Apple is to open a research lab in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, according to Tim Cook, its chief executive, as it seeks to boost sales in the country and improve ties with the authorities.

    Beijing has been encouraging foreign technology companies to carry out more high-end work on the mainland as part of efforts to revitalize local industry.

    It will be Apple's second facility in China. It already has a new research and development facility in Beijing.

    The two R&D centers were “aimed at strengthening relationships with local partners and universities as we work to support talent development across the country”, Apple said in a statement.

    A closer relationship with the Chinese authorities has been a priority following setbacks for the US technology company this year.

    The iPhone has been losing market share to high-end handsets made by local competitors including Huawei, Vivo and Oppo, which topped the rankings in the second quarter, while Apple languished in fifth place, according to Canalys data.

    Analysts said the announcement of the R&D centre was Mr. Cook's latest attempt to gain favour with Beijing, following the US group's $1billion investment in Didi Chuxing, the Chinese car-hailing company, in May.

    Apple has had to change its approach in China as it faces rising nationalism and high-quality local competition, according to Ge Jia, a tech blogger, who wrote yesterday: “It's time for Apple to cast aside their pride.” “Their previous strategy of only selling devices to China without leaving anything behind is not working any more and they are starting their process of localisation in China through the Shenzhen lab.”

B

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    For the trainees, the programs also offer a great way to earn merit badges(荣誉徽章). At Space Camp, trainees can earn their Space Exploration badge as they build and fire model rockets, learn about space tasks and try simulated(模拟) flying to space with the crew from all over the world. The Aviation Challenge program gives trainees the chance to earn their Aviation badge. They learn the principles of flight and test their operating skills in the cockpit(驾驶舱) of a variety of flight simulators. Trainees also get a good start on their Wilderness Survival badge as they learn about water- and land-survival through designed tasks and their search and rescue of ＂downed＂ pilot.

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    I always experienced guilt when I passed by without giving a coin or two to a beggar.

    My conscience was pricked again on a tour of Venice in 2010. I had taken refuge from the crowds in a quiet canal-side café. Outside the café was an old woman kneeling on the ancient cobbled stones, begging. Steady streams of tourists were walking past her. A lone young back-packer stood away from the crowds drinking something, but I noticed he was also observing the woman.

    A tourist group glanced at the woman and walked on. Another group of tourists arrived and, again, walked past her. The backpacker watched. Then, as I prepared to leave, I stopped at the sight of the backpacker stepping forward and placing some money in the woman's cup. He did this rather ostentatiously(炫耀地), just before the arrival of another tourist group. I watched as the leader of the group stopped and put some money in the cup. Having been shown the way, other tourists followed suit and added more coins to the woman's cup.

    The young backpacker repeated this process in front of the next tour party going past. Once again, the subtle peer (同伴) pressure worked on the tourists, who all added coins to the cup. His work done, the young man walked over to the old beggar woman, patted her shoulder and said, “I hope that helps a bit.”

    I don't know if the woman understood his English or realized what had just happened, but I did. I placed some money in the woman's cup and continued my travels, light-hearted after witnessing such an act of caring.

    When a group of children politely stop a conversation with you, saying, "We have to go to work now." you're left feeling surprised and certainly uneasy. After all, this is the 21st century and the idea of children working is just unthinkable. This is, until you are told that they are all pupils of stage schools, and that the "work" they go off to is to go on the stage in a theatre.

    Stage schools often act as agencies to supply children for stage and television work. More worthy of the name "stage school" are those few places where children attend full time, with a training for the theatre and a general education.

    A visit to such schools will leave you in no doubt that the children enjoy themselves. After all, what lively children wouldn't settle for spending only half the day doing ordinary school work, and acting, singing or dancing their way through the other half of the day?

    Then of course there are times for the children to make a name and make a little money in some big shows. Some stage schools give their children too much professional work at such a young age. But the law is very tight on the amount they can do. Those under 13 are limited to 40 days in the year; those over 13 to 80 days.

    The schools themselves admit that not all children will be successful in the profession for which they are being trained. So what happens to those who don't make it? While all the leading schools say they place great importance on children getting good study results, the facts seem to suggest this is not always the case.

    We have encountered a crisis around the corner. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing it anymore, especially the young. Who's responsible?

Actually, it's more like, what is responsible? The Internet, of course, and everything that comes with it – Facebook, Twitter. You can write your own list.

    There's been a warning about the imminent death of literate civilization for a long time. In the 20th century, first it was the movies, then radio, then television that seemed to spell doom for the written world. None did. Reading survived; in fact it not only survived, it has flourished. The world is more literate than ever before – there are more and more readers, and more and more books.

    The fact that we often get our reading material online today is not something we should worry over. The electronic and digital revolution of the last two decades has arguably shown the way forward for reading and for writing. Take the arrival of e-book readers as an example.

    Devices like Kindle make reading more convenient and are a lot more environmentally friendly than the traditional paper book.

    As technology makes new ways of writing possible, new ways of reading are possible. Interconnectivity allows for the possibility of a reading experience that was barely imaginable before. Where traditional books had to make do with photographs and illustrations, an e-book can provide readers with an unlimited number of links: to texts, pictures, and videos. In the future, the way people write novels, history, and philosophy will resemble nothing seen in the past.

    On the other hand, there is the danger of trivialization. One Twitter group is offering its followers single-sentence-long "digests" of the great novels. War and Peace in a sentence? You must be joking. We should fear the fragmentation of reading. There is the danger that the high-speed connectivity of the Internet will reduce our attention span—that we will be incapable of reading anything of length or which requires deep concentration.

    In such a fast-changing world, in which reality seems to be remade each day, we need the ability to focus and understand what is happening to us. This has always been the function of literature and we should be careful not to let it disappear. Our society needs to be able to imagine the possibility of someone utterly in tune with modern technology but able to make sense of a dynamic, confusing world.

    In the 15th century, Johannes Guttenberg's invention of the printing press in Europe had a huge impact on civilization. Once upon a time the physical book was a challenging thing. We should remember this before we assume that technology is out to destroy traditional culture.