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."

Comments

Re:Finns and blonds ...

[LizardKing]

if you by 'official' mean written language, it is used only in TV and by politicians

That's pretty much what I meant. My Finnish tutor used to always tell us that written Finnish did not make good spoken Finnish. She quite often gave us examples of the spoken language that didn't conform to the grammar rules - slang I suppose.

I even have a `Slangisanasto' at home that I bought in Kuopio. It contains loads of great tranlations of English and American slang into Finnish, although whether it's any use or not is another matter entirely!


Chris Wareham

Re:I'm a complete geek.

[Pascal Q. Porcupine]

• Then you could be virtually surrounded by virtual Quake lamers

But that wouldn't be any different than normal... :)
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

Re:Yeah sure

[rc]

Well, sorry to shatter your illusion about Finland's backwaterness in information tech. As it was noted in the article we have an GSM (digital mobile phone) penetration of over 65% overall population and what this means is that most people under the age 65 has one or more mobile terminals at their disposal. Also internet access in more common here than anywhere else (excluding the US nowadays). Virtually most of our banking has been availabel/used via the net/BBS's for atleast 5 years for the people and for tens of years for corporate customers. E-commerce has been slow to come up in our market, but that has changed in the past 5-10 months quite radically. These "internet kiosks" are beeing deployed at the moment for the benefit of people, who can't afford to buy their own computers & leased lines and other people who just don't want to buy ones. most of these booths are built as public services and they cost either nothing or an token amount money e.g. 25 FIM = roughly $5 = one pint of real beer =). It's this public deployment that brings these new things into our society so that one day when I happen to need instant internet access on the bus from Helsinki to Espoo (next city 5 miles away) I'll just grab my cellphone/terminal (e.g. Nokia Communicator at the moment - WAP terminals in the near future (we have an WAP-network active we're just short of terminal equipment) - and someting else like UMTS-based multimedia phone/PDA's in 2002/3) and get cracking. It's not just Helsinki which is wired but more of the idea of the whole country beeing wired with wiredless access. I can use my cellphone just as well at home in Espoo as in the wilderness at my summer cottage out some 500km in the middle of nowhere. And what's more important I have access for the entire country with just one tehnology & operator -> no need for having different operator at different sides of the country as you have in the US. This was the way you got your CC's in the first place - there was a need in the corporate world for them, so the telco's made it happen 10 years ago. Then you came along 5 years later and CC's seemed to have existed forever. I'm not saying Finland is great in every instance, but we do have our good points from time to time. I do acknowledge that the US is by far the leader in computer technology in general, but you have the needed population on your home market to support companies as large as IBM, Intel and Compaq, where Finland with a mere 5 Million inhabitants can't support this size companies here. This is the reason finnish start-up's have to begin with a great idea and usually build the damn thing on their own before they can even think of getting any venture capital out of our over cautios banks & investors. And then they have to get themselves some fame and sales in Finland and before they even break even they have to engage in the horribly costly international markets to grow. There are very few success stories about finnish companies growing to international sizes, but some like Nokia, Datafellows (SSH, F-Prot Antivirus) and Okmetik (something like 20% of the worlds silicon circuits are refined here) have been able to do it. All these begun with an niché product that could be merketed overseas and eventually they grew to their current size. There is potential here in knowhow, but our culture seems to be of one that dislikes taking risks - both people and financial institutions. Another point is also the economical situation here - it was quite bad for a few years, but we've seen great growth for the past couple of years and atleast in the south of Finland the recession of our market can't be seen anymore. FYI: I recall, that we preceed the global recession wave by some 1-3 years all the time as our economy differs from Europes and the US's in some major ways I don't know much about. It's actually quite funny to see these negative reactions to articles about foreign accomplishments and the simple acceptance of hi-tech things beeing introduced as US findings and services as facts.

I'm jealous. And is this really a bad thing?

[gleam]

I've been waiting for the local grocery store to start delivery through its website. Sheesh. I don't want to walk a mile carrying a 24 pack of Mountain Dew.

But seriously, is this a good thing? Rob seems to think it's almost 1984-esque. I can't say I think this is fair. This doesn't say anything about full screen messages from the Finnish leadership, computers equipped with cameras and voice recorders, or a new dictionary. All it is is a whole bunch of conveniences, bundled up to make Helsinki a damn nice place to live. As long as you don't have to speak the language.

I've personally always liked this type of thing. I can check to see if I have mail, order food, videoconference, and run all sorts of errands without running at all. Is this going to eliminate human contact? Of course not! People aren't going to telecommute, and there really is nothing like holding a nice blonde Finn in your arms at night...

Anyway.

I would kill to have a Virtual Saint Paul, MN.. but only if Governor Jesse "The Mind" Ventura has little to say about it. :)

Regards,
-efisher
---

Yeah, pretty exciting

[sbeitzel]

History has been taking place all along...we're just normally too busy doing our jobs to pay attention. I'm sure there are lots of slashdotters who remember the good ol' days of ARPAnet, when posting a message to netnews just meant that other people interested in the same thing would read your message and respond. Nowadays, your message will be sucked up into search engines and possibly read by thousands of people who were looking for something completely different...as well as by email address suckers that'll get your address onto a few hundred different spam lists. A wider audience indeed!

The point I'm making, I guess, is that we've already seen dramatic evolution and growth in electronic communications, and not all of it has gone in directions the builders imagined or desired. People have been dreaming about 2-way broadband communications since long before Dick Tracy, and we'll just keep trying until we get it. Whether it'll be what's described in this article or not (I bet not) will be decided in the future.

Stop and think about the progress you've seen -- heck, built -- in the last couple of years. Darn straight these are exciting times!

Orwell vs. Gibson

[Cycon]

I apologize if this questions seems just slightly off topic, but I couldn't resist:

Why is it that whenever the government or a corporation tries to instate virtual communities with either tracking systems or any sort of personal information tracking, we all cry out "Big Brother" and the privacy advocates flip their lids. *BUT* when we see stories like this, we think that it's cool and we cheer it on?

Perhaps more importantly, it seems that for some geeks, the more they learn about how easy it is to have their personal information leaked onto the internet, they cringe, while at the same time we have geeks who can't wait to get their entire lives out there in plain site by filling their homes with webcams and wiring their toaters to the net?

Is the geek culture diverging or am I just looking at the extremes and missing the larger picture?

Re:Orwell vs. Gibson

[calibanDNS]

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.

Yeah sure

[konstant]

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!

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[LHOOQtius_ov_Borg]

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)...

Not like 1984, more reminicent of Walden

[NateTG]

What I'd be worried about isn't the government tracking people, but people tracking people, no more opportunities to "get away from it all" as it were.
A friend of mine recieves 150 e-mails (Not spam, real e-mail) every day. Imagine getting that many phone calls over a twelve hour period. Thats one phone call every six minutes. I hope you have good time management skills.
Furthermore, it seems like people in the US are wont to abuse their cell phones. Most people I know only use them for incoming emergency, and outgoing calls. I remember someone getting a 911 page because one of their friends wnated to go see a movie that evening. I think that the Finns are more willing to deal with connectivity because they have more tact.
I don't have a cell phone, pager or answering machine. I don't really want any of them.

Let's face it, Nordic people are superior

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have any doubt, just check out the women in Stockholm.

I was thinking about about the cost of it...

[apocalypse_now]

Just how does one pay for something this big? Presumeably, the government will be picking up a large portion of the bill, but even still, the country's GDP is only around $110 billion... Considering that they already run an account deficit of roughly 25% annually, it's gonna be a tight budget...
--
Matt Singerman

The imortance of the Mobile Phone

[Dan B.]

It was interesting to read that a lot of the article related around the use of mobile phones, or cellphones as you Yanks call them. 65% of the population is a staggering number of people to own a mobile phone. In Australia, we're pretty in to mobile communications with over 95% of the population covered by some form of mobile network. That's not bad for a country with 1 square kilometre per capita.

Also interesting to note was the way in which phones along with the 'net were changing society. I send roughly 100 emails a day, make about 10 phone calls and use snail mail only to send objects, not documents. After hours, I'd be lost without my mobile phone. To think that 10 years ago, we only had land lines, and email was *just* making it out of universities.

Just to think that society used to take at least ageneration to change, and is now changing inside a decade is a sign that our entire planet and biosocieconomics are accelerating in nearly every little thing we do, at an exponential rate.

And you thought keeping up with technology was difficult. Breakthroughs in all fields of Science are becoming more common. I doubt it will be long before what was science fiction 10 years ago, becomes a reality in 10 years time.

Brain drain? Exodus?

[kinesis]

So here I am in the cradle of modern technology... Silicon Valley. And you know what I'm thinking? Forget the nice weather--How bad can the Arctic Circle be?

When it comes to Internet technology, Helsinki is hotter than Moutain View, Palo Alto, etc.

What's the rent like over there? ;-)

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?

Remember the SAT's? Here's an anology....

India :: United States
United States :: Finland

Is it really that far-fetched?

Re:Brain drain? Exodus?

[hohakkar]

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.

Finns and blonds ...

[LizardKing]

nothing like holding a nice blonde Finn in your arms at night

Funnily enough, the Finns aren't a Scandinavian people, or inherently blond haired. Their origin is shrouded in mystery, but they basically settled in Finland after the great migration of the tribes. One bunch of Finno-Ugrian people headed West from the Urals, and became the Hungarians. Another big bunch headed North until they hit the Gulf of Finland. Some stayed South of where St. Petersburg now stands and became Estonians (Virolainen). The remainder headed further North, met the Lapps and became Finns (Suomalainen) or Karelians.

Other small Finno-Ugrian groups are scattered throughout the North West of the former Soviet Union.

The reason many Finns are blond is most commonly because of Swedish ancestry. In the South of Finland there is a large Swedish speaking minority - the result of Swedish colonialism and the dominance of Swedish as the ruling elite's language of choice in the eighteenth century.

As for language, Finnish was codified in the mid-nineteenth century. 'Official' Finnish is the dialect spoken in the South West of the country. The further East you go the more archaic the dialect - especially in Karelia. Other dialects like Ingrian are pretty much extinct, while in the far North, Lapp is a sadly disappearing language.


Chris Wareham

Learning Finnish

[LizardKing]

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

Gee Whiz

[mochaone]

I'm happy to see that the gee-whiz factor is alive and well on the other side of the Atlantic. It warms the cockles of the heart.

I'm reminded of the children's encyclopedia set I grew up with as a child in the 70's. It was an old Funk & Wagnall set replete with stories and photos from the 50's and 60's of kids flying to school with backpack jets, hovercraft cars bypassing clogged, land-based traffic, "interactive" tv's where you could order pizzas (sound familiar ?) and shop, videophones to see your loved ones with bed face, and a whole host of other goodies that were going to change everyone's lives immeasurably.

As each new technological innovation is introduced, we are inevitably told how our lives will benefit and change "in ways we haven't thought of yet". We find ourselves being led by the technological pied pipers to the so-called promised land. Once the initial euphoria dies down, however, people tend to do what people know how to do best -- get practical.

Did anyone seriously think putting a hydrogen fuel cell on little Johnnie's back just to get him to school 5 minutes earlier was really a good idea? Did we really need to issue everyone a pilot's license just so they could get to work? Probably not. But hey, it was fun to imagine, wasn't it!

The same thing will happen with this connectivity, internet, and virtual euphoria. People will extract what they really need and put it to use. The rest will become, well, virtual candy. Wiring the populace and creating virtual cities may or may not happen as envisioned in the article. Some of the proposed applications may come to fruition. Some may not (Fire dept phoning apt to wake people from burning building ?)

Hopefully, one of the side effects of the gee whiz euphoria regarding connectivity and the internet will be applications that will actually help people.