Finns Build a Virtual Helsinki

Anonymous Coward writes "Having already pioneered the mobile phone-operated vending machine, those well-wired Finns are constructing a virtual Helsinki, heavily integrated with the real one (Article from The Guardian). Broadband for all and techno-houses à la Gates... track your pizza delivery online, netcast from public booths, and keep tabs on your kids via their mobile phones. Futuristic techo-democracy with just a hint of 1984. It seems that the future will be... fun."

Yeah sure

And I'm sure that they will also have flying cars and household appliances that address you by your first name.

"I would like a pizza"
"I'm sorry. I can't do that Dave"

The "evidence" that Helsinki is wired to the lower lip appears to be internet kiosks and Mr. Linturi's Super Duper Futuro Home. Yes, I'm cynical, but these are things we already have in abundance here in America: broadband booths at airports and rich people with expensive and largely useless toys installed in their bathrooms.

Well deployed technology doesn't appear with a bang and a cloud of pyrotechnic fog. It slips seamlessly into your life. I don't think I can remember the first time I used a calling card at a telephone booth rather than 25 cents change. It just seemed to be there when I needed it. And that is the definition of a successful deployment.

Look, everybody here likes cool tech news. We've been hearing about the world of the future for so long now that "in the year 2000" is a ridiculous cliche. I for one am pretty tired of it.

-konstant

Re:First Post!

Excuse me. "Low quality"? Practically every corner of the country is reachable with a phone. The lines are stable, and the audio quality about as good as you can get from a telephone. So how is it "low quality"? It isn't that the existing technologies are bad in Finland, it's that we (yeah, I'm a Finn ;) aim ever even higher. Americans should realize that they are not the first and foremost in every single aspect of civilization. Far from it...

This Is Cool

Technological systems that benefit the public are very good, especially when the public can have a say in their operation. There are, of course, potential abuses, but it's up to each individual to decide what they will use a trackable system for. If you don't want the government (or advertising company dataminers) to know how much Pizza you're ordering, walk to the Pizza shop in person and pay cash...

At this time, you still have that option... and we'll only lose such options if people choose to give them up en-masse... There are still alternatives, though they often involve more work (like leaving your home).

The choice is in all our hands: total convenience and no privacy, or forgo some convenience and keep some of the old, inefficient, and difficult-to-monitor systems in place (there can be a balance, you can have some of both)...

Re:Orwell vs. Gibson

I don't think that it is so much that the Geek culture is diverging as it is that people are looking at geek culture for the first time and noticing that we're not just a bunch of pocket-protector-wearing freaks. Society is looking at the /.ers of the world and saying "Hey, they're the ones that make all of these cool things happen." and in the process we're getting more exposure and so people are noticing that there are different viewpoints in the geek culture just as there are in any culture. Not all geeks are privacy fanatics, not all are hardcore linux users, and not all are paranoid weirdos who live in their parents' basement watching reruns of Star Trek and playing D&D. Geek Culture isn't diverging; people are just starting to pay us enough attention to notice the divisions that have always been there.

Learning Finnish

The finnish geeks have an edge on you guys when it comes to getting jobs here, because you'll never be able to learn our language

I spent four years studying Finnish and Finnish history, and have to admit that for many Western Europeans it is a weird language to learn. The grammar is quite strict though, so once you know the rules it isn't too bad.

Personally, I love Finland as a country - sparsely populated, and covered in forests and lakes. The people are friendly to foriegners (except on occasion to the Russians), but really like their drink.

I haven't been to Finland for four years now, but used to go regularily. Hopefully I can go back some point next year for a couple of weeks.


Chris Wareham

Re:Brain drain? Exodus?

Seriously, I wonder how wide the gap needs to get before domestic geeks start crowding on rafts and stowing away on planes to get to a more enlightened country--like, say, Finland?

The finnish geeks have an edge on you guys when it comes to getting jobs here, because you'll never be able to learn our language :-)

Actually I don't think we have anything the americans don't have here in Finland. Maybe more services are offered for use via mobile telephone (I think Sonera is the first GSM operator in the world to be offering WAP-services), but as far as I understand you can conduct your daily business (shopping, monetary transactions etc.) on net over there as well. The big difference is, that technology being used by geeks elsewhere has become more commonplace and available to everybody here. This is largely due to the big banks, telephone companies and of course the government investing heavily into the Internet. Another big factor is the scandinavian "equality - no big pay differences - large parts of the population doing fairly well but nobody gets fabulously rich" system. When technology becomes available, it is automatically available to large parts of the populace after the phase of astronomical prices has been passed.

And the arctic circle is pretty bad. I live in southern Finland, and half the year I wish I was living in California again. Than again we do have some warm currents in the oceans around these parts, so Helsinki isn't actually much worse than central Europe when it comes down to numbers. But it gets pretty dark in the winter this far north, and that makes the weather seem a lot worse.