Need a suggestion
by Volker Weber
I have been asked to review "gear you can't buy here" for an American publication. However, I have trouble coming up with something interesting you cannot buy in the US, but which is available from the Internet. It has to be business-related.
Any ideas, folks?
Comments
Anything Cuban.
Fuel efficient cars ;-)
Probably some laptop in Japan, I think Fujitsu has a new super small model not available in the US.
Oh region free DVD players are much easier to get in the rest of the world.
Mmm, was going to say Tivo until you mentioned it needed to be for business. As of June 15th (or whenever) we could add the iPhone, but I guess that is more of a consumer device too.
Plenty of American autos you can't buy here, but 1) that probably doesn't fit their remit, and 2) is actually a great thing if you have ever tried to driver American cars on Europeans roads ;-)
Sorry, struggling on this one...
Stuart, the other way around. Stuff you cannot buy in the United States.
Decent beer.
Cuban rum.
You may as well enjoy your review... ;-)
Ooops - I read "gear you can't buy here" and made an assumption! Sorry ;-)
That's easy. Pretty much any cool cell phone.
Nokia makes this really easy.
http://www.nokia.com (Global site)
http://www.nokiausa.com (As the name implies, Nokia's us web site)
For the European market, I suggest the U.K. website. Pretty much everything the mainland has. However, use France as another check.
Henry
Misc. other things....
The TubeStick by Equinux
http://www.equinux.com/us/products/tubestick/index.html
The cool Macintosh related magazines (e.g. iCreate) that Barnes & Noble carries here for a cool $15 an issue. Do they really sell over there, or this is just a neat marketing gimic?
The Land Rover Defender
http://www.landrover.co.uk/gb/en/Vehicles/Defender07/Defender_overview.htm
The many global variations of the Toyota Land Cruiser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Land_Cruiser
Any car from Alfa Romeo
Apple iTunes sites of other countries
American Express RED card (U.K.)
http://www.americanexpress.com/pes/uk/benefits/red/microsite/index.shtml
A politician with a brain.
Richard, are you suggesting bribary? Buying a politician? And then even one with a brain??? Tststs.....
@Ragnar - he was being ironic. We all know there's no such thing...
A politician with a brain.
I wish we had one of those in Germany, when it comes to IT-related lawmaking.
@Hanno, why do you limit this to IT-related lawmaking?
An original "Budweiser" beer. :-)))
@Hynek: You can actually buy it, just under a different name. Thet even have it in my local liquor store on the corner...
Becuse of trademark disputes between Budějovický Budvar and Anheuser-Busch, Budvar is sold in the United States under the label "Czechvar".
From Wikipedia
Überraschungseier, aber Online habe ich die auch noch nicht gekauft.
@Hynek and Karl-Henry: Beer ... work-related ... ??? dunno ... hmpf.
How about ISDN (infrastructure)? Not sure about ISDN in the U.S. though. I kind of remember that there was something like that in the early days of ISDN, but I never came across ISDN anywhere in the U.S.
DVB-T
Cellular Phones with Mobile-TV
Plant oil 'upgraded' cars
Books by Michael Moore (I have not seen his books in no borders shop I checked)
If you consider cars as "business related", you obviously have to test the new "smart" city car which will come to the US in a few months I think.
Continuing the transportation theme, you could compare and contrast the railroad systems of Europe vs. North America.
I was thinking about the railroad angle... the regional commuter rail system here in Chicago is still so archaic that you cannot purchase a ticket from a machine, cannot use a credit card/debit card to buy a ticket, can't even buy a ticket at certain stations. I'm sure Europeans just laugh at the backwards nature of this system.
Tea? A lot of business is done over a good cuppa...
@ Ed - Wow! Send the Metra and CTA folks to New York. The NYC MTA is starting to test RFID credit cards for the subway so you don't even have to swipe any longer.
Present day, we can swipe and go in the subway, and pay for any rail ticket (commuter rail or subway) with a credit card. In fact, because there are now kiosks at every single commuter railroad station the penalty for purchasing tickets on the train has been increased from $2 all the way to $5.
@Henry
Maybe MTA should check out Japan where it is very common to have these tickets for subways and railroads. There are also mobile phones available which support this and include an additional "portable wallet" which you can use for paying at stores. As this started in different areas independently there is now the process to make various systems compatible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suica
How about looking at banking in the USA vs. here? I think the Americans still pay most bills by cheque, whereas in Europe in most countries, pretty well everything is either paid automatically by direct debit (Lastschift) or by an online funds transfer. The security mechanisms for online banking are also implemented differently in the different countries - does the USA use HBCI for internet banking? I don't think so?
Try to get DVD-Ram the quality sold in Japan, and you get reallxy odd looks in radio shack... I hear, in Japan nobody would really trust their data to a DVD+/-R...
