Technology is at it again!!

A while ago I'd written quite a bit on technology and how social networking has its own flipsides. Here those posts are - 'TECHNOLOGY'. Anyway, come to think of it, the flipsides of technology are quite fascinating, as perhaps is technology itself.

Take gtalk taglines. A few months ago, completely aghast at the kind of status messages people put up, I'd posted this. Do take a look. And I realize that the trend continues. Only this time, through Facebook and Twitter and also Gtalk! I wonder why people travel. To see places? Or to tell the world that they're traveling? Looks more like the latter, with people unabashedly putting up where they are. Question 1 - Who really asked XYZ where they went. Question 2 - Did XYZ spend more time analyzing sceneries and backdrops to make a choice over which shot would look best on FB? Or did he/she actually spend time admiring the place? And then again comes the bout of showing off. Back in school, if someone got a new pencil case, they'd find every opportunity to remove a pencil! But that was school. Now, if someone buys a new phone, they find every mode to publicize that! WHY? So you wanted a new phone, you went and bought one. I wanted a new couch cushion and I went and bought one! I am sure no one wanted to read a message like - 'Rust colored silk chequered cushion will adorn my couch starting now'. Oops, did I read a message like that on Facebook sometime???!!??? Maybe I had! So why would I want to know that ABC bought a Blackberry Pearl? or Bold or whatever! Why would I want to know that someone else bought a toothpick! Blatantly in your face. Yes that is what this is.

And now, with the advent of Twitter, tweet-happy people abound by the millions. Take our very own Lalit Modi of IPL notoriety for instance. Mr. Moneybags was in Monaco watching the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix, and he tweeted - "Touched by the solidarity on the streets of Monaco. Touched by the solidarity for IPL. One day F1 too will have IPL following". I couldn't stop laughing. Did Mr Modi even know about the existence of the Tifosi? Tifosi translates to scarlet fever in Italian and these are the Italian fans of the Prancing Horse - Ferrari! Did Mr. Modi know about how F1 tickets get sold out in Australia? Did he even realize that Formula 1 that runs across countries for a championship run throughout a year has a following in as many countries as there are races? Which brings the current country tally to 19! Let us not even begin counting the number of F1 fans in India. But then once you have a Blackberry, with access to internet, international roaming charges notwithstanding, and you have a constant thirst for fame, no matter what the route, I guess you can dismiss such statements as being an advanced form of the common foot-in-mouth disease!

So cranky status messages, weird twitter updates - well all hail technology!!

My Avatar

Long long time ago; Well, not really that long ago, I'd put in a piece on the perils of social networking. Right here - 'The perils of the social network'.

Yup! FB is addictive. And with Buzz on Gmail, I guess I am a vociferous entity online, completely against the demure dame I am in real life. Ok, don't blame me, but demure dame seemed too good to resist writing! Anyway, on one of my thoughtful jaunts, which I somehow undertake only on FB, I posted a random thought - 'What have I turned into'. The responses were immediate. 'Crackpot', ' Caffeine-addicted thought centered maniac', 'human being', and so on. While I guffawed and grunted at these answers, what amazed me, was the ripple effect a single inane thought could trigger. And that is indeed the power of Web 2.0, as it is called. Within minutes news spreads, the feedback is immediate, almost, and the collaborative effect is huge.

But this same thought also made me think again. Yeah, I do nothing else but think! So, I'd just recently seen the movie Avatar, and the concept of a man telebonding with his blue Navi Avatar was cool. But interestingly, we're all doing the same thing. One human being has numerous Avatars. One on Orkut, one on Facebook, one on Blogger, one on twitter, one on Flickr, one on Picasa. Sometimes, they're all one avatar. But many-a-time, since these avatars are not created concurrently, they are all different, and also have privacy rules set such that specific target audiences alone get to see em! Oh yeah! I am many Navi people :)

All this is great. Jason Bourne has 5 passports, and I have 5 identities online. But there have to be flip sides right? Like Bourne has the passports and cash, but no memory and a Carlos/ Stepan Spalko/ Fadi in hot pursuit. So, social networking, while great has one major flip. And that is the fact that this cuts out real social bonding. And the funniest thing happened to me some time back. I got an FB friend request from this chap in my class. I knew his face, but we'd never really interacted. And now, I was in a fix. If I'd ignored the request, I'd look like a conceited snob. If I accepted, well, how could I, I didn't really know him! But then, out of guilt at not being more socially active in trying to know everyone around me, I accepted the request. And then, Tadaaaa..... the next day, I went to get myself a coffee, and this chap walked right in front of me. I smiled, a big smile of recognition, of friendship, of long lost kinship, of.. ok, you get the point. And what happened next, made me, rather makes me want to go jump off into that water body behind the chai wali tapri. (More on chaai wali tapri later, right now, focus on big picture please). So, as I flashed my 1000 watt smile, this guy, my newly added friend on FB, gave me a puzzled, perplexed look. A look that said in no less words, 'DO I KNOW YOU?????'

And that is where the perils of the social network came crashing down on me. I decided, 'No more conscience/ guilt driven social networking. For me, Facebook shall no longer remain just my book of FACES. Before accepting a friend request, I will ensure I say one real HI to the target first and then Facebook him/ her. At least I can prevent jumping off into a smelly water body and getting drenched up to the ankles!

I read somewhere, that people were moving from emails to Twitter. And I thought. Wow! From the Greek running messengers to pigeons, to smoke signals, to post, courier and email. And when emails started, people lamented the fact that handwriting grew murkier by the day. The emotion that manifests itself in the written hand, suddenly was lost. And now, we are moving from the written word to the Twittered word. So, I guess v nd 2 b prepped 2 read msgs dat luk like German txts or Hebrew codes, going fwd. I can only imagine how bful all dis wld luk n only wish my English teacher cld c how gr8 my riting skills r in dis currnt mode of comm.

Trends on Tuesday : Perils of the social network

Today's post is certainly going to ruffle a lot of feathers, as I talk about a trend that has been catching up over the past few years. Social Networking and its implications on humanity.The world is growing closer by the minute. Technology aids people to stay in touch at all times, with distance no longer being an impediment. That said, social networking sites on the internet were a boon to people living today's super fast lifestyles, that leave one with hardly any time for physical fitness let alone social and emotional improvement!

Simply using these sites to get back in touch with people you left far away as you moved along the pathways of life is fine. But expecting these sites to supplant face time, or for that matter be an indicator of one's social quotient is grossly misplaced. So, if I have 400 friends on Facebook, ideally I should be considered one with a strong network. But perhaps I need to pause and think about how many of these peoples' lives am I intimately aware about. How much do I know about these people? Are they really friends or mere acquaintances? Is Facebook really my bookmark of friends, and my way of staying in touch? Or is it a glorified address book, that contains their contact details while having people tweeting feeds about what they're doing in their lives?

Facebook is perhaps a wonderful platform for people to establish their first time contacts with long lost friends. It is perhaps brilliant for marketing or endorsing a cause amongst your peer group. But it sure as hell is not the right emotional medium to announce to your friends that you are getting married!! But in today's world, where people are on the move all the time, and technology is so addictive, with cell phone updates available to Facebook, the emotional connect gets lost somewhere. It is suave to actually tweet - 'had a blast at office party last night' and put up a zillion pictures with a bunch of tagged faces. But ask me how many meaningful conversations I had with people last night, and the answer would be a dismal 1 or 2. Where was the time amidst posing for all those pictures???

Then comes the incessant need to keep putting up status updates and random inputs about one's life. Now why does the world need to care about whether you are running on 5 hours of sleep? Does the world need to know that you are having a tiff with your significant other? Why should the world know personal details about your life just because of your want for something to tweet in the first place? You may argue that I should perhaps not read these messages if I didn't want to. Well, fair point. But all I ask is, what about the fine art of exercising discretion on what can and can't be shared? What is wrong in keeping a few aspects of life strictly personal? I'd put in a post a while ago on a similar trend with respect to gtalk tag lines and here it is.

A very funny pdf is doing the rounds these days, describing the Ramayana on Facebook. No offence intended to anybody, but just to give a flavor of how unwittingly funny life is on Facebook, I'm attaching a snapshot of this pdf here -

But this is a trend. An American Presidential Election was won with the support of Facebook. The current generation lives and thrives by social networking through Facebook, Orkut and Twitter. I am an ardent fan as well. And not keeping with the times and trends will only leave one behind as the world marches on. So what can be done? Complement Facebooking with some phone and face time. Let us not let go of the human connect and make way for the humanoid connections. Let networking not be related only to TCP/IP. Let the age old medium of person to person contact co exist with peer to peer software connections.

That said, now let me put up a link to this post on Facebook and Orkut! Didn't I tell you it's addictive??

The Blackberry Revolution

The other day, I received a mail from a friend at 3:30 am. Nothing very important. Just a response to the usual 'Hey Wassup' email. The response was a two liner and the tag line said - 'Sent via Blackberry'. Whoa! This got me thinking about the great Blackberry Revolution.

In a previous post I had spoken about the sea change in technology in a gap of just a few years. There was a time, when mail meant ordinary post. And now,the same ordinary post has been christened 'snail mail' and technology is developing at a feverish pace for getting the world closer. And now, the whole buzzword called 'collaboration' is almost reaching a crescendo, with people being forever accessible on cellphones and email. And I mean forever, thanks to the Blackberry revolution! There was a time, when people's contact numbers were their desk numbers at work and only the closest quarters were provided the sacrosanct home numbers. One wasn't supposed to call up another's home, unless it was a 'Mayday situation'. And now, thanks to the cellphone, all sense of decency in terms of not disturbing someone at 1 am at night has gone to the dogs! One receives messages and emails at the dinner table, and these tasks are 'immediate actionables'. Thank God for spoons since immediate action means an immediate jab on the text editor of the cell phone or Blackberry. The last task of the day no longer remains listening to calm music or reading a book. The last task of the day is one last check of the email, and responses therein. But then again, that check may not be the last check, since there could be a call or a message at 2 am at night, and you could send out another response at 2:05 am, jabbing at the keys of your blackberry like a man or a woman possessed.

No doubt, technology makes life a lot easier. I remember reading an article on the i-phone's acceptance in Japan. The article described a day in the life of a certain Claude, and how his cell phone was his true companion for everything. And no, what was written was not an exaggeration, since people do swipe cell phones at payment counters in Tokyo! Here's the excerpt that appealed to me the most and I quote -

"If the iPhone is the holy grail of hardware and software design, then Japanese cell phones are the holy grail of convergence devices. In no other part of the world will you find a phone that checks email, trade stocks, watch TV, act as a charge card, plays music, interface with other phones, act as portable computer, book tickets, 3+ megapixel cameras, unlock doors, remotely control other devices, GPS navigation, mobile shopping, bar code and fingerprint scanners, push to talk with multiple people, video chatting and conferencing, and of course . . . cell phone.

I spoke to my Japanese friend and asked him what he thought about the iPhone. Most people in America love it. Most of the press are enamored. To preface, Claude is a 27y.o. Japanese male I met in my college days. He lives right outside Tokyo working as a textile designer. He thinks the iPhone is super sexy. To him, it doesn't look like any other phone out there. He loves how slim it is and is completely smitten with the multi-touch interface, but when asked if he'd give up his Sharp branded phone; he says no.

Claude's typical day starts with him checking his email on his phone. He gets all his daily tasks and calendaring events this way. He then syncs it with his computer. He pays for the subway by placing the phone on a kiosk granting him access past the gates. The commute is spent watching TV on his phone by rotating the screen. A small antenna extends up and catches the wireless digital TV signals (something we will never have here in America). About 45 minutes later, he's in Tokyo and heads to a vending machine to buy fresh fruit and water. He places the phone up against a pad. The vending machine reads his bank information which is tied into his phone. He then places his thumb on the phone's tiny thumbprint reader to verify his identity. As he makes his way to the office, he waves the phone near the door handle to unlock it. During a 10 minute break, he's flips thru a magazine and sees something he wants to buy. The item has a tiny stamp size barcode pictogram next to it. He scans the pictogram with his phone. A receipt and shipping confirmation hits his email minutes later. As the day ends, he syncs with his work computer and goes grocery shopping paying for items with his phone. Before heading home, he heads to a bar his friend has invited him too. He uses the phone to give him step-by-step directions. The day is finally over and his phone's battery is nearing the end of its life. He plugs it in and goes about the rest of the evening relaxing before bed"

Sounds nice? Well, it would be, if technology managed to just be an assistant. But in today's world of the 'forever busy' individuals, sending emails in the dead of the night just seems sooooo 'kewl' that people literally end up being servile dependents of technology. Slavish maybe! It looks cool, it looks busy, it looks important, but it is addictive! A friend of mine once complained how her husband didn't find time to talk to her at home, and so, she hijacked him to a coffee shop, only to find him busy punching deals into his Blackberry in response to a continuous Bloomberg feed! She, being at her wits' end later remarked that her father who had no jazzy gadgets to help him was equally, if not more accomplished in life and so, all these cranky objects are just a reason to be inefficient and disorganized. Wow! This got me thinking. Do we really need to get so attached to technology? Does our or for that matter any line of work truly warrant emails and messages at 2 am at night? That too when the recipients are in my own time zone? Is this addiction the reason why all advertisements for vacations scream 'Reclaim your life' or 'Freedom from cellphones' or 'Break Free'? Hmm... So, late tonight, after a day of continuous emails, calls and messages, at work, I was finally enjoying a cup of coffee and yet again, the phone began to ring. And this time, I decided to act differently.... Coffee with music - a deadly combination and indeed one of the biggest advantages of having your favorite song as your cell phone's ringtone!

A crooked look at the new cloning miracle.....

Japanese have just managed to clone cryogenically preserved species of dead rats! This could be a giant step in genetics, since so far we have only managed to clone living species, right from Dolly the sheep. This whole field of genetics and DNA studies is again a key field of our times.Not just in science but in countless books and movies over the years. Jurassic Park, Chromosome 6, The Sixth Day, imagination has been fraught with grotesque projections of the flipside of meddling with nature.

So, how can we imagine a world of the future? Evolution crossed with species of the past? Neo - humans along with dinosaurs? A cross between 'Planet of the Apes' and 'Jurassic Park'? Well, for a city like Mumbai, or for that matter any megalopolis, it is a picture fraught with despair. We are unable to drive on roads on account of the potholes, and huge construction activities happening on Indian roads. With an imminent 'poor man's car - the Nano', the bleak just got bleaker. As if the small car phenomenon instituted in India by the Japs was not enough, now we are going to have mammoths, dinosaurs and dodos on Indian roads - thanks to the Japs again. Dodos are already present in the form of Indian drivers, but we'd probably get to see the maestro of stupidity - the real dodo. So, a giant leap forward for mankind in genetics that has been taken by creating species that could have been seen had we taken a giant leap backward in evolution, could leave us with space not even enough to take an inch step in any direction on Indian roads......

All this humor apart - Let's take a moment to pay respects to the man who immortalized dinosaurs for our generation - Michael Crichton - one of my favorite and I guess one of the best authors of science fiction - who passed away yesterday. My respects to a man who gladdened a world......

Email to Wiki to Blogs - Next is What???

My generation has actually witnessed the inception and growth of the World Wide Web. Hotmail and a certain usa.net were 'cool stuff'! Crazy email IDs - cooldude99, i_m_invincible@something.com - characteristic kiddie IDs. Idiotic forwards would crowd the 100 MB mailbox. All of us would spend at least an hour everyday 'checking emails', laughing at the crazy jokes and cartoons. Anna Kournikova was news - not because of her wonderful tennis, but for the virus that spread by her name. Points of quarrels at school would be the fact that someone skipped another in their 'forwards list'. Then came IMs. MSN Messenger - slow, sluggish, but still cool. Avtars, names, images, et al. The new trend was chatting away to glory all the way into the night! And then meeting the same people in class the next day and talking about what you chatted last night. Then came groups like yahoogroups - bulk mailing groups. One of the most exploited uses was to notify the group to proxy attendance in class!!!

 

Then came the GOOGLE!!! I bow to thee Google!!!! In just a matter of a few years, one simple idea is a household name and will soon be a concpet in the dictionary. Believe you me.... Just google up 'Google in dictionary' in a few years and you'll see what I mean!! :) Need an answer - google it up. From Hindelburgh to Paris Hilton to Sarah Palin to Oscar Wilde to penicillin. The world wide web has in effect proved the X-files catch line, albeit with a small tweak..... What you seek is out there. Wikis were the next generation knowledge resources - all gyaan on a topic, under one roof. So if you search for sub-prime, you get everything - definition, summary, causes, effects, links. The veracity of the stuff written there is open to debate, since anyone can contribute there. Likewise blogs - your take on anything - freedom of expression takes an all new meaning. But it is a healthy manifestation of people's opinions on things that matter to them. And it is a wonderful way for people to collaborate - the essence of Web 2.0. Social networking - new expressions like 'I ain't orkuting', or 'are you on Facebook', are new icebreaking sentences!!! Social networking sites are the chatrooms of yesterday, and people's profiles on these sites are sacrosanct.

 

Next is what?????

 

P.S. I posted this by emailing my blog.... Technology in step with Thought........