When something is wrong with the product I’ve bought, more often than not, I am reluctant to contact the manufacturer’s customer service. I rather return the product to the seller for replacement. Even though the primary purpose of a customer service is to help solve an issue, it easily turns into an endless wrangle without much effect. Even with simple issues it can take days and multiple calls to get something done.

However, recently I have had a really positive experience. I’ve bought a packet of muesli that contained still live sources of protein I did not want to see mingling with my breakfast cereals. About a week after sending an email and snail-mailing the packet to the manufacturer, I’ve received a letter that at first read like the regular marketing blah-blah. And then it said “We’ve inspected the sent product in our laboratory.” Yeah, right. But they really did. And from that lab report I’ve learnt about the pest more than I’ll ever need.

Here’s the translation of the juicy part:

The pest you’ve sent is a larva of the Mediterranean flour moth. The wingspan of the adult moth is 2 cm. Front wings are lead-gray and have zigzag patterned stripes and spots. Back wings are light gray. Its larva is 1,5 cm long, light, soft and has, like butterfly larvae usually do, five pairs of callus feet on the rear joint. It can show up in flour, bran and dried fruits. Larvae excrete network of webs, which makes the flour lumpy. Developmental stages of the Mediterranean flour moth die in a day when exposed to temperatures below -1°C. Mediterranean flour moth is the pest of mills and bakeries.

Have they had a Wikipedia account, they could have improved at least English and Finnish articles for the Mediterranean flour moth with this kind of explanation.

Besides the depth, I’ve also appreciated that for once customer service did not point their finger at anyone else for own shortcoming and did not give a lame excuse. Rather they took the responsibility, apologized, sent a ten euro compensation and gave a really cool clarification. This was definitely one of the most insightful, thorough, and educative customer service responses I have ever received.

Mladen

I never imagined that I would ever have anything to say about chewing gum. But over time interesting things piled up. So there you have it.

The first time I became aware of chewing gum was only about ten years ago. Sure I’ve consumed it before that, but I’ve never really paid any attention to it. Then I had just moved to the US and for the first time in my life I tasted cinnamon flavored gum. I’ve always thought of cinnamon as a spice mom would seldom use for baking. Cinnamon gum or candy? Weird and exotic. Boy, I hadn’t had a scant feeling of what lies ahead.

A couple of years went by when I’ve read in Wired about the Black-Black caffeinated gum that is hip in Japan. I never liked the taste of coffee, but was sure that I could use some caffeine tingle. If not for anything else, than at least it would be indispensable for keeping me alert during the then frequent and much loved all-night geek-out sessions. I was onto something. So the next time I was in New York, I stopped by my favorite Japanese grocery store and picked up a couple of packs, just to make sure I don’t run out as soon as I get addicted.

And? Disappointment. It might have had all the promised “Hi-Technical Taste”, but the more I chewed the lamer it got. I don’t know about the exact numbers, but doubt that the caffeine in that gum could give a noticeable oomph even to an ant. In a word, useless. Especially if you imagined a pack of Black-Black would keep you up all night. The whole deal even reminded me of caffeine soap promising slumbering geeks to get them up and running, but does it with as much kick as a warm blanket on a rainy day.

Fast forward to almost now.

When I arrived to Finland the chewing gum oddities increased exponentially. Anyway, that Finns have their own set of bizarre chewing gum flavors did not surprise me at all. What did, was what those flavors were. Why would Finland be any different? All I can say is that being tucked in the far north-eastern corner of Europe, the country differs from the rest of Europe in many unusual ways.

Some of the weirdest gum I’ve tasted so far is the tar-liquorice gum. Yes, tar as in tar that has been used for paving roads and is still in use around here for protecting the wood (even though EU regulations have greatly limited the use of tar). Why would someone want tar flavored gum? Sure tar smells nice, but so does soap and it doesn’t cross many people’s minds to chew soap.

For a while I could not wrap my brain around this one. Then I found out that in Finland tar was considered to be panacea (and I can imagine that for some it still is). So much so that it is one of the three pillars in the Finnish folklore medical holy trinity. And a quaint Finnish adage remains to tell about tar’s medical virtues: “If sauna, vodka and tar won’t help, the disease is fatal.” I dare say that must be just about right. If you can get wasted on vodka, covered yourself with tar, are sitting in a 100°C humid room and are still alive, then I’d say you’re in darn good shape.

Really, as gum flavor tar really doesn’t cut it. Neither does tar mix with booze. Although that’s another popular combination Finns have love-hate relationship with. In a snap you can get into a heated discussion over whether tar in anything tastes good or bad.

This might seem like a deliberate sneaky intermission just to get away from the topic I have thought frivolous. Far from it, tar holds the chewing gum world together.

You might not be aware of this, but Finland is the place to be when it comes to epochal moments of chewing gum. After all, it was on the west coast of Finland that an archaeology student found a 5,000-year-old piece of chewing gum last year. Guess what they were chewing. Yep, tar. Protofinns were chewing birch bark tar to keep the local dentist out of business.

Nevertheless it took five millennia before they discovered why chewing birch bark tar saves teeth (and lives): xylitol. And xylitol was discovered, well, in Finland. I mean this is so full of coincidences that it’s almost mawkish, but it’s true, those Finns who discovered xylitol first derived it from birch. Aaawh, puppies and teddy bears all over the place; how romantic. Seriously, I’m sure that practically everywhere in the world people were chewing something, but Protofinns were chewing the right stuff.

I have no idea how it is in the country where you live, but in Finland you’d have to go across the border to get a non-xylitol sweetened gum. This has gone to such extremes that nowadays all you can get is gum stuffed to the brim with xylitol. Which causes even the marketing people to go gaga and come up with a harebrained teeth-filling progress bar (no pun intended).

I wonder how many Finns have seen any chewing gum commercials where Finnishness of xylitol is used as a sales clout. First the funny ones. I don’t know what the producers of these two commercials were chewing, but I’m pretty sure it must have been something strong. For the non-Finnish speaking, the dancing gentleman who doesn’t fit in the scene is shouting “Good! Good!” in Finnish. Oh my. If you also thought Koreans were chewing something, than the Italian producers must have been smoking crack. I don’t think they would have been able to come up with something as asinine as this.

Go figure.

Mladen

Over the summer I’ve had a chance to test-ride N80, one of the high-end Nokia smartphones. You know, the one that is listening while you’re talking. At first all the functionality got me really excited and I was really looking forward to using it for all kinds of practical things on the go. N80 looked promising on paper, but failed to deliver on many accounts. It sure can do practically all the things I have expected, but it is a pain to use. Here’s a list of nine things that have annoyed me from day one.

It takes longer to boot than my G4 PowerBook (heck, it takes almost as long as any Windows PC). I used to keep my Windows computer running around the clock so that I didn’t have to spend Windows minutes when I wanted to use it. That probably saved me several days every year. N80 reminded me of those days, because it takes almost a minute from turning it on to when I can start using it. Only that it cannot stay up all night, because …

Battery does not have a life. This phone is a real power hog. Seriously, I need to charge it every other day even though I hardly ever used it. Has anyone at Nokia tested this device before sending it to production? Try using Wi-Fi and N80 drains the battery in a couple of hours. In other words, it’s better to use it with the phone plugged right into the grid. Goodbye to everything wireless. Oh, my.

Proprietary connectors and expensive cables. N80 leaves an impression that Nokia lives in a bubble where widely adopted standards do not exist. Even though this is a high-end phone it has no USB and no regular earphone jack. It uses proprietary cables, connectors and adapters that cost more than they are worth. It’s like buying a book for which you need special glasses to see the vowels. No thank you.

Wi-Fi reception is incredibly poor. When I first started using this phone I thought, great now I can check for available Wi-Fi spots without firing up the computer and walking around town like a dork before I find one. Boy was I wrong. This phone does not find nowhere near as many as that old PowerBook of mine does.

Performance like we’re in 1995 again. It takes literally a couple of seconds from sliding the phone open until the background light goes on and you can start using the phone. Add a few more when opening and  SMS you’ve just received. Even something as simple as opening N80’s phone book takes long enough to want me memorize all the numbers stored there. Image gallery? Don’t. Even. Think. About. Opening.

An odd bunch of useless software. Nokia had to come up with their very own browser, but are unable to develop even a decent text editor. Both suck. Does Visual Radio sound revolutionary? It is, just check the cool Web site at visualradio.com and you’ll known instantly why you’ve never heard about it (and never will). The audio recording software that comes with the phone can miraculously record only one minute of sound. 60 seconds. Useful for what?

Let there be buttons, many of them. Product functionality does not seem to be a coordinated activity at Nokia. Seriously, the phone has 27 buttons and it does not even have a full keyboard. What a waste. Multimedia button? I’ve pressed it only once to see where it leads. After that I’ve used it only to show people how useless it is. Yes, the keypad might present an incredible design accomplishment to Nokia, but is difficult and clumsy to use at best.

Phone is ridden with usability stupidity. The phone interface feels like it has been designed by programmers during lunch breaks when the interface design team was away. Let’s add weird icons and surprise our users with what those buttons do. How about making it impossible to view the date and time anywhere else but on the home screen? Check. Has anyone ever heard of copy-pasting? Switching between applications? Switch what? Switch the phone, I say.

Let’s make it short-lived. In the age of hyper-consumerism, the shorter the lifespan of a product, the better off is the company making it. You’ve guessed right, the N80 I’ve used is dead. Although the reason is not really low-tech, it is just as stupefying. The phone expired when the cable connecting the sliding part of the phone cracked. At Nokia they surely knew people will be sliding their phones open and shut (I mean, they designed it so) but they still installed a 2-cent cable that effectively obliterated a 400 Euro phone. Not that the cable looks like it could take the strain it ought to.

The verdict? N80 sucks and obviously I am not the only one to complain. But the real problem is that things are not getting better. I’ve talked about most of these issues at Ars Electronica in Linz back in the fall of 2006 with Matt Jones, who was participating at a panel as Nokia’s user-experience design director. Back then I complained about disappointing experience with Nokia’s Internet tablet N800. I was hoping to hear a reaffirming reply that, yes, we are aware, working on it, please give us a couple of years to polish things out. But was surprised when the gentleman carefully listened, took a deep breath, acknowledged that these really are important issues and apologized for delivering a disappointing experience. Not exactly what I have expected, but at least he had not tried to comfort me, since things really have not changed. And I’m sure he knew what I was talking about as he was working then on the N-series phones, the mothership of N80.

Most other phone manufacturers are not much better (which is probably why Nokia doesn’t bother changing anything). I’m glad I had a chance to try out the N80. However, I’m switching from smart and useless to brick and handy before I get a pop-up notification saying that I have unused icons on my phonetop. Downgrading to good ol’ 1100.

Mladen

If you’re at least a little bit of a technophile, you’ve probably wondered how many people use this technology or that. I have, but have also been hardly ever satisfied with the numbers I received in return, since I’m aware that great majority of market share information isn’t much more than a guess based on someone’s speculation. Anyway, not something I’d call trustworthy.

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to read about the research carried out by Antero Kivi of the Helsinki University of Technology in which he reveals what kind of mobile phones Finns use. What made me follow through the text is that he did not base his research on merely interviewing a representative sample of consumers (which is how the popular vote researches are usually done). Antero got the data straight from the horse’s mouth: the mobile operators.

He asked three largest Finnish mobile operators Sonera, Elisa and DNA about the usage of mobile phones on their networks. Naturally, the operators know exactly who is using their networks. Besides plethora of information an operator collects about each call they carry, operators also get to know the maker and model of the phone for every single phone call made on their network. This information is revealed by a unique IMEI code which the phone uses to introduces itself to the network. In other words, Antero got access to a treasure trove of information.

And the results? If you know at least a little bit about Finland, the results won’t come as a surprise. Finnish manufacturer of mobile phones Nokia leads the pack. Although merely saying that Nokia leads the pack is really glossing over the nation’s loyalty to Nokia. Of all the mobile phone makers, Nokia’s phones aren’t only taking all the top ten or top twenty spots. The first non-Nokia mobile phone maker got no higher than 57th place. Which translates Nokia’s position in terms of market share percentage into unbelievable 86%. In this incredibly competitive branch of consumer electronics industry such a market share is truly enviable in any single market. (Which makes me wonder what is Ericsson’s true market share in Sweden.)

Another interesting piece of information this research reveals is that of all the smart phones Nokia makes, the first four most commonly used (which adds up to 16,4% of all phones in Finland) are the cheapest and consequently the least smart (if you believe that being able to surf the Web already makes anything smart). The four most used phones are thus models 3310, 1100, 1600 and 3510i. On these phones you can’t do much more than make a phone call or send a text message. So a tad bit more than what your landline can do, although from a device you carry in your pocket.

Taking a step back, Nokia’s popularity in Finland is not even that surprising. The company importantly contributed to the ongoing Finnish economic uplift since the mid-1990s, to say the least. And Finns are openly proud of both. Putting this statement to a test is a real no-brainer; all you have to do is mention to a Finn Japan and Nokia in the same sentence. You won’t be able to stop them going on at length about everything from linguistic to cultural similarities between the two, which contribute to this terrible misunderstanding, not to mention the litanies you’ll hear about the injustice and desperate helplessness of trying to tell the world that Nokia is, for goodness sake, a Finnish brand. Oh my.

Mladen

I’ve spotted this ad in today’s newspaper which instantly reminded of an art piece from the good ol’ days of net.art (pictured below, but unfortunately the original Alexei Shulgin’s FuckU-FuckMe site is not available anymore).

Placing very lifelike (but fake) FuckU-FuckMe alongside the just-as-much lifelike (but fake looking) Wii fit only makes one wonder how long before Nintendo decides to launch a new product line for mature audience. Games would naturally need to be accompanied by appropriate controllers, you know, for seamless gameplay and natural suspension of disbelief.

Whoever decides first to transform FuckU-FuckMe from bits to atoms will probably have to polish the usability aspect a tad. However, if I’d have my pick, I’d want to see Nintendo do it rather than Microsoft.

Mladen