Wednesday, June 24, 2009

newspapers (Tehrān)


newspapers (Tehrān)
Originally uploaded by birdfarm
I'm trying to really understand censorship if what this comment on this picture is saying is really true.


"Our Iranian-American guide told us that even though each newspaper is essentially the mouthpiece of a political party, and despite some government censorship, there is still a far broader range of opinions to be found in Iranian newspapers than there is in the mainstream newspapers in the US (because there are far more viable parties than in our two-party system).

Interesting, n'est-ce pas? "

Thursday, June 18, 2009

iPhone in Japan

In May, I was just in Fukuoka Japan and was paying attention to what was going on in the mobile phone area in the last year or so since I last visited. What was interesting to me was that many Japanese mobile users that were using iPhones seems to have two phones. It then dawn on me that iPhone does have a chance in Japan, even if it doesn't support two-handed input. The reason is that people often own two phones in Asia. One is personal, and the other is given by the company.

For many people, the company phone is mostly just a digital leash. The other phone that they buy for themselves, not only represent their taste, it is also an entertainment device for all of the off-clock activities, as well as a fashion device. Turns out that iPhone actually fits this description well. I saw a decent amount of people using iphones to listen to music, play games.

The users on the trains that I saw still could not operate the iphone with one hand, but when they do get a chance to set down, they seem to really enjoy their iphone experience.

Maybe I was wrong after all...

Moreover, maybe Apple will make the enterprise use as smooth as possible.