Many years
ago, when I was working in the US, I had a co-worker who came from China. One
day, when we were having a chat, the Chinese guy said, “The US is different
from the rest of the world.”
To some
degree, he was right. Take, for example, measurement units: the world has
adopted meter, kg and Celsius for a long time; Americans stubbornly cling to
foot, pound and Fahrenheit. (I must admit that properties in Malaysia are still
measured in square feet. The developers are probably concerned that switching to
metric system would affect their sales.)
Back then,
mobile phones in the world mostly ran on GSM networks. American carriers used a
mix of GSM and homegrown technologies such as D-AMPS. It is worth noting that
SIM card was essentially a European invention which is absent in American-developed D-AMPS, CDMA2000 and WiMax. The Americans never quite understand why we need it. Some think
that we could simply store our PIN online rather than on the SIM card. But
beware: if someone steals your PIN, he/she could make free calls while you bear
the cost. Hardware authentication should be more secure.
Apple has
just launched iPhone 5. The general consensus among the techies is that the
iPhone 5 is a worthy upgrade of its predecessor, but lacks ‘wow’ factors. Yet
it sells like hot cake – at least in the US. Take a look at the pie charts
below…
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P/S: In case you
are unaware, the tagline for Singapore tourism is Uniquely Singapore.
