One of the Series 1 figures I popped open the base and removed the electronics (an idea I got after speaking to I-Wei Huang of Toys For Bob about how his children responded to electronic-less prototypes), effectively removing the toys-to-life aspect of the figure.

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"When I saw the building in ruins, I felt heartbroken, " Wei says.

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To roughly calculate, I build on a study of 120 countries by Christine Zhen-Wei Qiang of the World Bank that found that a 10 percent increase in mobile phone penetration correlates with a 0.8 percent average increase in GDP growth.

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When Wei Lin began rhapsodizing about the streaming capabilities of his new video projector, I snapped.

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