I have been looking forward to my first visit to Oslo for quite some time. The journey began with a midnight flight with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) from Newark, New Jersey to Copenhagen, Denmark. At that time of night it seemed as though there were more TSA employees at the airport than passengers. The flight arrived in Copenhagen on time about 1:30 PM the next day. The SAS flight to Oslo was just over an hour from Copenhagen. According to the Magellan handheld, Oslo is at 59 degrees 55 minutes North, 10 degrees 42 minutes East — not quite to the Arctic Circle, but way up there. It is 3,624 miles from home. As I wrote this from the lounge at the Rica Hotel (not sure where the WiFi signal was coming from), it was 10: 20 PM and there was complete daylight outside. The purpose of the trip was to visit Opera Software ASA, where I am a member of the board. I took a some pictures which are now in the photo gallery. As always, I apologize for not being a better photographer.
One of the highlights of the meeting was getting to know Nils Rydbeck, the newest member of Opera’s Board of Directors. Dr. Rydbeck is the former CTO of Ericsson Mobile Phones and was Senior Vice President for R&D there between 1985 and 2001. Since 2002 he has combined being Professor of Communication Systems at Lund University, Sweden, while also doing some consulting at various companies around the world. Nils is a Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences; a recipient of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences Gold Medal (1997) and the Telecom City Grand prize (1999). Blekinge Institute of Technology awarded him a an Honorary Doctorate degree (Ph.D. honoris causa) in 2000.
Opera is an exciting company to be part of. If you haven’t tried the new Opera 7.5 browser, you are missing something.