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The Japanese/American Tech Deficit
Why do the Japanese get all the coolest gadgets, while the U.S. is left with the second-tier, less-innovative ones? The San Francisco Chronicle delves into this age-old mystery and provides a few explanations for those of us who don't live near Akihabara.
At least we can import Japanese technology. Customs won't confiscate something for not complying with FCC regulations, but they will confiscate food!
In Europe you're allowed to make and sell things that contain non-pasturized dairy products. In the US, you're not. Apparently americans aren't allowed to determine for themselves what is or isn't an acceptable risk. So the best European young cheeses and chocolates have poor substitutes as their namesakes in the US.
To make matters worse, they've convinced people here that "ultra-pasturized" means "better", even though it just means they used extra high temperatures to get it done more quickly and save money at the expense of flavor. That means the milk here doesn't taste nearly as good as it could under the current regulations. All this in the name of safety, yet at the same time, you can't get irradiated beef...
Sigh.
Check out Dynamism for import gear with US warranties and support. Compact Impact has some cool gear to show off, and also has a showroom in the East Village (this store was previously named TKNY). If you are a New Yorker, the showroom is worth a visit, because the owner is a wacky guy who makes custom computers without moving parts.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
I don't accept the premise of this /. article on its face. The main point rests on the idea that Japan gets the coolest gadgets before they reach the US, or else they never get here at all, which I don't see. This makes me want to get in my way-back machine and remember a time when I first came out the California, a simpler time when people were much more humble and thoughtful...all the way back to the year 2000...
I worked for a startup then whose business model was based on the idea of location-based offerings. (This sounds like spam, but it isn't.) As a customer, you'd go to their portal on the web and register an account. Then, later, you'd log in and enter information that you were going to be in the city on Saturday night, and you're looking to eat Italian food. You'd specify how you want to be contacted by the automated call system: cell, PDA, home phone, etc...and the hours, number of calls, etc.
Then, on Saturday night, let's say an Italian restaurant owner is looking at a half-empty restaurant. He might subscribe to the service...so he'd log in on his end and enter in a 2-for-1 entree special. The site would match up your preferences with the business offering and call you to book a reservation.
Surprisingly, this startup didn't fail (at least not right away...it lived several years). However, it did move...to Hong Kong. The funding source did some market research and discovered that we were likely never to make a go of this business by marketing it in the US. Americans get one or two calls that don't interest them from an automated service and turn the service off, saying they don't want to be contacted again. In Tokyo and Hong Kong, they found in their research that people will oftentimes walk around in public with the cell phone to their ear even though they're not on a call...it's a social status thing. They can't get enough calls over there.
So, they packed it up and moved to HK. The point of this story is that, though by and large people are more or less the same the world over, there are cultural differences that manifest in surprising and unexpected ways. Americans tend to want technology that serves them, is quick and easy to use, and isn't too intrusive. Japanese, from what I can see, tend not to care about intrusiveness and are more interested in projecting a message about themselves through the use of personal technology devices. The more these devices intrude on their daily lives, in fact, the more they view it as a sign of being needed or desirable to others. (They even let technology make matchmaking decisions--have you heard about the pager-like device that they have over there? They enter their preferences for a perfect mate in it, and when they get within 25 feet of someone that meets their criteria, if that person has one too, they light up and buzz so the people can choose to meet each other. Again, this would never work in the US.)
The upshot is, Americans get what we think is cool, and Japanese get what they think is cool. The Japanese philosophy tends to be oriented more towards the flashy whiz-bang type of stuff, like digital toilets and Internet-enabled refrigerators, whereas Americans would consider these devices as putting too much emphasis on activities we'd rather not think about, and definitely don't want hackers to have access to. (I'm convinced a good part of this cultural divide comes from the differences between Americans and Japanese opinions about personal privacy rights and expectations. Also, the anti-intellectual attitude in America doesn't help ingratiate technology into our daily lives either...think about it. In this country, one of the stock insults in grade schools and high schools is "you're a nerd". In other countries, like Japan, the insult would be "you're stupid".) This, combined with the fact that Americans always expect to have the latest, greatest, bestest, etc, means that we tend to look at the flashy whiz-bang stuff over there, which we don't want, and say, hey, how come we don't have that here?
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Litigation-happy is the right word. Here in Japan, companies can release really cool, but buggy and defective, technology without the fear of customers returning it in droves. It's just too difficult to return any product in Japan that people give up and buy new ones. Contrast that with the US where you can sometimes return a book to the store even after obviously reading it, or returning clothing. Inconceivable in Japan, sometimes even when the defect is the company's fault -- the army of lawyers in the US would never allow such a state of affairs.
Ok, i can't suppress the urge to reply to this.
"Why, for crap's sake, is it not okay for the government to provide free wirless broadband access in Philadelphia?"
Because that's not their job. Their job is to provide essential emergency services, maintain the transportation infrastructure and provide defense. They should no more be building wireless
The definition of "emergency services" and "infrastructure" should be allowed to evolve. We may very well be at the beginning of a process where continual connectivity is indeed a part of critical infrastructure that is the legitimate role of government. To legislate this out of existence seems a bit presumptive and smacks of protecting corporate interests.
of how cool it sounds, have you ever seen the government do any long-term project right? Most Pennsylvania governments have a hard time keeping the potholes down to non-fatal sizes, and you want them to run your ISP? I grew up near Philly, I wouldn't trust them with tin cans and string.
Many cities have functioning water supplies, sewer systems, electicity grids. No all function optimally but we get the water, we don't get sick from it, and our poo goes by by. Yes, government can function and this government hating mantra so common these days is vastly overdone.
"Im pretty sure there are not many people in Philly who would not like to have free wireless internet"
It's not "free", the government raises taxes to pay for it, which means a lot of folks who don't want or need it still have to pay for it, and that's not fair.
Excellent point. There are parts of the city that I never go in, why the hell am i paying for street lights there. I never use the damned things. Its unfair people, blatantly unfair!. Do you ever stop to consider, just once, the possibility that you may derive indirect benefits from things and that government isn't about benefiting just YOU, its about the community. I think that a reasonable argument could be made that there might be benefits to the community. At least its not obvious that this is completely inappropriate for government.