Concept Phones from Kyocera

Here are a couple of the fun ideas that Kyocera ia working on. One phone has a paper-thin foldable screen that can be removed from the phone and used. It stays connected to the phone wirelessly. The other phone folds up like a wallet and can be used open pr closed.

These aren't consumer-available, of course, but they generating ideas and technologies that will be used.

Fascinating presentation on Wireless health care

Incredible stuff happening when combining wearable sensors with wireless connectivity. For a preview, take a look at http://www.westwirelesshealth.org.

Las Vegas at Night

We got invited to a rooftop event at Ceasar's Palace -- what a view! Why don't people in Las Vegas do more outside??

Microsoft Mobile

Miceosoft is demo-ing Windows Mobile v.7. The theme seems to be touch screen usability and making the OS more low-end user friendly. Those are great themes, and aeem to be consistent across all the manufacturers. Apple has really set the bar for the user experience, and it's driving everbody else to play catchup!

I'm heading into a seminar on mobile social networking. Should be fun!

More cool stuff...

Here are pix of some more LG stuff in the pipeline.

The Prada phone is beautiful, and it comes with an integrated Bluetooth watch. So when you get a text message, no need to look at your phone -- you can just check your watch. Your phone rings but it's across the room? No problem -- just check your watch to see who's calling!

Or, do away with the phone altogether and just use a wristwatch phone with a Bluetooth headset.

For new materials, how about a transparent keypad??

This is all displayed to the driving beat of music mixed by this DJ. Sometimes I really like my job!

Vendor Presentation

Presentations are less glitzy this year in deference to the economy. But they still use attractive young women to attract attention. She's demo'ing a new LG device called the Arena that has a great screen and Dolby surround sound -- so you can get a great movie-watching experience -- or at least as good as can be imagined on a 3 inch screen...

It also has a 5 megapixel camera -- so no more need for multiple devices.

They've put a lot of thought into how to store and manage information in ways that the average consumer understands and likes. Interestingly, they've moved away from folder structures, or 'layers' of information, to a more flat approach where you can essentially move around on a really big table...

Cool stuff!

Wow -- fake cigarettes!

Now what do these have to do with wireless...?

I'm Tweeting!

Okay, in the spirit of CTIA, I'm going to Twitter this week. So if you'd like to "follow" me, my Twitter name is awollen. We'll see how this goes...

Small World!

Now this is crazy -- I just ran into John Sarreal, who served in the Peace Corps with Parthena 10 years ago!!

Flying over the Rockies!

Wow – I never cease to be amazed by the Rocky Mountains.  For a flatlander like me, those things are incredible.  Seeing them is a heads-up that we don’t go West nearly often enough!  Little pix like these from the aisle seat are obviously just a tiny reminder…

 

Mobile Office!

Southwest Airlines is set up for business travelers -- with greatlaptop facilities right next to beer taps. All needs are met!

Headed for Vegas!

Beware -- the Travels blog is alive again...briefly, at least. I (Andy) am headed for the CTIA tradeshow in Las Vegas for the rest of this week, and I'll use the blog to share impressions and fun experiences.

I'm excited to have a chance to see what's new! It's kind of like being a kid in a candystore when I walk around the tradeshow floor. The exhibits are the new new thing, and this year they'll include using a cellphone to remotely control stuff in your car, tracking your pets using a GPS collar with an embedded cellphone (so you can call them to come home for dinner!), and who knows what else!

Let me know if you'd like any specific pix of Las Vegas. I do have hopes that there'll be time for a little tourist-ing outside of the convention floor.

Pix soon!

Final Day

Well...my final day in Korea has arrived. Whew -- I'm tired! This has been a long two weeks with a LOT of work packed in!

I haven't been good at all about blogging this week, partly because of the work schedule and partly because of the ban on picture-taking devices inside the customer facility. That means I don't carry a camera at all, so I don't catch the to-and-from-work pictures. And since we don't do much else...

Jeff and I did have an interesting dinner on Wednesday evening. We made it to "Western Bar" while it was open, and the menu was enticing! It had a "Fried" section and a "Smoked" section and a "Quick" section, and not much else. It's notable that there was no "Salad" section. This should probably have been called "Western Man's Bar"...or perhaps, based on the beer-and-cowboys decor, "Western Frat House Bar".

The beer was cold and plentiful, and we ordered three dishes: mixed sausages with potatoes, rib sausages with potatoes, and mixed potatoes. See a theme here?

What we got was hilarious, and I so wish I'd had my camera. The mixed potatoes was a literal mountain -- about 5 inches high -- of a mixture of different types of french fries. There were scalloped ones, and mini-spiced ones. There were steak fries and tater tots. And there were even these sort of hush puppy potato things that that were kind of like a spoonful of mashed potatoes, fried. Delicious!

The mixed sausages was as expected, a plate of different kinds of sausages. The "rib sausages" turned out to be sausages...with little rib bones stuck into the ends! Awesome!


My hosts were having a work outing this afternoon, with a team lunch, an outing to the movies, and then a team dinner. I joined them for the team lunch at a "traditional Korean" restaurant. As far as I can tell, "traditional Korean" means you sit on the floor and nibble from a dozen or so mini-plates of side dishes. The food wasn't bad -- there was a pretty good dish of beef and mushrooms that I called "Korean Stroganoff". My hosts kept looking up an online dictionary in response to my queries about "what is this?", and the dictionary answers didn't help much. As often as not the foods were things I also had never eaten in English.

I must have looked kind of silly with my legs crossed under the table, because the waitress took pity on me -- she said I looked "very uncomfortable" -- and she brought me a mini-chair with no legs. MUCH better with a supportive back!


And finally...for dinner this evening I wanted something quick and easy, and I sure wouldn't have turned down a burger and fries. :-) With no McDonald's in sight, I turned to the next-best thing -- Papa John's Pizza. The take-out box was tied up with a handsome green ribbon...



...and the pizza was just what I'd expect in Lenexa, complete with the garlic butter sauce and the little packets of Tabasco. Only the package of "sweet green pickles" gave it away that I'm in Korea. That and the Cass Red beer...



I really have enjoyed the time in Korea, but I'm also super-eager to get back home and to see my family. Better have the barbecue sauce waiting!!

Motivational Work Environment

Jeff is at a different site three hours away today, so I'm on my own this evening. I have work to do but I can't stand to hole up in the hotel room all evening, so I had the taxi drop me off a little before our hotel at a place called "Western Bar". Very evocative. Unfortunately, Western Bar appears to be closed on Tuesdays(?).

I wandered down the street just a little bit and found what I'll call "Korean Bar". Although I can't read the sign over the door, there is a 6-foot blow up beer mug overflowing with foam tied down in front, so I got the idea. Now I'm sitting at a wooden table with a Hite draft and a bowl of lightly-sweetened popcorn, which seems to be a universal appetizer. I've ordered from the picture-menu a plate of things that look like meat skewers, and we'll see how that goes.

I'd take pictures, but any type of photo-taking apparatus is banned from the complex of the manufacturer we visited today so I'm camera-less. In any case, I'll take mental pictures, and I wish you were here, Dear Reader, to share a mug or three of liquid motivation!

UPDATE one hour later: The meat skewers were quite good. Some sort of chewy, well-cooked meat with a tongue-burning Korean barbecue sauce scattered with sesame seeds. Next up is a plate of sausages, almost like I'm in Germany. Oh yeah, and another beer, almost like I'm in Germany.

Random Observations

I have an extra few minutes while I wait for some work this morning, so I thought I'd post a collection of things I've noticed about Korea. More pictures are coming...but just not this morning.

• The price of gasoline here is about $6 per gallon. The price of a cup of Starbucks drip coffee is about $3.50. I think the ratio of the cost of coffee-to-gas is about the same as in the US.

• From observation, about 95% of Korean women routinely wear heels at least 1.5 inches high. You can see their ankles wobble as they walk, particularly on brick or cobblestone sidewalks, but we haven't observed any broken ankles yet.

• Our hosts tell us around 50% of Korean men smoke, and around 40% of Korean women. We don't see many cigarette ads (at least we don't see ads with pictures of cigarettes) but the penetration is still very high.
  
• If you scratch the facade of Americanism on many of the stores here, you find Korea inside. For example, I found a Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast and went looking for my usual cake donut. Instead, I found a "Sticky Rice Dough Honey Stick" and a "Mocha Coffee Roll". The Honey Stick is chewy dough, kind of like a very sweet bagel, that's made from rice. The Mocha thing is just a sweet roll with mocha flavoring mixed in. Of course, the veneer still holds -- both were liberally covered with donut icing.

• Having solved the problem of being unable to order beer, our next linguistic challenge is coffee. All the coffee bar servers assume we want a "Coffee Americano", which is an espresso shot blended that's diluted with hot water. And it tastes like it sounds -- like watered-down espresso. What I want is a normal "drip" coffee, but I just don't know the word for it. I point and pantomime, and I keep getting Americano. Grrr...

• There are two kinds of taxis. The black ones have leather seats and nice air conditioners and hang out around hotels. The white or light-colored ones are for the masses, and they patrol the streets looking for fares. They can actually pick up multiple fares at a time, so you might detour a little on the way to your destination. The black ones are about twice as expensive as the light ones. Both are clean and neat, however. I got in a cheap one this morning with my Dunkin' Donuts coffee and the taxi driver gave me a lecture about not drinking coffee in his cab. At least I think that's what he said.

• At Korean restaurants, the servers don't come around contsantly to see how you're doing and whether you need anything else. Instead, there's a button bolted to the table that you press when you need something. When you press it, the server literally jogs over to your table to find out what you need. Not a bad idea....

• There's no tipping in Korea. A standard 10% "service charge" is added to the bill. And there's still darned good service.

More as they come...

Tourist Saturday - Part One

Saturdays are for playing tourist -- and somehow they always seem to be rainy...

We visited the beautiful Gyeongbokgung Palace for our Saturday tourist outing. It's a beautiful example of traditional Korean architecture -- built in the 1400's when Seoul was founded, destroyed by the Japanese in 1590, rebuilt in the 1860's and then destroyed again by the Japanese in the early 20th century. It's now being restored yet again -- and hopefully it will stay restored this time!

This was the palace entertainment center. Sort of like our back deck! Sort of...

The palace is actually a complex of smaller buildings, all surrounded by a wall with sand courtyards between.

The outer walls are actually pillar-supported promenades.

This is the formal throne room where the king was crowned, and where he received state visitors.

The painting in the eaves and the interior is intricate, and the colors are striking.

This is the king's tea table...

...and this is his bed. Looks uncomfortable!!

Korean Fashion

Came across these examples of traditional Korean dress in a shop window. The only poeple we see wearing these are tour guides and the mother at a wedding.

More Milk!

I've continued the Milk Research Project and found bunches of the stuff!





There's also a fair amount of little coffees, mostly cold. We don't see as much of this as we did in Japan, but it's still a much bigger deal here than in the US.

Fried Chicken Friday

Friday evening we headed back to the 'Born To Be Chicken & Hof". We know they have beer, and fried chicken, and what can be better than that to end the week?

Here's how Jeff's plate of fried chicken looked.



I had the "smoked chicken". Other than it being scrawny, it tasted just like what we get at Hen House.



We also had the usual sides. They sure must throw away a lot of food with all those side dishes!



This time we also splurged on French Fries!



"Splurged??" you ask? Yep -- they're pretty proud of the Korean potatoes. That little plate o' fries was $11!

Little Touches of Home

Every now and then on a long trip you need a little injection of American to boost flagging energy. Those injections are NOT hard to find in Seoul -- American chains seem to be everywhere. For example, recognize this sign?



No? Here's a hint:



Ahhhh...breakfast!!



Of course, most of the signs are less translated -- and less subtle!

We broke down on Thursday evening and gave the local Outback a try. Jeff had chicken:



And I had beef. Korean beef. With kimchee...



I'm generally a huge fan of "local" cuisine, but I have to say I'm about full up on the "fermented cabbage" thing.