Shaken, stirred - and woken up

Once in an eon, Bond tries to stay abreast of technology. And this is what happens…

Bond threw his empty glass in disgust. Skyfall was a hit, but his life appeared to be in free fall now. He had a new boss as M and what made it worse was that it was someone who had previously aspired to become Bond himself. Then they got a kid to play Q and he was running circles around Bond when it came to handling computerized gizmos. And now, his devices were all being made available to the common man.

Firstly, the latest technology - named Starchase - had facilitated the creation of a new GPS bullet that made police chases a lot easier. It could be activated at the press of a button from a car and would attach itself to the suspect’s car. Once that happened, the whereabouts of the rogue vehicle could easily be tracked on a monitor. Then, a bulletproof suit that made use of lightweight carbon nanotube technology was created, thereby making the three-piece suit resistant to bullets and knives. Fabric created by using long, thin, lightweight carbon nanotubes was inserted into the suit and rendered it bullet-proof. Plus, the suit looked stylish and wasn't the least bit bulky or inflexible. If the man on the street had access to all of this, wouldn't Bond's USP be compromised?

His request to Q was simple. "Give me toys that'll keep me ahead of the pack." Q nodded and opened a safe. "Here's an alarm..." he began when Bond interrupted. “Will it blow up when someone comes to kill me?" Q sighed. "No, it's an alarm app that will not go off until you get out of bed and shake your phone relentlessly. It has no shut off or snooze buttons, and there is no volume control, so it is always irritatingly loud. Basically, it has a shake meter that has to be filled up by shaking the phone - and until that happens, the alarm won't stop. Isn't that an ingenious way of waking someone up?" "I always believed that the phrase 'shaken, not stirred' was used to describe something else," said Bond dryly. "It's available on both the iPhone and Android..." Q continued, but Bond was not impressed. "Listen," Q persisted, "that was the Wake n Shake app, but there's also the Walk Up! app which won't go off until you've woken up and walked a few steps..." He stopped when Bond glared at him. "What's the matter?" 007 demanded. "Someone's been telling you that I spend too much time in bed?"

"Ok," Q changed the topic and pulled out a t-shirt. "How about this..." "Hey, a t-shirt that makes me invisible?" Bond asked excitedly. "No," Q hesitated, "it can wash itself." Bond stared at him, his right eyebrow merging with his scalp. "What'll I do with that?" "Look Bond, imagine chasing villains all day, getting yourself all dirty and then having to go on a date - nothing like having a t-shirt that can clean itself, right?" Q explained. "But how does this work?" Bond was curious. "Oh, it's just a bit of nanoscience, a fabric material and some detergent coming together," said Q nonchalantly. "The printing ink in the t-shirt has a specific amount of detergent in it, so when the t-shirt is dipped in water, the soapy solution that is formed cleans the t-shirt. And if you're stuck in an Indian city with water shortage, there's another option - a t-shirt using titanium dioxide, so the minute you expose it to sunlight, the t-shirt will clean itself."

Bond shook his head. "But how on earth am I supposed to wear a t-shirt over my tuxedo?" Q shot back, "Well, if Superman can wear his briefs over his tights..."

He didn't see Bond's fist coming and everything went dark. But Q was satisfied. He couldn't make 007 fly like Superman - at least he could make him dress like the Man of Steel.

Fighting DNA, fleeing wallet

A tale of technology that began with a mix-up and ended in uncertainty.

The DNA Cloning Center was in a state of turmoil. Someone had switched the DNA samples of Charles Darwin and Charles Babbage years ago and it had just come to light. ("How do I know? The samples were marked Charles B and Charles D and when R&D called for Charles B, I heard it as Charles D… Or was it the other way around?")

Interestingly, what this switch had accidentally created was a future generation of cross-bred clones - technologists with a keen interest in evolution. And that's the reason why, ever since, the tech world has seen a race for the survival of the fittest, best explained by the following famous quote - "Every morning in Cyberia, a mobile phone is switched on. It knows it must outperform the fastest Google Glass or it will be killed. Every morning in Cyberia, a Google Glass is picked up. It knows it must run apps faster than the slowest mobile, or it will lose. It doesn't matter whether you're a mobile or a pair of glasses - when Apple comes up with its next product, you'd better be running."

However, with different groups keenly contesting this race, there were side-effects that had to be borne by the common man. For instance, heat transfer principles and a unique ‘Spin Chill’ technology had resulted in a portable device that could chill a drink in half a minute, but mankind, on an average, spent 130 hours or over five days a year waiting for computers to load a program, application or file. In other words, all the time saved in chilling a drink was spent waiting for a computer to get warmed up.

Even the world of finance fell prey to this bizarre phenomenon. On one hand, tech whizzes had come up with software that could predict where a burglary was most likely to occur next. The program could study crime patterns and relevant data collected over the past decade, sweep hot spots and come up with calculated predictions about the next criminal activity likely to occur in a neighbourhood. Using this, they could bring down the crime rates in residential localities to a reasonable extent.

However, another set of scientists had come up with an equally revolutionary invention - a wallet that runs away when it feels that its owner is spending excessively. Working in tandem with a book-keeping app named Zaim, the wallet, if forcibly picked up by the owner and opened, even screams for help. If the owner persists and takes money out of it, the wallet resorts to its ultimate weapon – it sends a mail to the wallet owner’s mother.

Now, everything would have been fine if only the two inventions had chosen to co-exist peacefully. But since that goes against the grain when it comes to the theory of evolution and survival of the fittest, one had to cannibalise the other. As a result, the wallet that ran away sometimes lost its way and thus became a prime target for thieves. So, the program that predicted the next burglary would inadvertently also predict the exact location of the wallet (if it was the wallet that was being stolen). Conversely, if the location of the runaway wallet was found, it would make it easier for someone to steal it, thereby leading to a burglary - which was already predicted by the software. This was now getting complicated.

The situation was best summed up by a geek. "The process of predicting a burglary that involves a wallet would lead to the owner holding on to it and possibly spending more, which would lead to the wallet running away. But locating the wallet would give away its coordinates, which would lead to it being stolen." A young physicist who heard it took notes furiously and surreptitiously. ‘Ah, the uncertainty of it all… This could do wonders in quantum mechanics,’ he muttered to himself as he rushed to the lab.

The next morning, the world was introduced to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. 

So what’s your dress saying?

There are some who are weary of technology, but there are those who simply wear technology…

Tulip turned towards the tailor, her pretty face showing the merest hint of annoyance. How dare he ridicule her request for a dress in which the pocket could accommodate a TV? "32 or 40 inches," he had smirked. Well, she would not give him an inch on this debate. But it set her thinking. She couldn’t fit an electronic device into her dress pocket. But what if the dress became the device by itself? If only she could weave technology into her clothes, it would not leave the tailor in stitches.

She had just read about socially active undergarments for women that tweeted when they were unclasped. Though it was for a good cause - to promote breast cancer awareness - Tulip realised that she needed to come up with something more conservative. In 2010, a 'Twitter dress' had already been worn by a Grammy winner, displaying images tweeted by fans. It became such a sensation that a year later, Microsoft came up with their version of a Twitter dress as well. Called the Printing Dress, the apparel, primarily made of paper, doubled as a Twitter screen, displaying tweets as fast as they were churned out.But then, how could a dress made out of paper be adopted by technology? Wasn't it too old-world? To prove this point, an artist had come up with her own version of a paper dress - only, this was made out of the pages of a telephone directory.The dress was not only considered haute-couture, but also exotic - after all, when was the last time anyone had come across a telephone directory?

It is not known whether the artist had planned a summer collection - a bright sunshine yellow range of apparel using Yellow Pages, but another printed revolution came along to transform the world of fashion. It was the world’s first 3D-printed bikini, called the N12 bikini, which could be printed out on a material called nylon 12, or N12. All one needed to do was feed their drawing into the computer and the 3D CAD software would print it out as a bikini. Suddenly, shopping online for swimwear had become passé - the new trend was to just pull it out of a printer at home.

Of course, the accessories to go with such apparel - like Galaxy Gear, the smart watch by Samsung, and Google Glass - had already been launched. And those who chose to synchronise their dress with a hoodie could opt for Ping, which operated through gesture recognition and facilitated Facebook updates on the fly (er, on the go). Women could go for the M-Dress, which not only made for a smashing ‘little black dress’ for the cocktail circuit, but also doubled as an attractive mobile phone, with a cleverly designed slot for the SIM Card. (However, since it’s both a phone and a frock, the jury is still out on whether it is a phrock or a frone.)

Though it might look a little incongruous, an ensemble featuring the M-Dress, the Ping and the Galaxy Gear can take care of all of one’s communication needs. For those in the rebellious, maverick mode, Nokia's tattoos could complete the look for a great Friday night. The tattoos vibrate when there's an incoming call or a message on one's Nokia mobile, so someone shaking hands with you could be at the receiving end of a mild tremor while you are at the receiving end of a call.

Tulip had seen enough. She had a killer idea - a kerchief that would also be a TV and would play soaps in 15 languages from all the leading channels. 'And after watching their favourite serials, viewers can use the kerchief to wipe away their tears,' she thought excitedly. ‘I just can’t wait to see the look on that tailor’s face when I ask him to stitch a dress that can accommodate my TV.'