I am certainly not advocating going out and buying electronic products that can’t be found in a flea market but Nokia has once again shown why Finland is cool.
(Nokia BTW is Finnish for those who didnt know)

This weeks news of Nokia big fall in mobile phone market share due to not forseeing the popularity of clam shell type mobiles made me go, ‘damn, that puts half of finland out of work’ but other Nokia news is the release of a non-phone gadget (Nokia also make, among other things, bicycle tires).

My idea of a computer that is of actual use is a small networked device in the home that is basically a library and information service. For example if you had some pals around and were downing the brewskis and came to wondering, what the hell was that show on kids TV set in a post-apocolyptic world and featured a very cool big white motorhome, then one would just go ‘computer, answer please!’.

The new Nokia device is just such a thing, a small, cheap handheld touchscreen powered by LINUX!, it is wi-fi so it is connected to your server and can just sit on the kitchen table or you could just take it around with you. (though not with voice recognition;) )

This is DAMN smart and forward thinking (of course they are Finns), open source (Linux) is the way of the future for tech, this thing is small cheap and portable and I am sure just the beginning of a line of such products. I consider it will be a core technology in keeping information accessible and flowing in a post-industrial economy.