High-Tech

Hello again,

Since I am somehow related to Sweden I travel to this country regularly.
Every time I go there I am astonished by the wide spread technological progress and its common use in every day life. Not only young people are using new technologies, but also grandmas, or grandpas!
To give you some examples.

Number 1: In the supermarket:
At ICA, the largest retail company in the Nordic countries, you can chose between paying your food the normal way (shopping cart, scanning, checkout) OR with a self scanning service. See the following video.



After you chose all of your things you have to go to one of those machines and pay: By the way, I didn't have any problems scanning the goods. And yes, you can cheat, but the Swedes are honest people.




Number 2: Virtual bus ticket (SMS)
If you want to purchase a bus ticket in a city in Sweden, you can send a text message to obtain your virtual ticket. After you receive the message (your ticket) you have to show it to the bus driver.


There's also a nice article about this topic.


Number 3: Facebook usage
Another amazing thing is the fact that in Sweden even grandmas have facebook accounts. They sometimes use facebook to invite their grandchildren for "fika" (the swedish word for coffee break). Unbeliveable! I have problems explaining my dad the difference between SMS, CD, DVD and Email :)

Last but not least, for all the statistics lovers, visit this link
For all the developers out there, the next possibility for a visit to sweden will be on March 16-17, at the Scandinavian Developer Conference 2010. By the way, the Swedes speak English very well, so there are no language barriers not to visit this country :)

Hälsningar/Greetings (from Sweden)
Daniel