery, some might say slavery. I love using Apple products but it's hard to forget the conditions at places like Foxconn. Both sides think they are outflanking the other - the West hopes this development will liberalize China and increase respect for IP and rule of law while the Chinese government intends to use this interaction, trade, and adoption of tech to increase their own power. It's a very risky game. It's easy to criticize the US government (and for obvious reasons - this is not a defense of US foreign policy) but Chinese hegemony might be far worse. As techies how can we create places like this in other more open countries? Can this kind of development not be done locally or in Latin America countries? Please understand this is not an attack on China, just some (I think) realistic concerns about their government.
- yadongwen 10y ago
  No, you are not attacking, but you really do not understand. Let me ask you a question. If Apple is assembling the iPhones in India, do you think the work condition is much better than that of Foxconn? And do you know that Foxconn is a Taiwanese company? Yes the Chinese government has their goals. They are corrupted and they do not care much about people. But, it's great they can offer great jobs to farmers assembling iPhones. Even though the work condition is so bad according to your standard.
  - aaron-lebo 10y ago
    If Apple is assembling the iPhones in India, do you think the work condition is much better than that of Foxconn? Probably not, but we can't really know this, and at least having a democratic government in theory provides some leverage. My argument is that paying incredibly low prices for technology has human costs and perhaps is not sustainable. But, it's great they can offer great jobs to farmers assembling iPhones. That's assuming farmers are happier on factory lines than they are working on their farms. Is there evidence to support this? Of course we can't and shouldn't keep China agrarian but Western consumerism is subsidizing some ugly stuff that wouldn't be possible without it. China does not compete on an even playing field with many other countries because of poverty yes but also because its government is interested in development at all costs. And yes, the West developed the same way but it doesn't mean it's ethical.
- RichardHeart 10y ago
  How do you think the conditions would be without Foxconn? I don't think the West could get a better deal from China than they are already getting. If the Chinese got their act totally together, wouldn't your Iphone get a lot more expensive? I don't think the west really wants to liberalize its trading partners as much as you think they do.
- Nokinside 10y ago
  >profoundly illiberal government that has no goals other than its own survival and that's supported by a lot of human misery, This is common misconception. China is authoritarian country but it's not a totalitarian dictatorship. Chinese government actually has problems of controlling it's population and people are not afraid to show their displeasure with protest and riots when things are wrong. Politically modern China is very much like United Kingdom before universal suffrage. Communist party (60 million members) is very much like the noble class in UK. This upper class is full aware that they can't rule with iron fist. They have to deliver better conditions for people and manage industrialization and urbanization or their days are numbered. They have also tied their existence to Chinese (= Han) unity and nationalism (dangerously so, Taiwan is existential question for the communist party). Economically modern China is very much like UK during industrialization. People in China are more at the mercy of crony capitalism and smog than the government. Hopefully China will go trough similar set of gradual reforms. Maybe communists end up in the Chinese House of Lords where communist party still has little power. ---- >it's hard to forget the conditions at places like Foxconn. People in the developing world move to cities to escape malnutrition. They are not forced to work in Foxconn, they choose to work in Foxconn in exchange of enough nutrition. If you want to see bad conditions, visit rural China and India where people still suffer from malnutrition. Malnutrition in China has dropped dramatically, thanks for hose horrible factory jobs. India has it much worse.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    exactly there are something like 13000 large riots in China a year.
  - yore129 10y ago
    > They are not forced to work in Foxconn, they choose to work in Foxconn in exchange of enough nutrition. That's totally untrue. People who come from the country side can't change jobs like that, they need some kind of permit to change jobs and sometimes they are actually forced to work somewhere. The job market in China is clearly biased against the worker, there is no real freedom of work for a large amount of people in China. And you're not even talking about all the corruption going that make sure these people keep getting exploited and forced to work in these places. > China is authoritarian country but it's not a totalitarian dictatorship By all standards it is a dictatorship, with re-education camps, no freedom of speech, a secret police and summary executions. Just because they are capitalists doesn't change that. The fact is, in the west we don't care, provided we have our slaves that build cheap stuffs. We basically outsourced slavery and accepted it thanks to an effective PR and the corruption of our own governments. Things were different 10/15 years ago, back then, China had a different reputation.
the-dude 10y ago
At least they don't bomb and destabilize the shit out of you. I think you have a skewed view of the worldwide reputation of the US.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  I tried very hard to avoid whataboutism in my post and I never defended the US.
  - the-dude 10y ago
    You editted
    - aaron-lebo 10y ago
      Yes, because previously I stated: It's easy to criticize the US government but Chinese hegemony might be far worse. I thought that was enough to avoid defending the US, but I guess not.
      - the-dude 10y ago
        That is because in your whole post you fail to raise any significant point. It just a bit of hand-waving about the US being better than the Chinese. It just oozes American Exceptionalism without any substance.
        candiodari 10y ago
        Ok then: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165416/Chinas-hi-tech-death-van-criminals-executed-organs-sold-black-market.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165416/Chinas-hi-te...
        the-dude 10y ago
        Are you arguing Chinese death sentences are less humane than US ones? A pretty weak point to make.
ThomPete 10y ago
Great documentary. One of the most interesting types of innovation which has come out of Shenzen is within production. Some of these companies literally started creating cheap knockoffs smartphone batteries and is now delivering superior batteries for ex large car manufactorers in ways European companies simply can't compete with.
- Nokinside 10y ago
  It's easy to look down copying and forget that copying someone who is ahead is usually the fastest way to learn. Japanese started the same way. They started with cheap sup-par copies and trinkets. Gradually their quality improved.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Agree thats actually how most people become great musicians, by learning what others do and build on that. In fact i cant think of an single area which isn't only getting better by copying other stuff and then moving past that. One could say the evolutionary process is based on this principle. Copy. Paste. Improve. Repeat.
RichardHeart 10y ago
For every nation that desires to improve it's lot in life, there is a transition period. You must bridge the gap from the ultra suck, to more suck than normal, on to the good life. There are a very finite number of ways to bridge those gaps. Industry is one that is tried and proven. It's easy to call a peoples way to move up in the world bad, its much harder to suggest a real world viable alternative path. I'm ok with China becoming the worlds best manufacturers of many things, and the cheapest manufacturers of other things. I am unaware of another path that they could have taken, or could take right now, that would get them as much GDP or even better citizen outcomes, except for perhaps spreading the wealth downstream a bit more?
rubber_duck 10y ago
I don't know much about HW development but recently I wanted to play around with making a smart quadcopter to play with ML - so I'm looking in to what would be required on the hardware side. Devboards I see online with a high powered ARM board are in 150-200$ range for the devboard without camera/sensors and with stuff I don't need (network ports, display ports, etc). Then I look at my 150$ Chinese smartphone (Xaomi RedMi Note 3 Pro) - it has Snapdragon 652 - Quad Core 64 bit CPU, OpenCL 2 capable GPU, 3GB ram, 16 GB storage, 13MP and 5MP cameras attached, gyro on board and 4G/WiFi/GPS, 4kMAh battery. The specs alone are better then the best devboard I found. So I'm thinking if I can get it to boot without screen I could throw away the case and the screen, hook up GPIO trough USB for 10$ and get a better dev board than I would for 200$ with all the sensors and IO and a battery on top ? I wonder how much it would cost me if I could just buy the parts on these markets and not have to disassemble a complete phone.
- shakna 10y ago
  The DragonBoard 410c might suit you. I see it for $75 at one of my usual suppliers. It has a snapdragon 410 - 1.2Ghz, 1GB RAM, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. However, both of these are probably huge overkill for a quadcopter. The problem you face is twofold: * The quadcopter needs to react in real time, so you need a real time OS. * Machine learning can use a huge amount of memory. The usual way to solve this, is a simplified onboard system. Crash prevention and the like. Probably an Arduino or ESP8266. Then, that communicates with a ML system on a laptop or the like, which does the hard work.
  - rubber_duck 10y ago
    >The usual way to solve this, is a simplified onboard system. Crash prevention and the like. Probably an Arduino or ESP8266. My idea was have something like that hooked in to the bigger board via USB - the Android is creating flight plans and the micro controller is just managing the motors and following the plans it receives. snapdragon 410 seems like it doesn't have OpenCL 2 (shared memory access ?)
    - shakna 10y ago
adenadel 10y ago
Does anyone know where you can find the next documentary they made on Israel?
- georgiev 10y ago
  I don't think they have released it yet. When it comes out it should be on Wired UK's YouTube page.
jstimpfle 10y ago
A propos - I recommend the game "Shenzhen I/O" on Steam. Runs on Linux, too.
elastic_church 10y ago
Nobody is going to call out the title? The fact that silicon valley is called SILICON VALLEY literally because of the hardware that was manufactured there, made of silicon? Oy vey
- Isamu 10y ago
  I came here to say exactly that. There is still plenty of hardware work being done in sv, but maybe the manufacture is in China.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    The "bad" part is that the raw materials for innovation aren't as easily source-able here in the States. While it can still be found to an extent, the abundance of surplus electronics is nowhere near what it used to be; things started to go downhill fast after about the mid-1990s - but it really started much earlier. Today, you can get cheap new electronics (and other parts) from China and other sources, and there is still some surplus available - but no one can deny that it is anything like it was (and for Chinese sourced components, you may have to wait a while to get them - heck, I just recently received some parts I ordered on AliExpress back in December - and it wasn't the vendor's fault - it was stuck in customs in China for some reason). It's frustrating from the standpoint of innovation and experimentation (not to mention learning on a budget), but there isn't anything that can be done about it (and maybe we shouldn't do anything about it, either)...
- deepnotderp 10y ago
  Well, shenzhen doesn't make silicon either... that title now belongs to taiwan and intel's fabs
ohstopitu 10y ago
How would a hobbyist based in Canada get access to that market to buy stuff from? (without getting scammed?)
- esm5 10y ago
  You can try Aliexpress.com. They have buyer protection.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    I second this, greatly. Just be aware that some things might be slower to arrive. I recently received the last of an order that I made in December - it was stuck in port on China's end (not the vendor's fault). If you can live with that, then it can be great. Otherwise, if you need it faster, look on Amazon or Ebay (use vendors that have their product "fulfilled by Amazon" for fastest shipping, for Ebay, look for sellers that have the cheap stuff shipped from the US - that usually means they have stuff stocked in the States). It won't be as cheap as AliExpress, but it will be close enough (the extra premium may or may not be worth it for you). Also - be aware that there are also surplus outlets out there for electronics and such, if you're just experimenting and not manufacturing (where you need a dependable supply of new components). I personally like (and purchase from often) these places: http://www.allelectronics.com/ http://www.allelectronics.com/ http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/ http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/ http://www.alltronics.com/ http://www.alltronics.com/
- antoinealb 10y ago
  Aliexpress & eBay provide a bit of that experience, but I think the point is that being in Shenzen and being able to talk to an actual person is a huge advantage when compared to going on the internet.
- contingencies 10y ago
  IMHO taobao.com and google translate > alisites
utopcell 10y ago
Interesting title. Silicon Valley means Integrated Circuits Valley. Has the term lost its meaning ? (let me google that on bing)
- grzm 10y ago
  Meanings and connotations change.
joelbondurant 10y ago
Hardware? Just upload your hardware to the cloud, fire all your hardware talent, and all future hardware problems are solved by mouse clicking.

123 points by bmuppireddy 10y ago

I find this fascinating and troubling. From a hacker perspective it is incredible. On the other hand, this is all driven by a profoundly illiberal government that has no goals other than its own survival and that's supported by a lot of human misery, some might say slavery. I love using Apple products but it's hard to forget the conditions at places like Foxconn. Both sides think they are outflanking the other - the West hopes this development will liberalize China and increase respect for IP and rule of law while the Chinese government intends to use this interaction, trade, and adoption of tech to increase their own power. It's a very risky game. It's easy to criticize the US government (and for obvious reasons - this is not a defense of US foreign policy) but Chinese hegemony might be far worse. As techies how can we create places like this in other more open countries? Can this kind of development not be done locally or in Latin America countries? Please understand this is not an attack on China, just some (I think) realistic concerns about their government.

yadongwen 10y ago
No, you are not attacking, but you really do not understand. Let me ask you a question. If Apple is assembling the iPhones in India, do you think the work condition is much better than that of Foxconn? And do you know that Foxconn is a Taiwanese company? Yes the Chinese government has their goals. They are corrupted and they do not care much about people. But, it's great they can offer great jobs to farmers assembling iPhones. Even though the work condition is so bad according to your standard.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  If Apple is assembling the iPhones in India, do you think the work condition is much better than that of Foxconn? Probably not, but we can't really know this, and at least having a democratic government in theory provides some leverage. My argument is that paying incredibly low prices for technology has human costs and perhaps is not sustainable. But, it's great they can offer great jobs to farmers assembling iPhones. That's assuming farmers are happier on factory lines than they are working on their farms. Is there evidence to support this? Of course we can't and shouldn't keep China agrarian but Western consumerism is subsidizing some ugly stuff that wouldn't be possible without it. China does not compete on an even playing field with many other countries because of poverty yes but also because its government is interested in development at all costs. And yes, the West developed the same way but it doesn't mean it's ethical.
RichardHeart 10y ago
How do you think the conditions would be without Foxconn? I don't think the West could get a better deal from China than they are already getting. If the Chinese got their act totally together, wouldn't your Iphone get a lot more expensive? I don't think the west really wants to liberalize its trading partners as much as you think they do.
Nokinside 10y ago
>profoundly illiberal government that has no goals other than its own survival and that's supported by a lot of human misery, This is common misconception. China is authoritarian country but it's not a totalitarian dictatorship. Chinese government actually has problems of controlling it's population and people are not afraid to show their displeasure with protest and riots when things are wrong. Politically modern China is very much like United Kingdom before universal suffrage. Communist party (60 million members) is very much like the noble class in UK. This upper class is full aware that they can't rule with iron fist. They have to deliver better conditions for people and manage industrialization and urbanization or their days are numbered. They have also tied their existence to Chinese (= Han) unity and nationalism (dangerously so, Taiwan is existential question for the communist party). Economically modern China is very much like UK during industrialization. People in China are more at the mercy of crony capitalism and smog than the government. Hopefully China will go trough similar set of gradual reforms. Maybe communists end up in the Chinese House of Lords where communist party still has little power. ---- >it's hard to forget the conditions at places like Foxconn. People in the developing world move to cities to escape malnutrition. They are not forced to work in Foxconn, they choose to work in Foxconn in exchange of enough nutrition. If you want to see bad conditions, visit rural China and India where people still suffer from malnutrition. Malnutrition in China has dropped dramatically, thanks for hose horrible factory jobs. India has it much worse.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  exactly there are something like 13000 large riots in China a year.
- yore129 10y ago
  > They are not forced to work in Foxconn, they choose to work in Foxconn in exchange of enough nutrition. That's totally untrue. People who come from the country side can't change jobs like that, they need some kind of permit to change jobs and sometimes they are actually forced to work somewhere. The job market in China is clearly biased against the worker, there is no real freedom of work for a large amount of people in China. And you're not even talking about all the corruption going that make sure these people keep getting exploited and forced to work in these places. > China is authoritarian country but it's not a totalitarian dictatorship By all standards it is a dictatorship, with re-education camps, no freedom of speech, a secret police and summary executions. Just because they are capitalists doesn't change that. The fact is, in the west we don't care, provided we have our slaves that build cheap stuffs. We basically outsourced slavery and accepted it thanks to an effective PR and the corruption of our own governments. Things were different 10/15 years ago, back then, China had a different reputation.

the-dude 10y ago

At least they don't bomb and destabilize the shit out of you. I think you have a skewed view of the worldwide reputation of the US.

aaron-lebo 10y ago
I tried very hard to avoid whataboutism in my post and I never defended the US.
- the-dude 10y ago
  You editted
  - aaron-lebo 10y ago
    Yes, because previously I stated: It's easy to criticize the US government but Chinese hegemony might be far worse. I thought that was enough to avoid defending the US, but I guess not.
    - the-dude 10y ago
      That is because in your whole post you fail to raise any significant point. It just a bit of hand-waving about the US being better than the Chinese. It just oozes American Exceptionalism without any substance.
      - candiodari 10y ago
        Ok then: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165416/Chinas-hi-tech-death-van-criminals-executed-organs-sold-black-market.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165416/Chinas-hi-te...
        the-dude 10y ago
        Are you arguing Chinese death sentences are less humane than US ones? A pretty weak point to make.

ThomPete 10y ago

Great documentary. One of the most interesting types of innovation which has come out of Shenzen is within production. Some of these companies literally started creating cheap knockoffs smartphone batteries and is now delivering superior batteries for ex large car manufactorers in ways European companies simply can't compete with.

Nokinside 10y ago
It's easy to look down copying and forget that copying someone who is ahead is usually the fastest way to learn. Japanese started the same way. They started with cheap sup-par copies and trinkets. Gradually their quality improved.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Agree thats actually how most people become great musicians, by learning what others do and build on that. In fact i cant think of an single area which isn't only getting better by copying other stuff and then moving past that. One could say the evolutionary process is based on this principle. Copy. Paste. Improve. Repeat.

RichardHeart 10y ago

For every nation that desires to improve it's lot in life, there is a transition period. You must bridge the gap from the ultra suck, to more suck than normal, on to the good life. There are a very finite number of ways to bridge those gaps. Industry is one that is tried and proven. It's easy to call a peoples way to move up in the world bad, its much harder to suggest a real world viable alternative path. I'm ok with China becoming the worlds best manufacturers of many things, and the cheapest manufacturers of other things. I am unaware of another path that they could have taken, or could take right now, that would get them as much GDP or even better citizen outcomes, except for perhaps spreading the wealth downstream a bit more?

rubber_duck 10y ago

I don't know much about HW development but recently I wanted to play around with making a smart quadcopter to play with ML - so I'm looking in to what would be required on the hardware side. Devboards I see online with a high powered ARM board are in 150-200$ range for the devboard without camera/sensors and with stuff I don't need (network ports, display ports, etc). Then I look at my 150$ Chinese smartphone (Xaomi RedMi Note 3 Pro) - it has Snapdragon 652 - Quad Core 64 bit CPU, OpenCL 2 capable GPU, 3GB ram, 16 GB storage, 13MP and 5MP cameras attached, gyro on board and 4G/WiFi/GPS, 4kMAh battery. The specs alone are better then the best devboard I found. So I'm thinking if I can get it to boot without screen I could throw away the case and the screen, hook up GPIO trough USB for 10$ and get a better dev board than I would for 200$ with all the sensors and IO and a battery on top ? I wonder how much it would cost me if I could just buy the parts on these markets and not have to disassemble a complete phone.

shakna 10y ago
The DragonBoard 410c might suit you. I see it for $75 at one of my usual suppliers. It has a snapdragon 410 - 1.2Ghz, 1GB RAM, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. However, both of these are probably huge overkill for a quadcopter. The problem you face is twofold: * The quadcopter needs to react in real time, so you need a real time OS. * Machine learning can use a huge amount of memory. The usual way to solve this, is a simplified onboard system. Crash prevention and the like. Probably an Arduino or ESP8266. Then, that communicates with a ML system on a laptop or the like, which does the hard work.
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  >The usual way to solve this, is a simplified onboard system. Crash prevention and the like. Probably an Arduino or ESP8266. My idea was have something like that hooked in to the bigger board via USB - the Android is creating flight plans and the micro controller is just managing the motors and following the plans it receives. snapdragon 410 seems like it doesn't have OpenCL 2 (shared memory access ?)
  - shakna 10y ago

adenadel 10y ago

Does anyone know where you can find the next documentary they made on Israel?

georgiev 10y ago
I don't think they have released it yet. When it comes out it should be on Wired UK's YouTube page.

jstimpfle 10y ago

A propos - I recommend the game "Shenzhen I/O" on Steam. Runs on Linux, too.

elastic_church 10y ago

Nobody is going to call out the title? The fact that silicon valley is called SILICON VALLEY literally because of the hardware that was manufactured there, made of silicon? Oy vey

Isamu 10y ago
I came here to say exactly that. There is still plenty of hardware work being done in sv, but maybe the manufacture is in China.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  The "bad" part is that the raw materials for innovation aren't as easily source-able here in the States. While it can still be found to an extent, the abundance of surplus electronics is nowhere near what it used to be; things started to go downhill fast after about the mid-1990s - but it really started much earlier. Today, you can get cheap new electronics (and other parts) from China and other sources, and there is still some surplus available - but no one can deny that it is anything like it was (and for Chinese sourced components, you may have to wait a while to get them - heck, I just recently received some parts I ordered on AliExpress back in December - and it wasn't the vendor's fault - it was stuck in customs in China for some reason). It's frustrating from the standpoint of innovation and experimentation (not to mention learning on a budget), but there isn't anything that can be done about it (and maybe we shouldn't do anything about it, either)...
deepnotderp 10y ago
Well, shenzhen doesn't make silicon either... that title now belongs to taiwan and intel's fabs

ohstopitu 10y ago

How would a hobbyist based in Canada get access to that market to buy stuff from? (without getting scammed?)

esm5 10y ago
You can try Aliexpress.com. They have buyer protection.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  I second this, greatly. Just be aware that some things might be slower to arrive. I recently received the last of an order that I made in December - it was stuck in port on China's end (not the vendor's fault). If you can live with that, then it can be great. Otherwise, if you need it faster, look on Amazon or Ebay (use vendors that have their product "fulfilled by Amazon" for fastest shipping, for Ebay, look for sellers that have the cheap stuff shipped from the US - that usually means they have stuff stocked in the States). It won't be as cheap as AliExpress, but it will be close enough (the extra premium may or may not be worth it for you). Also - be aware that there are also surplus outlets out there for electronics and such, if you're just experimenting and not manufacturing (where you need a dependable supply of new components). I personally like (and purchase from often) these places: http://www.allelectronics.com/ http://www.allelectronics.com/ http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/ http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/ http://www.alltronics.com/ http://www.alltronics.com/
antoinealb 10y ago
Aliexpress & eBay provide a bit of that experience, but I think the point is that being in Shenzen and being able to talk to an actual person is a huge advantage when compared to going on the internet.
contingencies 10y ago
IMHO taobao.com and google translate > alisites

utopcell 10y ago

Interesting title. Silicon Valley means Integrated Circuits Valley. Has the term lost its meaning ? (let me google that on bing)

grzm 10y ago
Meanings and connotations change.

joelbondurant 10y ago

Hardware? Just upload your hardware to the cloud, fire all your hardware talent, and all future hardware problems are solved by mouse clicking.