Friday, December 09, 2005

America falling behind in the tech race?

A thought occurred to me today, when I went to America in my teenage years (circa 1997) the US had some great tech that I knew about, but wasn't available yet in Europe, I specifically remember DVD players in Costco. My parents didn't think they'd become popular and go the way of the Video CD and Betamax. DVD players became ubiquitous a year later here.
I went back this year and realised that virtually every mobile I saw was a generation behind and chunky (by European standards), our current phone being "second" generation 3G, which has Sky TV/TV available with certain providers. We've also got ubquitious high speed broadband available across the whole country at 8mbps (Yes I realise the US is far larger but you have vaster resources and many telcos...). America is a great place, and I can see why national pride runs high - I'd be proud - but imho they may find themselves in 20 years second best to a booming Chinese economy and the second place technology wise to Japan and Europe (except in the area of weapons/processor development perhaps).
Maybe its my limited experience in the US that leads me to believe the above so I'd love to hear your views.

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