Metropolitan.fi
News from Finland in English
On November 24th 2016 the Finnish government published their energy and environment strategy. This provides an outlook to the country's future to the year 2050, when the country has moved to carbon neutral energy production.
The Finnish startup Asmo Solutions is looking to revolutionize the world of such a mundane thing as a mobile phone charger. The company has developed one that switches of when it's not in use, they call it the ASMO Charger.
The Swedish Eurodance artist is in the run to represend Finland in the 2017 song contest. The artist known for his mighty mullet and hit songs in the first half of the 2000's is working together with another artist.
In Finland alcohol sales is strongly regulated. Beer and other less potent drinks are available from supermarkets, but strong spirits and wine are only available for purchase from government owned Alko outlets. In the turn of 2017 there will be some changes in legislation which weakens the position of the monopoly by opening up new product categories to other stores.
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack halted heating distribution at least in two properties in the city of Lappeenranta, located in eastern Finland. In both of the events the attacks disabled the computers that were controlling heating in the buildings.
The Finnish government is said to be preparing a massive overhaul of the country's private car taxation system. The planned changes would remove the dreaded car tax and make significant changes to terms when companies are providing car benefits to employees.
In 2016 O'Reilly media conducted an online salary survey for software developers. The survey contained 72 questions about the developer's roles, tools and compensation. More than 1300 european software developers answered. According to the results Finland is in the mid-tier when it comes to salaries for software developers in Finland.
In an interview of Tekniikka & Talous magazine, a start up investor says that Finland could employ 2000-3000 foreign developers right away. It is currently hard, if not impossible for a startup to employ a skilled software developers and the process for employing foreigners is simply too heavy.
Many countries around Europe and elsewhere have struggled with Uber, a ride sharing service from the US. In the continent where Taxi unions and other bodies have strong positions, there have been absurd side effects for Uber in Finland and elsewhere. Now the Estonian state has solved this by legalizing Uber in the country.
Valmet Automotive started a recruitment campaign that aims to hire 150 new employees to their car factory in Uusikaupunki. The staff is needed to respond to the demand of the Mercedes-Benz A-series car, but the start of the production of the Mercedes GLC SUV is also looming in the horizon.