Day: February 10, 2010
iNVENTIONS
Couple of months ago, while attending a seminar, the guest professor started to mention some Swedish inventions. I found myself surprised since among them, the professor mentioned some quotidian ones, such as, the pc mouse, the tetrapak or the zipper. Regarding inventions, there is always controversial opinions about the original inventor. Sometimes, ancient cultures are missed here. For instance, China counts with many inventions used hundred years before Europe. I found a video compilation in Youtube with some of the most famous Swedish inventions. As I already mentioned, the authority for such discoveries is always controversial. When watching the video, notice that the telephone was patented by Alexandre Graham Bell and Lars Magnus Ericsson sells improved version of Bell telephone.
Companies
Sweden has a prosperous economy with a significant weight in the export market. It counts with international leader companies in different fields. Some of them are known as Swedish, but not all. Did you know that skype or the newspaper “metro” were created in Sweden? Find below some of the logos of the most representative Swedish companies. Notice that SAS is not 100% Swedish but also Danish and Norwegian, as well as the bank Nordea it is also Finnish.
The famous swedish carmaker SAAB, a classical swedish company which belonged to the American General Motors, was recently purchased by the Dautch company Spyker, which is 200 times smaller than SAAB. Victor Muller is Spyker’s CEO which states: “The main reason why we think Saab will succeed is its unique brand”. The entire acquisition – including funds that will be spent to rebuild the operation – will be financed with loans. A 400m-euro loan ($544m; £348m) from the European Investment Bank was approved on Friday afternoon. You can find more details on this article at BBC news.
Spanska på Gotland 