Headworx

Boeing's 737-MAX story is probably going to be the biggest fail of 2019, with the flight ban unlikely to be lifted anytime soon. I would be far from blaiming Boeing doing all that deliberately, as many are saying. Something else happened instead. Boeing was caught off guard. 737 was the most successful program in the company history and whatever they would planning was considered an extension of that success. It turned out, however, the MAX changes touched deeply into the architectural design of the aircraft. And the MCAS system went from an auxiliary augmentation feature, never considered flight - critical, to becoming absolutely critical. And Boeing failed to categorize MCAS as critical, as it should have right after the planes were grounded. So first they fixed the angle. Then they added the input from the secondary AoA sensor. And now they are reportedly redesigning the system to make use of BOTH flight computers simultaneously. Redesign after redesign after redesign. That ...

I wrote an enthusiastic blog on Skyroam's Solis a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it turns out things are not so rosy. I was hoping to have them solved (or at least handled) by their support team, but this is exactly where the company has been struggling the most. The first problem with the Solis, which I openly mentioned in the review, was the USB-C port implementation. It is likely that it suffers from the same problem as the Raspberry Pi 4 : it can be charged only with a simplified USB-C cable or with a dongle that cuts out the full USB-PD negotiation. Fair enough. People make mistakes and designers fail to test their products properly. This can happen. But then this is exactly when a support team should kick in, handling the case properly to keep the customer happy. Unfortunately Skyroam's team falls way short of that. I can't remember any other support team driving me so annoyed, ever. The first thing that Skyroam has been doing repeatedly is closing support tick...

Continuing on the digital business theme , it is an interesting reflection when looking at the airline industry. I still remember the trauma of being stranded at the completely frozen and shut down Munich airport . When it took me over six hours in a line to a transfer desk, where they rebooked me on a next day flight and handed out a bottle of water and a blanket. Things are better now. Typically apps take care of missed and rebooked flights, saving us from lining up in multi-hour transfer desk queues. But it is surprising how even simple things are still not handled by the airline apps. United recently revamped their app nicely, so for example, it shows now a current gate of a connecting flight. Lufthansa, on the other hand, does not: you land and the app shows "Gate: --" and you need to observe monitors or talk to the ground staff. United has also (finally) moved one step forward in digitizing their business: the app can guide you to the gate, notifying the gate...

Believe it or not, there are people who do not care about the thickness of a screen bezel in a phone. Or about the size or shape of a camera notch. I am probably one of them. And I am not alone... The Kickstarter campaign launching the Unihertz Titan phone went fully funded in under 30 minutes. This phone is big, at 300g and 92mm wide, but that also promises a really great keyboard experience. Has Blackberry been finally outpaced by a startup? I believe there are many Passport users among the initial backers. The Titan is even bigger and 50% heavier. But has almost 100% more battery capacity, which effectively lets you leave a power bank behind. We are yet to see how Unihertz delivers on the promise. I hope I will be able to report back in December when I get my early backed unit. In the meantime I'm sticking to the original KeyOne , still admiring its versatility and battery life that has been absolutely liberating. During the to years of using it, I remember running out...