Pharaohs, Pyramids and, for those that have been there, traffic problems. Driving through Cairo is a skill that the Egyptians have mastered and tourists are stunned into shock about. It’s a wonderful blend of chaos versus determination. As with anywhere in the world, what appears to chaos to the casual observer, often makes sense to the more initiated. As a holidaymaker, driving through Cairo is not recommended, but spend a few weeks or months in the birth place of humanity and it makes sense. The constantly tooting car horns start to have meaning; gaps between cars are there to be filled and pedestri ans have to look out for themselves because the drivers won’t.

It’s easy to dislike Cairo when you first arrive. 20 million people squeezed into a small city, taxi drivers that constantly toot their horns, hawkers trying to sell you anything from perfume to papyrus. The heat, noise and pollution make it a tough city to holiday in. So don’t. At least not until the end of your trip. Cairo is best visited at the end of a two-week vacation. Once you’ve arrived at your hotel, get to the train station and find out how to get the next train out of the city, (this may take a couple of days), and relax at your hotel.  As with any vacation there’s a tendency to rush around and try and see everything. Save a few days at the end of your trip for this, you’ll be in a much better state of mind to deal with it. But whilst waiting for your train, it would be a shame to sit in the hotel and do nothing, so take a stroll down by the Nile and watch the Cairenes go by; or head into the infamous Egyptian museum and lose yourself for a for hours or days on end in its anarchy and confusion.

The difficulty with Egypt is that there is so much to do and see. Do you head south to see the ancient tombs of Luxor and Aswan? Do you go east into Sinai, relax in the old hippy hangout of Dahab and use that as a base to climb Mount Sinai or to go Scuba Diving from? Or do you head west towards the Oasis town of Siwa and spend the days in Cleopatra’s pool and amongst the Date palms and Olive groves, heading out for a desert tour and sleeping under the stars. Whatever you decided to do, by the time you get back you’ll have met some amazing people and be ready for the rigors of Cairo.

Once back in Cairo, things won’t seem quite so manic; you’ll be used to the tooting horns and the hawkers and the heat, so whatever else the city throws at you you’ll be able to handle it. So where to go? Obviously the Pyramids. But where else? Khan El Khalil has been a souk for over 600 years and is one of the best places to get lost in. Find your way out and enjoy a mint tea, sweet black coffee or shisha at one of the many cafes shops on its edge and  admire the decorative Hussein mosque before heading inside for a look at the fabulous architecture.

On the outskirts of the city, the best kept secret is the city of the dead. A fascinating place, away from the vendors and a place that few Cairenes admit exists. Deep within the cities burial grounds you’ll find a people living amongst the tombs. Whole communities eke out a living and maintain a roof over their heads.

Cairo is best avoided during the sweltering summer months, but whenever you go just be sure to pack your sense of humor. It is a tough city, but one that you’ll get more from once you relax into it.

How do Mio design products that not only meet the needs of consumers but also create a product differentiator in a crowded market place? One of Mio’s senior designers explains.

In today’s Experience Economy one could say that the art of product design is becoming or has already become commoditized. This holds especially true in the IT and electronics industry where the level of design has become almost equal across various product offerings.  This has made it harder and harder for many companies to differentiate their products in the vast ocean of merchandise.  In order to find real differentiation and to create real, meaningful value to the consumer, the design team at Mio is looking beyond simply applying aesthetics.  We approach this by knowing about the brand’s attributes and DNA, embracing user-centric research, and exploring new technologies, and encouraging environmental responsibility.  

While focusing on such areas might help to create more value to this user, it is still not always enough to create a differentiation in the market place. Here the challenge is to bring something unique to a proposition, or create an entirely new one.  For example, if looking at GPS devices and the amount of products with this technology, you can find an exponential growth in the last few years. Anything from mobile phones, PND’s to notebooks can have integrated GPS. As a result the market has become saturated with several devices that overlap in the tasks they peform. While this has made the landscape challenging, it also offers a lot of opportunities. We also look at using current technology and finding new windows of opportunity that can bring different benefits to the end user.  By exploring various scenarios we can then find that one unique proposition that can be used to differentiate and bring added value to the consumer.  We strive to ensure this is done on both a hardware and software level in order to enhance the user experience and make it more seamless.

Although challenging, we’re excited about the near future and are looking forward to developing new, unique and relevant products for our consumers.

With the launch of popular 80’s band Sigue Sigue Sputnik, satellites really took off.  It was these clever songsters and a bunch of people from the US military that finally put the Satellite at the end of Global Positioning.  Having put a few of the Sputniks brand of satellite into geo-stationary orbit, the whole world could hear the music and begin to find out where they were in the world.  This of course they always did know because they were there. What they needed to find out was how to get to where they wanted to be whilst listening to the music. 

Initial progress was slow and early examples were poor. Initially there were taped messages where satellite signals were sent to tape recorders and played back over personal stereos. You would ring up an operator and ask them for directions. You would then record these instructions and play them in the car whilst using a map in case you got lost.  

Eventually technology caught up with imagination and we arrived at our destination, flat panel in car navigation devices. Where will they go from here? Only time will tell.

So next time you’re driving down the streets using your Mio bear a thought for parrots, swans, slaves, cans on ropes and C90 tapes that went before.

It also turns out that they couldn’t find out how to make a steam powered direction finder.

History of GPS-Part 1

History of GPS-Part II

History of GPS - Part Trois