Norwegian PM uses iPad to run his country after Iceland volcano
Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian prime minister, is stranded in New York today as ash from the Iceland volcano continues to disrupt flights to and from northern Europe. Good thing he has an Apple iPad.
While stuck in the states, the Norwegian PM says that the tablet computer has been one of his main portals back to his home country. He's reportedly sent e-mails, checked in with government business, and kept up to date with the changing flight conditions.
Mr. Stoltenberg's staff posted a snapshot of the prime minister using an iPad (above) with the title "The prime minister is working at the airport."
At this point, the iPad is only available in the United States. (In fact, Israel has banned the device.) Apple even pushed back iPad's worldwide release until late May to accommodate higher-than-expected US demand.
"They are good means of communication, I have close contacts with my office all the times, and there are a lot of activities in Norway where we try to reduce the consequences of the volcano...," Stoltenberg told CNN. "We have the Internet, the mobile phone. I also use an iPad, which is excellent."
Of course, Stoltenberg could have done all of this on a normal laptop – or a smart phone for that matter. But there's something humorous about the prime minister almost showing off his hipness. Trapped abroad? Oh, no, his staff will tell you. He's got an iPad. Seems there's now an app for governing.
"This isn’t entirely shocking, though." jokes ZDNet. "One has to wonder how much the United States is run from President Obama’s BlackBerry."
