Why does Technology excite so much?

Is it the magic it weaves around us..Is it the small and convenient things it can do to change our lives ...or Is it the element of novelty that exists, atleast so in some of the inventions of Technology. Being a self-confessed tech/gadget freak, new technologies and product launches have always excited me.  Though it was not a phenomenon I have had since my childhood days, I must have picked it up somewhere as life evolved. So much so that whenever I buy myself a new product, I usually spend the next 3 to 4 days exhausting the manual that comes alongwith the product and doing a thread-bare research to understand all the tricks of the product. Rest all things in the world can wait!!

The recent iPad launch was one such thing. Apple, for one, always has super-stylish product launches. Be it the Macbook thin air or the iPhone, their event launches have been defining moments. When Steve Jobs launched the Macbook thin air, I remember gaping in awe at the style in which he was opening an envelope in his hand and taking out the notebook, presenting to the world, its thinnest laptop EVER.

More recently, the recent iSlate launch happened on January 27^th at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, and millions of Apple fans like me followed it live over the internet (and a few fortunate ones, in person). After all, in the CEO’s own words, “if the iPhone was a dent in the universe, the iPad will be the big bang.”

As for the product itself which has since been named ‘The iPad” (YUCKKK!), it runs on the iPhone Operting System, has a 9.7-inch LCD display, a 1 GHz Apple A4 processor, built in speakers, microphone and 30 pin connector, weighs 1.5 pounds, about a half-inch thick, with an on-screen keyboard. The 16 GB/32 GB/64GB versions have been launched and Apple claims a battery life of 10 hours, with a month of standby time. The 3G version has been paralelly launched with the wifi version. The pitfalls are that the piece has no USB slot, no memory card slot, no camera and all the applications are priced.

Despite all of these, my take would be that the iPad would, slowly but surely, become a hit for the simple reason that its goddamn stylish with all the basic essential features and pushes the envelope a bit further when it comes people’s perception of a notebook. In other words, it actually bridges that little gap between a smartphone/PDA and a netbook/notebook. Plus, Apple has indeed managed to suprise one and all with its aggressive pricing. The basic wifi 16 GB version pegged at $499, half of its rumored price of $1000. Ofcourse, only time will tell if the product will be as endearing as the hype surrounding it and its super sexy looks!

Be that as it may, some of the advancements in technology that I would love to see some day and feel would be useful are:

1. Something that can print our text messages from our handheld sets/phones – it could prove useful when u reach the airport and realise that you forgot to print ur ticket or reach a movie hall and realise that you forgot to get a copy of ur movie ticket.
2. Playing live regional FM radio across the country – dont know its possible, but if it happens, it would do wonders to tamil music starved tamilians in Mumbai like me and to several others too!!
3. Live video streaming of the caller when we receive/attend calls on the handset – this can really turnaround our lives and make the world such a small place, after all. (I am told this exists in some places/carriers.)
4. Broadcasting live television end enabling mobile connectivity in-flights (I am told that the latter is in the offing and would be operational in the near future) – it could be a boon to frequent travellers to catch up with their favorite shows/people.
5.  An automatically controlled, driver-less, car that takes you around to your destination without the need for human beings enduring traffic related stress..(plus robots may not violate traffic rules, thus not cause choked roads and taffic jams :p)
6. A music player that understands your mood and plays a list based on the same, without you having to lift a small finger!!.

Technology, like all else, evolves.  Till such time the world is adequately wired to accomplish atleast a few of my above wish-list, wireless relationships between human beings and our societies shall prevail!!

Cities maketh the men (and women)

I had attended a former colleague’s kid’s birthday party last weekend which turned out to be an unexpected re-union of sorts for most of my batch mates who had joined SEBI 7 years back!! It gave us good time to discuss the inevitable topic of who has changed how much ever since we first met and the kind of impact moving over to Bombay has made to each of us.

I, for one, always maintain that other than living sans the family, my life at Madras was pretty much the same as it is in Bombay now – both are big, well-developed metros with fast-paced lives; people have a fairly cosmopolitan mind-set and are adequately occupied with their own lives with no time to gossip; places are urbane....both the cities offer tremendous amount of independence...the similarities can be endless. However, it is true that each city has a character of its own and living in a particular city with a certain set of people can really influence the way you mould yourself. While Madras is a classic case of an urban city teeming with happening places co-existing with its conservative/orthodox sides well in-tact, it is impossible to find a city that is more accomodative and professional than Bombay - it embraces every human being who comes to live here for his living and the city really grows on you.

Alongwith a change in the city that one lives, some of the very common instances where changes occur are physical appearances and other superficial things like one’s tastes for a particular cuisine or for a particular genre of movies/music/books or pastime activities.

This was very evident at a recent outing to a “pucca for-the-masses” genre Tamil movie which I had happened to visit in a fairly big multiplex in suburban Mumbai. While I remember relishing anything remotely and authentically tamil when I had moved to Mumbai 7 years back, I now felt like such a mis-fit amongst the co-tamils crowd at the moview hall. It did not take long for me to realise that my tastes had changed and I no longer enjoyed watching movies where the Hero single handedly bashes up 15 hefty guys with a single stroke of his hand. During my initial days of moving into Bombay when I missed Madras the most, I remember enjoying even such typically masala genre movies laden with illogical action and silly comedies – in hindsight, it was probably more in an urge to keep up the roots of any and everthing Tamil and as a solution to my home-sickness.

In fact, at the re-union I was mentioning above, there were people who were commenting on the obvious diffferences in physical appearances in each of us from the days we had initially joined SEBI – and met up with each other. In my case, there were discussions on how different I looked now from the typical southie girl who joined 7 years ago– (my experiment at hair straightening probably made them assume that I have blended more with the Mumbayya crowd and their way of living/culture :p)

Subsequently, the discussions moved onto the way in which living in Bombay as a city has impacted our personalities.

As for traits like courage, independence, confidence, etc. which are terms often associated with a single woman living in Bombay, I truly feel these are inculcated at a much earlier stage of growing up and not the ones that people necessarily - and, automatically- pick up from the day they start living alone. Ofcourse, I do not wish to be hypocritical and say I have not changed one bit from the day I started living alone – but the question is whether this change has been significant enough to shape your personality – my answer would probably be a ‘No’.

It is true that living alone in a big, bad city like Bombay prepares one to be more adaptible to situations and probably more prepared to handle crisis situations, however, it is also true that the basic character of a person and his/her extent of dependence on the support system available to sail through such situations play a significant role in moulding us, irrespective of the city we live in. With all the freedom and independence bestowed on me and for all the changes in me on what and where I eat and where I hang-out and how I pass time, I have no qualms in admitting that, at heart, am still the same girl who would rather let the people in my life deal with my tough situations with me taking the back-seat!!

All this only makes me wonder that a city, probably, does make a man – but only superficially so. Its good to be a Roman while in Rome...But its even better to remember that you are not a native Roman!!