Army PR

Interesting news that HRH Harry has been out in Afghanistan, good for him as it's clearly what he wanted to do. Amazed that a deal can be struck with the press like that, there's always someone who must want to break the news.

Putting aside the slightly jingoistic reporting, it gets this campaign back in the news - but I think it's one we'll eventually lose - failing to achieve our goals (does anyone know what they are now?).

Harry himself seemed to express dislike of living in England - I suppose the press coverage and hounding; but in all honesty with a few sacrifices he could easily avoid being in the press.

Brain Drain

Reports are saying that high levels of qualified people in essential industries are leaving the UK to work abroad. This hit home with me because I have a cousin who is about to work out in Austrailia for a second time with the move possibly permanent.

I can think back to the 80s and similar phrases were seen I don't think it's a new thing (back then it was probably referring to academics and scientists working in the US). Maybe today the power and mobility is a little more with the individual, provided you can sell your skills. But as to why are people leaving it is probably down to:

• Over taxed population - not just high taxes, but ridiculously complicated.
• House prices, although other parts of the world have seen booms too.
  
• Poor quality of life, for example commuting tedium.

Sat Nav Experience

I've always thought SatNav to be useful but probably just gimmicky. My previous uses of GPS on the move always had long times to acquire satellites, although this was with a fairly old receiver.

Now prices have dropped I thought I would try out the market leader. This is unusual for me, I usually back the up and coming brand, especially since some of the reviews of the leader said it was good with very bad customer service (amazing how quick companies get big and get like this).

Still I'm very impressed, a very well thought out device. I had a trip to do that I had only done once before, and it recalculated to the route I was taking and called the sequences of roundabouts very well.

So a happy customer, lets hope I don't ever have to call support...

The price of an engine

Microsoft's bid for Yahoo is an interesting move. Is a search engine worth that much? It's funny that the 20th century was about real engines, now we just are concerned with ones that find things for us.

What are they after? I can't see them taking over and trashing a brand. A lot of the analysis seems to be a move over the mobile space, before Google can really get established there. But is this really a quicker route for them to get there? Also moving to an unproven space is risky, it might not capture the imagination of enough people.

In terms of competition it's a bad thing, although MSN Live hasn't taken off - they could probably have stuck at it (after all they stuck at Windows ;)).