Looking from behind, one might assume that the METROBuddy is an electric car with style. Unfortunately, those hopes are dashed when peeking the whole whip from the side, as you suddenly become overwhelmed with hints of USPS mail van, garbage truck and a rather large protractor. Design gripes aside, our good pals over at AutoblogGreen were able to sneak a peek at the bantam automobile, which supposedly packs a range of around 50 to 75 miles on a full charge. There's been no mention yet of a price or global release (don't get your hopes up on the latter), but feel free to have a better look around in the vid just past the break.

[Via AutoblogGreen]

What do we know so far about Norway? That it likes electric cars, has buses powered by poo, and offers so much snow even its billboards are filled with the stuff. Now we're learning something else: that it's in the middle of a pilot program that would put a laptop (a real one, not one of those OLPC toys) into the Bedazzled rucksack of every 16 - 19 year old. The trial is currently underway in a single county, Nord-Trondelag (site of the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030), where 6,000 lappys have been distributed featuring Big Brother-like software. The stuff, provided by 3ami, captures screenshots and keystrokes when students take quizzes and exams electronically. If all goes well Norway will expand this program nation-wide, and since each laptop comes with a copy of Photoshop we're expecting a whole new generation of expert image manipulators.

[Image courtesy of mrsviennau]

We've certainly seen mobile-activated bus stop ads before, but the cool factor on this one was just too impressive to overlook. Tryvann Winter Park, a ski resort that sits just 15 minutes away from downtown Oslo, was searching high and low for ways to better market itself to residents of the bustling Norwegian city. In order to do so, it turned to JCDecaux, who conjured up the brilliant idea you see to the right. Essentially, this advertisement packs a few internal fans and a bucketful of faux snow; whenever it starts snowing up at the ski resort, someone sends a text to the billboard and the flurries start to fly. This way, residents and workers in Oslo can easily see when conditions are good some 500 meters up. We're told that Tryvann "loved" the campaign and the resulting crowds that came, though there's no mention of whether it'll be implemented next season or elsewhere in the world.

[Via textually, thanks Charles]

It was just yesterday that Reuters predicted Nokia's Comes With Music service was headed for something of a pilgrimage through the wilds of Europe, and now we have the official confirmation of this "pan European" expansion. The company has secured partnerships with music licensing and publishing big-wigs in Spain, France, Italy, Sweden, Finland, and Norway, and is indicating that Singapore and Australia are next on its to-do list. Alas there was no mention of other nations getting any sort of attention, meaning Nokia handsets in the New World are unlikely to come with anything but guilt for the forseeable future.

Ok ok, we hear you tipsters, iPhone now official for Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia "later this year" thanks to a deal between Apple and TeliaSonera. At this point, only The Netherlands seems to be out of the loop in Europe.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Passengers on Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA will soon have something to talk about... literally. The company is joining the growing ranks of airlines that allow mobile phone and / or wireless internet service on flights. According to the Scandinavian airline, the new features will be offered sometime later this year, and will be provided by a new subsidiary, Norwegian AS. Now, if only they'd allow smoking again.

Wee electric cars such as the one pictured to the right aren't exactly uncommon, but if Think CEO Jan-Olaf Willums can get his dreams to pan out, his version of the urban green car may actually gain some serious traction. Reportedly, the firm has garnered upwards of $78 million from Silicon Valley and European investors who see promise in the carbon-neutral whip, and moreover, in changing the way we all buy and interact with our cars. Ideally, Think will only sell its vehicles online, which would reduce overhead dramatically, and will equip the cars with WiFi in order to become "a rolling computer that can communicate wirelessly with its driver, other Think owners, and the power grid." Notably, Think plans to "to sell the car but lease the battery as a way to overcome one of the biggest conundrums of electric automobiles," and while nothing is set in stone, the "City" could arrive in select locales as early as 2009.

[Via Slashdot]

With all the flowers starting to bloom and bunny rabbits (stuffed or otherwise) beginning to emerge, we're sure it won't be long before you're busting out the Wham-o Peeps maker, but if you've been pondering a way to make those hearty breakfasts pop out a tad quicker, we've got just the thing. Apparently, a group of waffle-lovin' kiddos have concocted an automated machine that not only opens and closes on queue, cooks and unloads the finished waffle onto your plate, and closes back for easy cleanup, it even boasts a tiltable pail filled with waffle mix and a funnel so that filling the hot iron is no longer your (messy) responsibility. The project was crafted at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and looks to be constructed primarily of wood, strings, and pulleys, and while we certainly wouldn't recommend that novice DIYers try this unaided, be sure and hit the read link for a look at waffles made easy.

Apple doesn't seem to have given much weight to Norway's threats of repercussions for the continued iPod + iTunes + FairPlay lockdown, but even if the Norwegians decided to actually get nasty about it, Apple could always pull iPods from Norway shelves and take its business elsewhere. However, Apple might have to start paying attention now that other EU members are hopping aboard, with France and Germany leading the charge. Norway, which had originally set a June '06 date for an Apple response, which then got bumped to August, has a fresh September date for Apple to respond to, and the members of this new anti-DRM coalition are promising increased pressure as that date looms near. No telling how this will end up playing out, but we're sure Apple isn't going to give up its little cash-cow ecosystem without a fight. All of this is in addition to a law that went into effect in France last August which allows regulators to force Apple to open up the iPod and iTunes, but we haven't heard a peep out of that one so far.

[Via Slashdot]

Leave it to the contemporary descendants of the Vikings, to come up with a way to help American sailors stay physically afloat longer; Congress has just approved $500,000 for testing of five Norwegian-made "temperature management" units. The firm behind this invention, Thermonor, claims to have built a device that can alter an injured sailor's limb by encasing it in a plastic cylinder to keep the body's temperature high enough to avoid hypothermia and also pressurized enough to control severe bleeding. Still though, Thermonor may want to work on the product's design a little more just so that the patient doesn't feel like they've been turned into a freakish version of Captain Hook.

We know that Scandinavians have a reputation for high-tech and ultra-liberal attitudes, but this one may be a bit over the top. Laura Beloff, an artist who seems to have a penchant for her cellphone and for fruit flies, has built what she calls "The Fruit Fly Farm" -- a wearable sculpture involving a transparent acrylic ball that contains a bunch of fruit flies munching away on a piece of rotting fruit. A cellphone is positioned so that its camera can take a picture of the swarm in action upon receiving a text message from the public; the snapshot is then uploaded to a website for posterity and is also sent back to the sender as a reply. If you want to get your own shot of these amazingly boring insects, you've got until November 30 to text +47 92096767 (Norway), after which time the shirtless dude walking around in the Norwegian winter wants to get some clothes on.

[Via Textually]

DRM lovers and haters alike, gather round, because the good ol' US Cavalry (played in this film by the US Department of Justice), has just saddled up and taken sides in what is prepared to be an epic showdown between some wild west cowboys (Apple) and strangers from the east (Europe). As IDG News Service reported yesterday, the first shot has been fired by Thomas Barnett, an assistant attorney general at the DOJ's antitrust division. Barnett and his DOJ posse are siding with Apple and warning European countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark and France to back off, arguing that forcing companies to reveal their intellectual property slows innovation -- and they haven't discussed the anti-consumer angle, or the increasing feeling abroad that Apple is acting anti-competitively. Meanwhile, the Norwegian Consumers Council is going to meet with Apple later this month to try to solve this issue more diplomatically before things gets out of control and Apple and Europe have to duke it out in the OK Corral court.

[Via Boing Boing]

Last we heard, the France's Constitutional Court had approved the iTunes law -- altered, mixed up a bit, but still generally intact -- for the final signature by President Jacques Chirac. The President, of course, has now signed the bill, which among other things now effectively mandates a regulatory committee to oversee DRM issues in the country when formed this fall. According to USA Today, Apple appears to have fallen silent on France for now, but they certainly weren't entirely reserved on one of the other FairPlay-challenging motions in the region. In a 50-page statement released to the public by Norway's consumer agency, Apple appeared rather vocal with regard to the Scandi iPod regulations and laws currently being erected. Their take? You guessed it. Apple was described as "defiant," and apparently appeased few of the demands made by the consumer ombudsmen attempting to bring order to the situation, only causing further frustration and vexation for consumer advocates and, well, consumers. In a nutshell, Apple expressed their disinterest in changing their business model to accommodate Scandinavian consumers' demands; if you found anything in this post at all surprising, you probably haven't been reading long or paying much attention, but if there's any one thing that's clear, it's that things are going to get much harder for Apple Europe before they get any easier.

Read - iPod law now law
Read - Apple defends selves against Scandinavian consumer groups