Day to day electronics

We all know, because we have been told many times, that the USA is the most electronically advanced country in the world, has the largest number of personal computers in the world, and that nowhere is the broadband penetration larger: 60% apparently. We have just read of a computer whiz who has been sued by Goldman Sachs for stealing another esoteric algorithm that enables the banks to trade shares away from you in milliseconds when you have shown an inclination to buy them, and then resell them to you for a couple of pennies more. Wondrous!

Which is why I was so flabbergasted to see, on the streets of Paris, several clever and useful applications that actually do something for the average citizen:

Linda and I went into a small post office on the rue des Francs Bourgeois, because she wanted to mail a letter to the USA. There was small line, about five people. It was about lunch time. Suddenly a postal worker in shirtsleeves approached us to find out what we were trying to do. When we explained, he smiled, turned around and pointed to a yellow and blue box, standing about three feet high; Linda placed the letter on top of the machine. A screen lit up, with the letter’s weight and five destination buttons, marked EU, USA and the Americas, and so on. She pressed the USA button and the screen indicated that we should deposit 0.85 Euros. After the last coin had dropped, it printed and spit out a self-adhesive stamp of that value. I affixed it to the letter. The gentleman pointed towards a letterbox next to the machine. He said: “Et voila!”, smiled again, returned to his cubicle and waved us on our way.

The municipal buses in Paris are GPS equipped. As they approach a stop, a screen lights up with its name; in some a voice will tell you whether the next stop is Sèvres-Babylone or Vaneau, whatever the case may be. The screen will remind you what line you are on, the end of the line, and the estimated time to get there, as well as the estimated time to certain critical points on the line. While you are waiting for the bus in the glass kiosk, an LCD screen will tell you how many minutes you will have to wait for the next bus, and guess what?…. it is right.

If for some unlikely reason while lying in the sun on the lawn in a Paris park, say the Tuileries, or the Luxembourg gardens, or the new Park de la Villette, you should feel the urge to check your email, you can do so, via WiFi courtesy of the Paris municipality. Cost to you, zero, zilch, nada. You will say, yes, but the taxpayer pays for it, and you will be right. The taxpayer pays also for many other things that are not useful to him directly, and here the young, who are the most likely to want to use a laptop while in the park and pay the least taxes, will have an advantage.

In restaurants, originally no doubt because of the distrust of Europeans towards credit cards and the much publicized frauds connected with them, the waiter does not collect your card to walk it to the cash register any more. S/he will bring a small gadget to your table, swipe the card in front of you, and the gadget will spit out two receipts, one for you to sign and hand over, and the other for you to keep. No wires, no fuss, fully transparent, efficient.

And another adventure, that even flabbergasted some French friends when we told them: Linda came home from the supermarket, and she was uncertain to have received the correct change out of a 20 Euro note. We went down again, receipt in hand, to the supermarket, located the cashier, and very calmly I explained our doubts to her, requesting that she take our phone number, and to call us if at the end of the shift she noticed an overage. She smiled, finished her next customer, and said that she would do it right away. She called the supervisor, and while s/he was on the way, produced from under the counter a device that turned out to be an electronic scale. In a few seconds she was weighing each of the coin receptacles in her cash register, followed by the bundles of bank notes of five, ten, twenty and fifty Euros. They are equipped with electronically readable denomination strips. Within a minute she had completed the survey of her cash receipts, and had a total. The supervisor arrived with the amount the computer indicated that register had sold to that moment, and “Voila, Madame!”, a ten Euro note was produced and handed over. Then she turned to her next customer and continued with her work.

What I liked the most is that at no time the word “sorry” was used. It was treated matter- of-factly, cleanly, expeditiously. Another successful transaction in a busy day.

Aren’t you tired of people giving you profuse excuses instead of solutions?