Headworx

There is no doubt the leading social media platforms influence and shape peoples' opinions globally. Elon Musk was criticized for overpaying for Twitter yet this gamble clearly played out as he is now able singlehandedly command millions across the world, making him probably the most influential person on Earth. But Twitter is of course not the only game in town. There are the well established Facebook and LinkedIn, and for those hoping for more neutrality there is BlueSky and Substack. I'm a member of both platforms, but mostly passive. I have been circling around Substack trying to understand what it is and if I should become more active there. It seems many notable people I respect have found their home there. But the key question is how the social media landscape looks like in 5, 10, or 20 years from now. This blog has been around for 20 years and despite not being promoted, difficult to find, and not very interesting, has had a steady stream of followers. People who are mo...

5G (cellular data) generally beats WiFi. That is my conclusion after the recent travels in Asia and North America. Public WiFi has aged. In most places it has probably stayed at the 802.11g (50Mbps) while 5G is typically 5-10x faster. On top of that the WiFi backhaul in many places is slow too. And very often has many restrictions. Of course 5G costs (some) money and WiFi is theoretically free. But then you probably remember that meme where "no internet" and "fast internet" are smiley while "slow internet" is the angry face. Which is very true. Speaking of WiFi restrictions - some are well known and kind of obvious (like Google services being blocked in China), so for a westerner entirely reliant on GMail, Google Maps, etc., a roaming eSIM data plan is probably a must. Also WiFi is probably the only technology thing in China which is universally bad. Budget hotels, premium hotels, factories, offices - all are slow (and restricted). 5G on the other hand is ...

I generally stay away from loyalty programs. It simply feels like having more freedom of choice when you are not by default confined to just one brand. But there is one exception - the frequent flyer program run by United Airlines, who are a member of the Star Alliance. The reason is I do fly a lot, and most of the connections from/to my home town are served by Star Alliance airlines: LOT, Turkish, Austrian and Lufthansa. That is - of course - when you do not count the European low cost behemoths: Ryanair and Wizz. Intra-Europe destinations are typically best served by the two. Yes I know people complain a lot, but this is a typical whining to get more clicks. Because - to be honest - the low cost airlines deliver just awesome value for money when you fly point-to-point. There are no transfers and the flights are typically very short so the tight legroom does not matter. Things are different when there are no direct flights, which typically is the case for any intercontinental trip. Th...

My recent China trip , which was super fruitful from the company's business perspective, also inspired me to make some more general observations. One area, in particular, is the development of the Chinese automotive industry. Which has clearly been accelerating to claim the global pole position, dethroning Germany, Japan and America. The Chinese cars, in short, are just amazing. From both the design, technology, and - of course - price level perspective. The cars become increasingly popular in Europe, where some re-branding is in place. For example when you rent a car in Spain, chances are it will be a DR, which simply is an Italian sticker on the Chinese Chery . But actually in China the dominating brands are completely alien to a Western visitor. But then there are also the well known Western and Japanese brands present (albeit the vehicles are not that prominent, not really standing out). On the other hand, Chinese love premium brands. Louis Vuitton (Europe's 2nd largest co...

Delivering power over wired data lines has been one of the most obvious extension to many legacy protocols. It is hard to comprehend why many of these protocols did not have the power option from the beginning, requiring the connected devices to be fed power over a separate line (and a separate cable). Less cables is always good. My own journey with cutting power cables started about 40 years ago when I designed my first commercial product - a software protection dongle. The dongle was using the PC printer port for communication. Unfortunately the printer port never had power lines in it, but I managed to harvest sufficient energy from the data lines.  Next in line was USB , and the inclusion of power was a very significant (if not the most significant) contributor to the success of the standard. Now with the Power Delivery (USB-PD)  capable of carrying up to 240W of power, the PD is the king of power-over-data standards. HDMI is the one that really failed to do this properly....

I have just returned from a trip to China. It's been a blast. And quite an experience too. I was to China several times before, but the trips were always fully organized by business partners and we always had a Chinese host with us. This time it was slightly different, as me and my friend, we did some parts of travel on our own. Nothing really unusual, but without any knowledge of Chinese, things can sometimes be difficult. Such as discussing something with a taxi driver. Or buying medicines at a pharmacy.  One very useful tip I took from some travelers' forum was to note down the Chinese addresses of hotels, to be able to show them to taxi drivers. This was really helpful and worked. But some other times we felt really hopeless when a person was trying to tell us something and the language barrier was just impossible to cross. And then we used language translation apps.  In my case it was Google Translate, with the relevant dictionaries loaded for offline use. Google is gener...

Some people are dinosaurs. Or at least behave like them. It is 2025 and promoting a wired lighting control system feels like you are from a deep past. Makes me wonder how you can still be alive at all? Bluetooth mesh has been around since 2017 - 8 years and counting. Millions of devices shipped, tens of thousands of commercial buildings deployed, happy customers and users, zero issues. And you still pitch cables? Arguing one cable system is better than another cable system because it uses less miles of cables drilled in the walls and laid in the plenum? That is definitely the feeling I had listening to otherwise great Lighting Controls podcast  episode 83 on DALI . And don't get me wrong - I LOVE DALI (it stands for Digital Addressable Lighting Interface). Actually I have been very actively participating in development of DALI, particularly working on the DALI-341 specification which links DALI and Bluetooth NLC based on the industry - approved architecture . For the uninitiated: D...