I’m just coming to the end of my “vacation”. We enjoyed peaceful and good natured fireworks for the 13th/14th July festivities, but in the area of Normandy that we are staying, fourteen cars were set alight in unrest. Objects were thrown at police in an echo of more serious violence in the area in the 2005 riots. Although the violence was reported in the local press, news does not seem to have spread internationally very widely. I mentioned in my editorial last week that it seemed that there were some tensions from the tough employment and growth conditions in France. It seems those tensions are close to the surface and I found a report in the French press that over the “celebration” holiday, 721 cars were burned and 603 arrests were made, nationally.
Meanwhile, the rumblings from the Greek negotiations go on. It seems that like the famed “BBC balance”, the latest deal on the Greek issue, hailed as something of a breakthrough at the beginning of the week, seems to be disappointing both sides! I haven’t been commenting on these discussions, as there have been so many twists and turns. However, there are those, especially in Germany that still seem to favour this outcome. However, the can is a bit further “down the road”, this week.
This week, we include a guest “Display Daily” from Barry Young of the OLED Association. Barry is an industry veteran and was one of the key analysts at DisplaySearch before the NPD acquisition and has an interesting view on the future of mobile devices. As he points out, he has a particular point of view as a result of his post, but that doesn’t mean that he is wrong. He points out the work going on in flexible displays which has also excited me over the last couple of years.
I wrote in my CES report (Samsung Display Backs OLED) and editorial that week that the class of product that allows a compact phone to be opened up to become a tablet could be the technology that drives the next wave of market developments in the mobile space, if the issues of physical robustness in the hands of real users can be overcome. I like the way that Barry has opened up the concept to show how such a device could exploit fast wireless connectivity. Having said that, having to struggle this week with rural French ADSL and limited 3G bandwidth has reminded me that while the middle of Seoul might have great connectivity, we are a long way from making fast wireless connectivity universal.
Then again, even the slow internet here helped me on holiday. I like to do some photography on my holidays, but I had some dust on the sensor of my good camera. In trying to get rid of the dust, I made it worse. The wonders of the internet allowed me to watch some “how to” videos, order the swabs and solutions I needed, get them delivered to my temporary address and clean the sensor, so that there are no longer annoying patches on my photos of the clear blue skies around me.
Bob
