When technology gets Scrooged…

When the world’s most miserly duck becomes a tech fan and kind-hearted at the same time, you know what to expect. Or do you?

‘Nothing like amortizing one gift across two occasions,’ Scrooge McDuck told himself as he decided to give away gifts to his great-nephews on the 28^th of December, right in between Christmas and New Year. “Bah, kids these days! They seem to want some gizmo or the other…dratted technology!” he muttered as he began writing notes to accompany each of the gifts.

To Huey, who constantly loses his way in life, I gift Skully Helmet, a helmet that will not only show him the way, but will also provide regular weather updates. The helmet is powered by Android (Android - Google - searching for directions... got it?) and is Bluetooth-enabled, so you can access maps and driving directions on the move. And you don't have to endanger yourself by speaking on your mobile while riding your bike - this helmet can keep you connected to your network. (Life has always been a hands-free experience for you, the only difference being that you can now keep your hands on the handlebar and let go of the mobile.)

There's even a little display in front of you that will show you route maps and other details you might need to know. And you've always grumbled to me that you don't have eyes on the back of your head - this helmet will rectify that, via a rear-view camera that will give you a 180-degree view of all that's happening behind you as well.

And don't worry about someone swiping the helmet from your bike when you've parked it outside, because the helmet has voice recognition features. I’m delighted that you’ll finally have a head that will be equally alert to an upcoming bend, an incoming message and impending rains. And yes, when you're listening to music, it'll also notify you what’s next, so if it’s Justin Bieber, you can skip or repeat, depending on whichever side of the bed you got out of.

To Dewey - since your name has been used everywhere from a Lemony Snicket novel to the Scream movie series, I’m sure that you’re suffering from an identity crisis. It calls for a doctor, but you know that I’ll never pay for one, so I herewith gift you a headset that helps monitor health. It also plays music, can be used as a training device and helps record various vital stats - from heart beat to calories used up. (A sensor module fitted in it helps track such information.) It also helps track your speed and distance covered when you're exercising. (How? Infrared light, accelerometer and all that jazz.)

As for its accuracy, don't doubt it, it's as good as an ECG machine or a heart rate monitor. Since it’s based on the latest sensor technology, it can also be hooked up to your smartphone - and there's an app (for both iOS and Android) that takes care of the rest. Whew, that’s fitness, training, music and health, all combined into one.

To Louie, ever since you heard the hit single ‘Brother Louie’ by Modern Talking and by Hot Chocolate, you’re constantly on your mobile (modern talking?) and have become hooked on to cooking. So I gift you a Smart Kettle. It's Wi-Fi enabled, so you can be anywhere in the house and still control the kettle with the help of an app. Imagine being woken up in the morning by your smartphone and being asked if you need to switch the smart kettle on. How about that? There are four different temperature settings and a host of other hi-tech features, so the kettle can even be programmed to keep the tea warm until you’re ready to have it, whenever that might be. (And you'll get a text from the kettle when the water's on the boil.)

Hope I don’t get bothered for an entire year now. And oh, have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

The eighth deadly sin

A man and his friend are deep in discussion about the one mistake he should never have made.

Man: I’ve done the unthinkable… And now, I need to make up with my wife.

Friend: Why don’t you gift her a 5-carat diamond, princess cut?

Man: No, I need something better - she loves technology, so…

Friend: How about a foldable car? It is eco-friendly, runs on electric charge, saves space and is very convenient to park - you can actually fold it in half...

Man: Sounds good, but...

Friend: Wait, here's the best part… You can download an app onto your smartphone – and it magically transforms into a remote control that helps you park the car. You can also use it to spin the car a full circle, reverse it and park it into the narrowest of parking spaces available...

Man: What's it called?

Friend: The car? It’s called Armadillo-T and is named after the Armadillo which rolls itself into its shell when enemies approach... There are also smart features - like cameras inside the car instead of side view mirrors – to give you a clear view of the traffic around you.

Man: No mirrors? Sorry, my wife will simply refuse to drive a car in which she can’t check her make-up at traffic signals...

Friend: How about a PC then?

Man: What's new about that? She already has a laptop, a tablet, and a...

Friend: This is a computer with common sense. It uses artificial intelligence - it can think, identify common objects and link related images on its own.

Man: How does this happen?

Friend: Through a program called NEIL - Never Ending Image Learner. NEIL operates through certain principles of advanced computing, does not require human intervention and is currently busy researching the web. The programme has raced through over three million images, recognizing shapes, colours, scenes and objects, and recording its observations.

Man: I’ve already had problems with a Neil and I’m not sure if I should...

Friend: In fact, NEIL will soon be checking out YouTube videos and will absorb several image references from them. Just imagine, you won't have to programme your PC to do anything - it can think on its own and decipher how to do things...

Man: No way - I can't have a device at home that can do something that I can't.

Friend: Ok, she won't be able to resist this - a cuddly robot phone that can give her a hug...

Man: I just read an article about mobile phones becoming larger in size - now, you're talking about one that's a six-footer and hugs people?

Friend: No, this one is shaped like a stuffed pillow and is more like a soft toy - it's called Hugvie...

Man: But why should we have a phone hugging us? It's already warming a side of our face...

Friend: Hugvie has a pocket into which you can slip your mobile phone. There are microcontrollers and vibrators located inside the robot that can simulate human heartbeats based on the tone of voice of the caller. So, when you're talking to someone, you get a more personalised feeling – the feeling of having someone hug you even as you feel their heartbeat against you...

Man: Can you imagine the situation when I get back home and find my wife talking to a robot, feeling its heartbeat and hugging it? One of us will certainly need to see a shrink...

Friend: But what's the occasion? Did you miss wishing your wife on your wedding anniversary?

Man: Of course not! I wished her first thing in the morning, sent her flowers from my office, took her out to a candle light dinner the previous night, bought her a diamond ring and a little puppy...

Friend: Wow, so what’s the problem?

Man: You see, I didn't wish her on Facebook. She has 937 friends and now, she is dreading to log in because she wonders how they’ll react to this catastrophe. Apparently they’ll think that our marriage is coming apart and that I don't love her enough... 

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.'   

Meet the Avengers

A stunning exposé on the Avengers story that reveals how it all began as a technology project...

Nick Fury was just a nanosecond away from winning the game on his motion-controlled console when a holographic message popped up in thin air, filling the room with glowing letters and startling him. 'Go for SHIELD' it said. In an instant, it dawned on him - S.H.I.E.L.D, or Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate. It was now up to him to bring together all the members and get the team ready for action.

Nick would have loved to try out the Xbox, but an ambush marketing clause forbade him from trying out anything prefixed with X as another legion of superheroes had appropriated it. Suddenly a news item popped up on his crystal cube. A car had sprayed an invisible liquid called SmartWater - an odourless chemical with long-lasting effects - on a thief who stole a laptop and other items from it. And when he was exposed to ultraviolet light, he turned green under the glow. "I've found my Hulk," Nick whooped. But ‘Hulk becomes eco-friendly under UV light’ sounded wimpish - it had to be more dramatic. 'Hulk turns green when he gets outrageously angry' would be a more exciting way of putting it.

Nick then opened Google to further his search. A news item about the search engine giant caught his eye. In the mid-80s, Hewlett Packard had developed proprietary software which would serve as an Optical Character Recognition engine, but post-2006, Google had begun funding the project. The project’s name made Nick sit up - it was Tesseract, considered by many as the source of unlimited power! If he found the man behind Tesseract, he would find Captain America, for it was he who had battled Hitler's armies to stop it from falling into the wrong hands.

Nick then checked out for the weekly leaks, more popularly known as Wiki Leaks, to figure out if he could lay his hands on some confidential information. He stumbled upon TALOS - Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, a miracle of modern technology that gave the US Army a suit that was not only bulletproof, but could also heal wounds. Besides, it would fire weapons, have GPS and contain magnetorheological fluids that would become solid when they come in contact with electric and magnetic fields. And of course, night vision, oxygen supply, temperature control and advanced communication systems were part of standard equipment. 'Just add Augmented Reality or Google Glass and this will give the wearer superhuman strength', Nick rubbed his hands in glee. His Iron Man was ready for combat.

Hawk Eye was pulled out of a game of cricket and the Black Widow, from an Animal Planet shoot. Now, Nick needed just one more member. He didn't have to look too hard. A giant with long hair and a weird helmet strode past, effortlessly carrying a hammer over his shoulder. "Are you after Loki?" Nick asked eagerly. "No, I’m just part of a low-key maintenance project, from the PWD," came the reply. "You'll do," said Nick excitedly. Thor was found and the entire team of S.H.I.E.L.D had been assembled.

Then came the second message. 'Check out Batman – Arkham City’. Nick was stumped. He had just assembled the entire team and now they wanted Batman? "How is he a part of S.H.I.E.L.D?” he vented his fury. "The Nvidia Shield, you idiot,” came the response. “Since you were a gaming freak, thought we’d suggest the Shield – a gaming device from Nvidia.”

Nick's face fell. Now what would he do with this team? He went back to Google again. After some searching, he came across someone named Stan Lee who was looking to create action comic books. He surveyed the battery of technology that he had painstakingly put together. Would all of them now be reduced to entertainment for kids? 'Is this what they mean when they say that technology is for future generations?' he sighed and began writing a long mail to Stan. 

Who let the frog out?

The fascinating tale of how an ancient Indian folklore changed the way NASA operated.

It's a grandma’s tale about Ram and Shyam that we are all so familiar with. Ram was an honest, hard-working farmer while his neighbour Shyam was a good-for-nothing type who would always laze around in his charpoy, watching Ram toil hard in the fields. Ideally, this story should end with Ram bringing home the fruits of his labour and Shyam cursing himself for having frittered his time away. But that's where NASA stepped in - and the duo’s lives were never the same again.

NASA put out an incredible, too-good-to-be-true offer on various job portals – one that came with a pay of over $5000 a month to anyone who could spend 70 days in bed. The idea was to study the effects of microgravity on supine souls. During this time, the chosen candidates would be allowed to do as they pleased – watch TV, surf the web, read books, play games and even entertain visitors. They could have a bath in bed too. So, while Ram was sweating it out in the fields, Shyam had quietly logged into a job site on his smartphone and applied for the opening. NASA should have given him a wide berth, but looking at his credentials, they gave him a wide bed instead and sent him a terse message – ‘Houston calling Shyam, come in please!’

Ram was shocked. The biggest loser could win only in a reality show for weight loss. It couldn't happen in real life. What would happen to all the moral science lessons in textbooks? What kind of values would children grow up with? Who would extol the virtues of hard work? Ram had done all the hard work – and now, he couldn’t end up becoming the laughing stock of the village.

So he approached NASA and pleaded his case with them. After much deliberation, NASA decided that there was only one way out. The astronauts needed some fresh food that could be grown in space and consumed. Besides, space expeditions were getting longer and it was getting increasingly difficult to carry food for the trip. "What's the best crop to be grown this season?" they asked him. "Lettuce," he replied. "So be it," they said in unison and blasted him into outer space so that he could do some space farming. And that was how Operation Veggie – a vegetable production system that would facilitate nutritious salad crops for the space travellers – began. The system would ensure that the plants were under a constant stream of red and blue light so that they could carry out photosynthesis.

Ram carried everything that he needed for the job - seeds, sample plants, sacks of fertilisers, water hoses and even a tractor. Unfortunately, he had a stowaway on deck. A frog that had gone MIA in a sack of fertiliser managed to extricate itself and tried to jump ship just as the space shuttle was blasting off. And that was the famous photo of the frog that was seen during the launch of NASA’s LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) spacecraft at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

The story ended with the rabbit on the moon becoming a space raider and searching for lettuce patches in the Milky Way. The frog, after its maiden space voyage, turned into a celebrity and is currently producing and starring in cool Crazy Frog music videos. Ram and Shyam gave up farming and are focusing on their current careers with NASA. However it was not a happy ending for all. NASA, despite turning vegetarian and trying to grow couch potatoes and lettuce, got into trouble with PETA for not having taken permission to send a frog into outer space.

Good Indian folktales always have a moral – this one has two. For oldies, no matter what, technology always pays. And for youngsters, the next time your folks curse you for goofing off, please let them know that you're busy preparing for a career at NASA. 

An apple goes to the disco…

When the PC is programmed to tell jokes, Apple has to do the exact opposite - like kick-start a silent revolution.

It’s official – man goes into sleep mode without a computer in his life. From doing his work for him, playing him music and keeping him entertained, to helping him with his shopping, his finances, his banking and his social life, the device has become indispensable to man. And it was this realisation that set the stage for a milestone event.

Contrary to popular belief, the first digital revolution happened when the computer replaced the dog as man's best friend. It could do everything that its canine rival could do – it could roll over with a mouse over and play dead. It could spin circles around him, get into an endless loop and drive him mad. It could get totally bug-infected and yet not allow him to clean it up. It could even fetch the e-newspaper every morning. And to top it all, there were the unbelievable brownie points that it scored over the mutt. It didn’t have to be let out every morning to do its thing. And it didn’t have to be neutered for fear of little tablets running around the place.

But dogs can't tell jokes, while a computer can. To prove this, a team of scientists from the University of Edinburgh decided to programme a computer and make it a complete companion. (This is further proof that man and his computer are mutually compatible - think back to the 90s when there was this famous ‘Made for each other’ campaign featuring a couple where the lady was reading out from the Official Polish Joke Book and regaling her partner. Now, replace the duo with a man and his computer - there would no longer be any need for the joke book. QED.)

So the team wrote some cutting-edge software that made the computer come up with funny one-liners, thus establishing the fact that computers not only had a memory, but also a sense of humour. (It's a different matter that the jokes were not appreciated by the target groups on which they were tested, but it's just a matter of time before the project gets bought over by Google and is revamped and launched as Giggle, the joke finder.)

Interestingly, a major chunk of those who didn't enjoy the jokes were Apple fans. It's difficult to find out if the Apple brigade didn't find the jokes funny because they came from a PC or because they found them tasteless. (“Offensive jokes from a PC? Why are we not surprised? It’s been a long while since Windows shut the door on aesthetics.”) So, inspired by their fans, Apple came up with the perfect response - total silence. While the PC was making a noise about its new-found ability to create jokes, Apple quietly came up with the silent disco app.

‘Silent disco’ works by synchronising music and songs amongst a group of people who can listen to it on headphones or through their personal devices. But Apple's new technology, referred to as the roving DJ, uses the digital information of a song and matches it with all songs similar to it, so each person can dance to his favourite song playing from his device instead of everyone listening to the same song. There's more - the digital network created amongst users can be accessed by Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so a party can happen across the city, with people listening in from wherever they are. It would also be possible for people to take turns as DJs, just to ensure that the same person does not end up choosing the songs to be played.

And now, the battle lines are drawn and the jury is still out on which of the two people would fancy more - walking their computer on a leash or taking an apple to the disco. 

Caught Adam, bowled Eve

The fascinating story of how the search for Adam and Eve led to the world's bitterest cricket rivalry.

The tech world never had it so good. First came the revelation that Adam and Eve didn’t live in the same era. Cutting-edge technology was used to isolate and label several thousand mutations, through which genetic links and the building blocks of the Y-chromosome were identified. A detailed analysis of this Y-chromosome revealed that the two were strangers from different time zones. Then came the voice of dissent, which was also supported by technology. "While there's no proof of Adam and Eve having been married or having officially registered their marriage, the possibility that they were seeing each other is clearly brought out through carbon dating," claimed the idealist.

The scientist scoffed. "The state-of-the-art imaging technologies that we are using just can't be disputed. Besides our satellite measurements, we also have incredible proof through LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), an advanced aerial imaging technique, the results of which have helped us locate the Garden of Eden. And there is no sign of either Eve or of Adam’s missing rib."

"But what about the half-eaten apple thrown away by Adam? It's the world's first piece of trash," said the idealist emphatically. "We made use of ground-penetrating radar, Computed Tomography (CT) scans and also plied robotic drones into the project, through which we unearthed several middens – or old-world trash dumps. We then measured the phosphorous levels in the soil, but," the scientist shook his head, "our efforts didn’t bear fruit." The idealist decided to take on another approach to prove his theory. "The Y chromosomes get passed down only from father to son, so if Adam's gene pool contained mitochondrial genome, he had to have gotten it from his mother – Sir, you need to be looking for a mummy." And thus began the search for the world's first mummy. DNA analysis, mass spectrometry, protein analysis and several other techniques were employed to research the findings. "We need to stop here,” pleaded the scientist. “Not until we dig up all of Eden and plough through every inch of ground. Remember, only when we set sight on that mummy swathed in bandages shall we call it a wrap,” the idealist said angrily.

So laser scanning reality capture methods were used to get more details of the mummy. But the resultant 3D geometric mesh yielded nothing. Finally, a group of British researchers decided to get to the bottom of it all - and found out that the scientist had been looking in the wrong place all along. Instead of trying to locate the Garden of Eden, he had accidentally dug up Eden Gardens in Kolkata. However, two very interesting discoveries were made. The first was an ancient scroll that contained undecipherable text. On using Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), the researchers realised that the text had a curiously strange resemblance to something the cricketing world was familiar with. One of the researchers – also a freelance member of the Barmy Army – let out a whoop. “This is the origin of the Duckworth-Lewis formula that’s being used to decide truncated one-day matches – no wonder it’s undecipherable.” Besides, with the BCCI not yet under the RTI (Right To Information) ambit, further attempts to decipher Duckworth-Lewis was discouraged and the system was deemed fit to be followed worldwide.

The second discovery was even more significant - it was an urn filled with Mishti Doi (a traditional Bengali dessert) that looked slightly burnt, with the word aashun - meaning 'come' in Bengali – inscribed on it. It is not known whether it was a formal proposal from Adam, asking for Eve’s hand in marriage or asking her to lend a hand for dinner, but in their haste to take back a piece of Indian history – something they were really good at – the team from UK took the urn back home, quickly changed aashun to the Ashes and taunted the Aussies with the lure of sweet success. The rest, as they unfortunately say, is history.

The Kleenex strikes back

Television finds itself threatened by an adversary with a much smaller screen - the mobile phone.

The head honchos of several GECs (General Entertainment Channels) got into a huddle with a bunch of techies. Things were just getting worse for them - on one hand, their ad revenue was shrinking with the cap on the advertising air time per hour. And on the other, people were spending too much time on their mobiles. It was fine as long as it was restricted to commercial breaks - there were so many of them. But now, with the number of ads being drastically cut down, all their mobile activities were happening during prime time television, when the soaps were on. Predictably, TRPs began sliding.

"I can't believe this. It should be ‘them’ who should be sitting in front of the idiot box with these boxes,” the head of a regional GEC pointed to a box of Kleenex as he bawled into a fresh tissue. “Instead…” he couldn’t continue any further. Another channel head was deep in thought. "We need to do something about those mobiles...” He looked at the techies, one of whom spoke up. "A London-based start-up has created a tracking system that locates where the audience is and plays ads in their mobiles. We can use it to play recaps of the earlier episodes of your soaps in 60 second loops that will stop only when the viewers sit in front of the TV and take their hands off the mobile." The channel heads were overjoyed.

When the viewing millions realised what was happening, they were furious. "They didn't even seek our permission to flood our mobiles with their content. We have to retaliate." They went to the same set of techies who were only too happy to make more money. And they came up with Off Pocket, a mobile case that was capable of blocking any signal - cellular, Wi-Fi or GPS. "Slip your mobile into this and it will be impossible for anyone to track it or send any reminders," they assured them. The GECs were back to square one and went back to the techies, who were ready with another solution.

"Every mobile has an energy source that emits radiation - we can use infrared sensors coupled with the latest thermal cameras to locate these phones." 'Must be like the HotSpot technology in cricket,' thought the executive from the GEC that showed a lot of T20 as well. Soon the mobile phones couldn't stay hidden and the trackers were back at work again, inundating each phone with hours of episodes and reminders, until the bleary-eyed viewers couldn't take it anymore. They trudged back to the techie team.

"Not a problem," said the team leader, "we have the perfect answer for that too. We'll make your mobiles virtually unrecognizable and so small that no tracking system can locate them." So they created tiny mobiles with ultra-strong micro-supercapacitors that made SIM Cards look like visiting cards in comparison. And with the supercapacitors being so light and flexible, the mobile phones ended up looking like tiny buttons. So life went on smoothly, with audiences staying engrossed with their phones and the channels working themselves into a lather over their soaps faring badly.

The GEC heads, driven to despair, called for another meeting. "The management is clearly bored of directors dishing out the same drivel on the channel," began a channel head. However, the others were too busy with their mobiles, checking their respectiveshow ratings, and ignored him. "Why are you guys phubbing me?" he demanded, feeling irritated. "What's that?" the others asked, unfamiliar with the term. "Phubbing - it's snubbing others by getting busy with the phone when they're talking." "If snubbing people with a phone is called phubbing, what's snubbing soaps with phones called?" one asked. "Sobbing?" suggested another helpfully.

And that's the reason why, to this day, die-hard fans of soaps are seen sobbing as they watch their favourite characters go through one trauma after another, five days a week.

Thumbs up to the three-finger salute

When fingers get into trouble because of smartphones, trust technology to lend a helping hand.

It's official. Mobile phones are causing a lot of damage to our fingers. And now that the royal heir is born, England have retained the Ashes and the UK economy is looking up, a leading cellular service provider from the Queen’s own country has decided to give their nation – and the world – something new to talk about and thereby increase their revenue. That ‘something new’ has turned out to be Thumbells, or dumbbells for the thumb. The product has been created to heal sore thumbs and strengthen them for more action, coming shortly in the form of 4G.

If the United Kingdom could do so much for its 83 million subscribers, can India, with over 10 times that subscriber base, be left far behind? While the nation keeps its fingers crossed, a group of tech wizards with their fingers on the pulse of the common man have come up with a list of innovations that are finger-licking good. And since different people message differently, the innovations are varied, so that the whizzes can have a finger in every pie. Here’s a sneak peek:

The Vulcan Nerve Pinch: Who would have thought that the ‘Control-Alt-Delete’ routine that we've been practising for years to revive our dying computers would resuscitate our lifeless fingers as well? Special gyms with long rows of keyboards are being proposed where the manoeuvre – involving the thumb and two other fingers – can be practised 20 times a day.

Thummunity: Several online groups are being planned where finger gymmers can form a Thummunity - a Thumb Community. (Other fingers can be included through referrals, and will be called members.) Sister associations of the Thummunity are also planned – these will be called Fingerlings. One of the highlights of these associations will be a forum that would offer ‘fingertips’ - useful suggestions for finger exercises. There will also be a medical forum titled 'Have you been fingered?' which will have experts from the medical community addressing questions on the problems and solutions concerning damaged fingers and their rehabilitation.

Fingerbook: Fingerbook is a variation of Facebook, soon to be announced by the social media biggie. Why Fingerbook? "Because," said a senior programmer on conditions of anonymity, "if you can use your fingers to update Facebook, why can't you use your face to update Fingerbook?" The idea was to rest one’s digits and use other body parts, like the face, for instance. This revolutionary thought has given rise to a new form of communication, called Chilbow.

Chilbow: Just because your fingers are in rehab, you can't afford to not check mail or update your Facebook status. So, to cash in on this thought, a tech entrepreneur has cashed in on the big bucks of several angel investors and has found a unique way of updating Facebook – or Fingerbook – posts. Called Chilbow, it’s a technique where one uses one's chins and elbows to update status messages, upload photos and videos, and like posts from their friends. Since behavioural patterns on Facebook already involve giving one the cold shoulder, having tongues wag, getting nosy and putting one’s foot firmly in the mouth, plans are on to expand the scope of this new communication technique.

Full-finger workout: This routine helps exercise all 10 fingers together and involves enacting the nursery rhyme 'One Little Finger' five times a day. But for those who think it’s child’s play, suitable exercises that involve imbibing nicely chilled, golden-brown liquids from large glass mugs could do the trick. This not only exercises all five fingers, but also the wrist. More for information, google Oktoberfest.

All the ideas were well-appreciated and made the founders richer with several rounds of funding, until one day, the bubble burst. Fingers were no longer needed to interact with mobiles – a girl from Goa had come up with gesture recognition.

You err, it stirs…

The story of how technology made the world tremble each time a spelling mistake was made...

What do you get when you put together a processor, some memory, Linux OS, vibration mode, motion sensor and Wi-Fi capabilities? A computer, of course. Now, what happens when you add some ink and a nib to this contraption? You get a digital pen that vibrates when it spots spelling mistakes or illegible writing.

The pulsating pen has steadily been writing its own success story in traditional and social media.  And while the world stands agape at this new invention, India can only stand aside and yawn. From doors that shut themselves till eternity if a wrong password is uttered, to ghosts that give the slip when the wrong answer is given to their question, we’ve seen it all in our mythological movies, haven’t we?

However, since science is always given preference over movies in our media, people have gone suitably ga-ga over the invention. And just when the pen is all set to chalk its own course, the naysayers (read manufacturers of ordinary gel pens and ball pens) have embarked on Project Sabotage, to make sure that the success story of the pen springs a leak. Here’s their side of the argument:

“Imagine students writing their exams with this pen. They would start trembling the minute they make a mistake. Schools would then inform their parents who would start wondering if their child had contracted examophobia, testitis, quizzaria or worse. This could in turn lead to child psychiatrists working overtime and minting money. The DVD sales of Taare Zameen Par will skyrocket all over again, with everyone wanting to know if a) their kid has a problem and b) Aamir would visit their kid’s school as well.

There would also be other problems if the minicomputer inside became virus-infected. Parents would have a tough time sending leave letters to their kid's school stating that their ward be excused from attending classes for two days because his pen had crashed. Schools would simply refuse to entertain such nonsense.

Doctors could also have a serious problem if they used the pen to write prescriptions. The digital pen would go hyper trying to decipher every squiggle of theirs – from Aspirin to Zinetac, not a word of their indecipherable writing would make sense to the pen, so it would protest and vibrate non-stop. And most pens would give up, with their mini on-board computer going into a freeze each time the doctor started prescribing medicines. 'Patient alive, pen dead' would be the common refrain heard in the corridors of every dispensary. Even if the pens survived this graphologic nightmare, the doctors wouldn't be able to handle so many vibrations each minute and would be forced to seek medical assistance or an assistant, as the case may be.

There could also be serious issues if the pen were to be used in courts - judges and lawyers would appear to be under severe pressure if the hand that wrote the verdict trembled because of the vibration. The battery could be a problem as well - what if the pen ran out of charge and the writer had 750 episodes left in his daily soap? And what if the battery leaked, creating a short-circuit and sending coroners into a state of severe shock each time they signed a death certificate?”

Adding support to this argument, another anti-pen faction began a movement to bring back the pencil and oust the digital pen. Called Pencil-in, ‘the vaccine for trembling hands’, this movement suggested an innovation which would be so advanced that it would make the vibrating pen obsolete. The pen was able to point out mistakes made, but this innovation would do better - it would carry an implant that would actually help remove the error. This attachment needed no maintenance, microchip, software, power source or upgrades. It wouldn't hang or get corrupt.

And that was how pencils with an eraser at the other end were born. 

Revenge of the rubber duckie

Responding to the trauma inflicted on animals in labs, the animal kingdom hits back where it hurts most – at technology.

It was the ultimate tale of revenge ever planned and executed. For centuries, man had indiscriminately used animals for his experiments. And one fine day, the animals decided that enough was enough, as opposed to man's firm belief that the world is not enough, a philosophy he imbibed from an entity appropriately named Everything Or Nothing.

So the entire zoological universe went to the asinine community for advice because they knew exactly how man thought – after all, man was spending most of his life making an ass of himself. "We need to make him powerless,” announced the head ass. “What is the one thing that he can't do without?" "Mobile phones, internet, social networking sites..." the answers came, fast and furious. “In other words, technology,” the ass declared triumphantly. "So let's take that away from him by infiltrating into the tech domain and making him redundant."

The move had to be slow, but persistent. The bug was sent in first, in 1946. No one suspected a thing. Soon, the mouse scurried in, followed by the virus and the worm. Meanwhile, the dog felt terribly insulted at his exclusion, so the three-headed dog from Greek mythology, Kerberos, became a network authentication protocol. Python, a programming language and Tomcat, a web server, too got in unobserved. The penguin moved in as Tux, the Linux mascot, computer data storage was taken over by RAM and the gnu became an operating system. The infiltration process was complete. It was now time for takeover.

The dove interrupted the proceedings. "What we are doing - it isn't fair." "Really?" the ass sneered. "Do you know that the humans pinched all their technology from us? They took echolocation from bats, navigation systems form pigeons, industrial adhesives from geckos, cancer-detecting microchips from jellyfish, streamlined Bullet trains from a kingfisher's bill and highway reflectors from cats' eyes? And what have we got in return? Send our troop of monkeys now."

The question 'How many monkeys would it take to type out the entire works of Shakespeare?' started off being an extension of the light bulb joke, but what man didn't realise was that the apes had taken it seriously. Soon, they collaborated on 'Going simian with Shakespeare', a virtual project involving virtual keyboards, and virtually came up with the entire unabridged collection - okay, they had succeeded in recreating 99.990% of it. Suddenly, the data entry industry found a new source of entry level operators, and by making themselves available in large numbers, the chimps not only solved IT's constant problem of manpower shortage, but also agreed to work for peanuts.

Meanwhile the ass, while playing Donkey Kong, accidentally clicked on a web banner for Flipkart and ended up ordering a book titled 'The Pragmatic Programmer'. To his delight, he discovered a life-altering fact - a programmer had used a rubber duck to debug code. (Actually, the programmer would carry the rubber duck with him and explain the entire code line by line to it, during the course of which he would figure out the problem himself, but attributed the final results to his rubber duckie.) This was wonderful news. If rubber ducks could repair Java code, imagine what live ducks could do! And it was thus that the animals took to technology like a duck to water.

What's going to happen when the animals take over the tech world entirely remains to be seen. But rumours are abound that once the monkeys are through with Shakespeare, they will be working on an original book, titled Man Farm, where men will be playing the roles of pigs, horses and other animals. A hi-tech movie is also on the anvil, featuring lots of special effects and a giant human being venturing into a forest, tentatively titled Manzilla.

The loony side of technology

Strange things happen when the world’s most popular tech company begins to play with balloons.

The top brass at Google were facing a bizarre situation - they were running out of names for their projects. 

Not only were there so many experiments at the Google X lab, but there was stiff competition from fellow technology companies that were appropriating several nomenclatures when naming their products. For instance, Google could never think of naming its venture after a dessert, not while Android, its own acquisition, was around. Nor could it name its projects after wild cats when Apple was using the same line of thought for its OS X.

It was also a challenge for Google because after Google Earth, Google Space and Google Sky, the other natural elements couldn’t follow. Google Air wasn't possible because Nike had already appropriated that turf. Nor could Google Fire happen, thanks to Kindle Fire. Besides, Google was in no mood to compete with Deepa Mehta and have projects that shared their names with her movie titles. So they did away with the natural elements fixation and chose to work with balloons instead.

Balloons would be sent into the ozone for the good of humanity (Now you know why Google’s slogan is 'Don't be evil'). The G-team picked up around 40 giant helium-filled balloons, loaded them with hi-tech hardware and some mind-blowing software, and launched them skywards. Now, seeing giant objects in the sky can lead to one of two things - paranoia or speculations of paranormal activities. The former had some basis as people were already scared that Google could read their mail. (“How else would those ads for Thai massage and Ting Ling lingerie magically appear in the right side panel?”) And now, with those balloons looking down from the stratosphere, what if they managed to peep through strategically positioned bathroom ventilators and clicked snaps at 60 frames a second, in fast, continuous shooting mode? Worse, what if these snaps were accidentally discovered in Google maps, when one searched for 2nd Main Road, Indira Nagar and then zoomed in?

However, the public was assured that no such thing was going to happen and that the balloons were up there purely to provide internet connectivity in remote places like the Swiss Alps. (Though Bollywood will now have to worry about crew members leaking out songs even as they are being shot, on the positive side, mountaineers will no longer have to plant flags or leave behind a plaque that says that they made it there - they can simply update their Facebook status.)

Masses of floating objects invariably lead to mass hysteria that the aliens are landing, and the balloons were sure to cause a scare. Out of sheer concern for the palpitating public, Google decided not to call the initiative Project UFO - Unerringly Finding Objects. Instead they chose to name it after the balloons themselves.

But ‘Project Balloon’ or ‘Google Balloon’ didn't have that ring to it. So the option was to split the word balloon and use part of it. They couldn’t name it Project Ball - all those cool images of Google offices and Google employees having fun had already given them quite a reputation. Now, a name like that would only make people who had a sneaking suspicion about Google employees having a ball, absolutely sure of the fact that Google employees were indeed having a ball. Hence they took the latter part of balloon and named it 'Project Loon'. For all those who thought that sending balloons into the air for connecting people (Nokia simply had two people shake hands) was the nuttiest thing one can do, this played right into their hands – just go online to see the kind of puns and jokes doing the rounds now.

Thus, through its helium-powered, High Altitude Platforms (HAP) set aloft 12 miles above the earth, using advanced flight control systems, solar panels and internet circuit boards, Google succeeded in proving a century-old hypothesis - technology's a lot of hot air.

Searching without Google…

Civilisation explores its dark side and embarks on a dangerous experiment – one that doesn’t involve technology.

On November 22, 2012, disaster struck the world – actually, it struck just parts of Australia, but since their cricket team was getting beaten by every other country, the nation decided to adopt the American motto of 'We are the world' and focus only on its Big Bash league. And thus, the disaster was dubbed to be one of global proportions.

A telecom major suffered a blackout because of a fire and it led to a world that was left bereft of technology. Research indicates that on an average, people had to spend 10.59 days without internet, 10.12 days without a landline and 4.21 days without mobile phone service. However, what the research failed to measure was the volume of tears shed by many – living without technology was bad news, but if there was something worse than feeling bad, it was the fact that no one could post how they felt, online.

Soon light dawned on mankind. The blackout wasn’t when they lost access to technology - it was that prolonged era when they had become slaves to technology. The wise men congregated and soon, arrived at a decision. "We've survived for centuries before computers, so why should we be so dependent on them in the ‘after digital’ era?"

Thus technology found itself booted out of many houses. Door-to-door salesmen of atlases, dictionaries and encyclopedias hit jackpot as GPS apps, online thesauri and Google search were abandoned. Kumon classes were over-attended with great zeal as people realised that they had to learn to calculate all over again. Memory Plus tablets (or the equivalent of it Down Under) set new sales records as everyone tried to remember birthdays and phone numbers - the absence of mobile phones meant no birthday alarms or contact lists.

Even old-fashioned mechanical clock businesses that had wound up long ago reopened their shops because digital clocks and LED displays were no longer permitted inside homes. Manual cameras and film were back in vogue and people were spared close-up shots of shoe laces, saliva dribbles of dogs, and of lizards eating moths – luckily for them, both community websites and digital cameras were out.

Banks resumed their duty of being a social hangout for the retired types and pickpockets enjoyed a new lease of life, with people carrying cash instead of credit cards. Post offices did brisk business, selling truckloads of envelopes and letters, while dogs were delighted as more postmen began coming around. Hallmark and Archies were so overwhelmed by the unexpected demise of e-cards that they promptly announced a new occasion to be celebrated - the Kick Tech Butt day.

So life was chugging along merrily, until things came to a grinding halt. Over the years, Facebook had changed people's habits as they didn't have to peek into others' homes, look through keyholes or eavesdrop by the window to know what was going on with the world – the regular status updates would say it all. But now, without social networking sites, it was getting increasingly difficult to find out what people wore in their holidays, how husbands wished wives on their anniversaries and where people binged the previous night. The old-age art of keeping tabs on the neighbours had become extinct. Society went into a deep freeze – people simply had no idea as to what was happening in others’ lives.

It was utterly disgusting. "These days, what happens in the family," a socially challenged citizen lamented, "stays in the family." And that was the last straw. Unable to bear it anymore, people threw open the doors to technology once again. The laptops, mobiles, tablets and the internet connection were back. "Never again," muttered the scarred veterans as they shook their heads gravely.

And they all lived happily ever after, kick-starting the celebrations with the latest status update - Avi was going to wear a pink ribbon around his neck when wishing his wife on their 23^rd wedding anniversary. 

Can't touch this...

Technology reveals a new world of communication where it’s cool to be ‘out of touch’.

For years, touch was considered an important part of communication – until it took a young girl from Goa to tear through the scratch guard, break through the guerrilla glass touchscreen and create a touch-free revolution in mobile technology. To the mobile phone junkie, this translates into a future where he wouldn't have to touch a thing to be in touch with the world.

So, one doesn’t ‘touch’ a mobile phone anymore, how does one communicate? Through gestures, of course. The next generation of phones is being prepared for gesture recognition through '3dim', or high quality 3-d sensing achieved through patented signal processing methods. So, instead of issuing commands to your mobile through touch, you can use a set of hand movements that it can recognize and respond to.

But interpreting gestures and signs can be a pretty confusing affair – at times, the same gesture could mean different things to different people, like the famous Indian head bobble. To avoid the muddle that gesture recognition could cause, technology has come up with a few alternatives that could help us communicate, both with our mobiles and with one another.

Accoustech: A technology that uses acoustics to help mobile phones convey a message – this is in complete irreverence to the silent mode. Mobiles will henceforth use sounds, like snarling noises to indicate year-end appraisal, childlike laughter to signal wife leaving town, sobs to announce that your favourite serial is beginning – and loud growls to indicate hunger.

Chromatech: This technology works through chromatic gradations - or colour changes that the mobile displays. Bright shades of yellow indicate that gold prices have come down, red communicates a bad feeling that the prices have gone down further after your gold shopping, green indicates that the neighbours got a better deal than you did, and shades of black and blue point out that what you’ve bought is not even 18 carat gold. Employers can also use this technology to find out if their employees are faking a fever and playing hooky, by holding their mobile close to them - if it turns pink, they are in good health and are fit enough to work.

Optech: This uses an optical mode of communication. The wallpaper and the display of the mobile screen change based on your mood, from bright, happy flowers and tranquil waterfalls to Megadeth skulls and Ghost Rider close-ups. Other display techniques include a change in opacity and dual tones, for the Gemini types or for those in two minds.

Aromatech: This technology enables your mobile to release various aromas that can convey a message. Digital scent technology has been around for some time now - so why not make use of it? It could also help employees alert their colleagues who are goofing off. A quick garlic and BO whiff from their mobile would be enough to let them know that the boss is approaching their desk.

Statech: Using technology that releases static pulsations, mobiles resort to communication of the seismic kind, thereby giving the good old vibration mode its share of the limelight. This method allows the mobile to sense its owner's mood and pass on messages through a series of vibrations. So when someone sends you a message about a big question mark on IPL 7, your mobile will make sure that you look appropriately shaken up.

Energetech: This is cutting-edge technology of the energetic kind, in the form of shock impulses that involve electroreception. In other words, the mobile carries your message in the form of an impulse. If the recipient is carrying his mobile in his person, the effect would be telling - or screaming, depending on the intensity of the shock.

Note: All the new technologies were created by taking traditional communication methods used by animals and changing the 'tic' in their names into tech. All of them are deemed fictional until the time someone really comes up with them.

Technology in sleep mode

Finally, a research document on how our sleeping positions are linked to technology.

It’s a revelation that has come as a wake-up call – who would have thought that our sleeping positions would actually reveal our technology preferences!

Foetal

Those who sleep in the foetal position were born with a USB cord instead of an umbilical cord and consider themselves to be technology’s children. They are known to worry unnecessarily – has that mobile been charged? What if the laptop performed the ‘blue screen of death’ act tomorrow? They are also known to be sensitive inside and cannot handle any kind of rejection, especially of the password kind. Imagine being denied the pleasure of checking the number of ‘awwws’ that a cute family photo uploaded earlier on Facebook has received – it’s things like this that make them curl up in the foetal position.

Log

The Log people sleep on their sides with their arms close to their body – being stubborn by nature, they cannot tolerate any change in technology. This translates into a resounding ‘no’ to the new Chrome browser that they are asked to check out every time they log into Gmail, and to the latest smartphone that the ads glorify, despite the fact that their ancient Motorola mobile frequently gets mistaken for the TV remote. They are also known to be gullible and often end up trusting Mr. John Smith from the UK who asks for their bank details to transfer his entire fortune to them, or Ms. Thandiwe Traore from Nigeria asking for some urgent help as she is stranded amongst cannibals and needs money to bribe them and escape. 

Yearner

Yearners are known to sleep on their sides with their arms stretched out– a habit that comes from checking their mails and messages even as they walk. And as their name suggests, they yearn for the latest version of any technology – be it iPhone 6 or Google’s self-driven car. They are also chronic time wasters, which automatically makes them any social networking site’s delight.

Freefaller

Freefallers sleep on their stomachs with their arms outstretched, gripping their pillow – almost as if they are holding on for dear life to what they have. Technology has let them down so many times that they are reduced to nervous wrecks, always anticipating that stinker mail from the client or that disaster call from work in the middle of the night. So subconsciously, they are forever ready to pick up that mobile from their bedside on first ring, which explains why their arms are outstretched. As for gripping their pillow, it’s a sign that they have spent weary years clutching the printer that typically went haywire minutes before a presentation.

Soldier

Imagine standing in attention – and dropping into bed in the same position. That’s the soldier position, and people who sleep in this position tend to be militant about their technology as well. You’ll never catch them downloading stuff onto their computers, checking out apps for their mobile or looking at online deals greedily for the next best sale in town. ‘Soldier’ sleepers have a tendency to snore because of their sleeping position– if only the technology that was kind enough to offer us a sleep mode could give them a silent mode.

Starfish

Researchers have related the starfish position – where people sleep on their back with their arms spread out around the pillow – to a friendly disposition. Just prop them up in front of a terminal in that very pose and you’ll realize how apt the description is. Sitting with their arms wrapped around the monitor, with their face almost into it, ‘Starfish’ sleepers spend hours on chats and Skype calls, listening to the problems of the world and offering their help.

Note: All sleeping positions are real, but all associations to technology have been fabricated. The scope of this research was restricted to sleeping positions at home – those at the workplace have not been considered.

Splitting hairs on technology

What technology gives, technology takes. Here’s some hair-raising proof…

There are two kinds of people in this world – the haves, who are of the hirsute variety and are desperate to lose some hair, and the have-nots, who would do anything to get the fuzz back on their head. However, both have one thing in common – they are both running a fine-toothed comb through technology, to find an answer.

While records reveal that the haves have had a close shave with technology, the hair clinics have been bombarding the have-nots with messages like ‘Hair on, or happiness gone’. And it’s working, because it’s common knowledge that while it can get lonely at the top, it certainly can't get sparse. So these hair clinics used cutting-edge technology to come up with Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT). Of course, looking at the current crop of cricketers and commentators, one realises that the transplant has to be done carefully or the result would be closer to a fruit than FUT, what with the 'FUT head' resembling a pineapple.

Another key advancement is the laser light treatment which promises not only to make light of the baldness problem, but also make the future of bald pates brighter and put a mane on man. Called photobiostimulation, the technique has resulted in stimulating the economy of several countries to a large extent, with billions of dollars being spent on GDP (Gross Development of Pilus). Cloning has become another rage, with cells from a strand of human hair being cloned into thousands of replicas, all of which could be planted in the barren areas. It didn't matter if people suddenly had no resemblance to their mug shots in their passport or driver's license - it was a case of prioritising social recognition over facial recognition.

However, there is another school of thought that is losing hair at the very mention of laser light being used to grow hair. Wasn't laser technology supposed to aid hair removal in the first place? Refusing to be drawn into petty fights involving the laser ("That's more Darth Vader's domain, isn't it?"), the beauty industry worked in close collaboration with the medical fraternity - much like a shampoo and conditioner - and came up with the Intense Pulsed Light (IPL), which helps in hair removal and in photorejuvenation (a technical term for looking refreshed and youthful in a photo after an IPL session).

There’s a very simple law of physics which says that light travels from a bulb to an object. IPL simply reverses this law and light - an entire spectrum of it - is made to penetrate the skin and travel to the bulb - of the hair, at its roots. Disputing any law generates a lot of heat and it is apparently this heat that destroys the hair, shaft and all.

But there are issues with it. The variable pricing could make people's hairs stand on end. And it's certainly not advisable for pregnant women and people with sensitive skin. Besides, areas where hair removal has been done should not be exposed to harsh sunlight. (In Chennai, that would mean not having an IPL session all year.) Reports also have it that the treatment may not be entirely painless.

To all those looking for an option, may we suggest the IPL (Indian Premier League). With nine teams, 200 players, 496 sponsors, 12,496 runs, 219,865 ads and 4,780,961 tweets, you have enough stats to make you want to tear your hair out. Following it on the mobile or on your tablet calls for a bit of technology, but look at the positive side of things - it's absolutely free.

Besides, who would have thought that technology's worthy answer to DHT (dihydrotestosterone – the hormone responsible for baldness in men) would be DTH?

A future gone wrong

The dumbest predictions about the future – and how most of them turned out to be right.

The men who supposedly saw the future said things that bordered on the ridiculous, but on closer inspection, one has to confess that they came pretty close to nixing it. Here is a list of such forecasts on technology.

This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. — A memo at Western Union, circa 1878.

In other words, the folks from the 19^th century simply hung up on the telephone. Considering the fact that one can't send and receive sms-es, download ring tones, play games, surf the net or catch up on Facebook using the telephone, one has to admit that it does have too many shortcomings to be seriously considered a means of communication. Truly a device that’s inherently of no value to us – couldn’t they have made it smarter, like the smartphone perhaps?

Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. — Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.

One will never know what made the bigwigs at 20^th Century Fox switch off at the very mention of television, but it is a fact that people did get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. And that was how TV evolved to its current hot, wall-mounted avatar. Now, it was up to people to get tired of staring at a plastic frame-mounted LED screen every night, but the TV guys were too smart to let that happen. They came up with IPL.

Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia. — Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.

Intense research was done to figure out if the passengers would be able to withstand the breakneck speeds at which trains travelled initially, often clocking 15 miles an hour effortlessly. Eventually, serendipity helped uncover the cause of asphyxiation and difficulty in breathing – it was the stench from the toilets. Ever since, trains began a new era in transportation and have progressed to operating at over 200 miles per hour.

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. – Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

Though this is as erroneous as Bill Gates' ‘640k memory ought to be enough for anybody’ quote, it’s a pretty accurate estimation of the number of computers currently being sold in India, what with everyone opting for tablets, phablets and piglets (when playing Angry Birds, that is).

The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain. - Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, circa 1530s.

The world took him seriously and soon, the sale of books went down dramatically (barring those titles that had shades of grey in them). But then, blogs came into our lives – everyone wanted to blog, be read and eventually be published. Today, the multitude of blogs is a great evil. There's no limit to this fever for writing; everyone must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain.

Computers in the future will weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949

Haven't you heard your colleagues huff and puff with their laptops, claiming that they weighed a ton? Close enough.

Losing the human touch

By the year 2020, technology had almost ruined cinema – this is how the industry fought back.

April 6, 2020. It has been 125 years since the first visual special effect – the stop action technique that helped replace an actor with a dummy seamlessly - was demonstrated on film. Ever since, technology has played a major role in evolving cinema, from black and white to colour and from silent movies to talkies... Unfortunately, it did not stop there.

During the initial years, movies had been more about people, their lives and their stories. When technology came into the picture, visual effects took a giant leap, with matte techniques that blended multiple shots to create an illusion. Special effects like the Schüfftan process allowed miniature sets to be shown like Godzilla’s penthouse and made actors look the size of Gremlins in front of them. This removed the need for large sets, and consequently, scores of set designers, art directors and carpenters saw their careers being pulled down.

Rear and front projection ensured that big budget outdoor shots could be completed indoors by projecting the background on a screen. Chroma keying allowed the film to be shot with a blue screen or a green screen as a backdrop - the background could be added later, during post production. Suddenly, locations were no longer so important. The Swiss Alps could be added at the director’s leisure to a Bollywood song – and with that, location scouts, location managers and coordinators lost their way in the industry.

3D computer-generated imagery (CGI) led to animated images vying with live actors for space in the movies. Soon animated characters – dinosaurs, giant snakes, aliens and ghosts - began to star in movies, leaving actors to play mere supporting roles. Entire movies were set in simulated environments and virtual worlds. Motion capture made it easier to use humans, capture their movements and facial expressions, and then create animated characters that would represent them on screen. Since these characters were created using software, costumes and make-up became redundant – the careers of costume designers, costume supervisors, make-up artists and scores of tailors simply came apart at the seams.

Soon movies became more about technology and less about people. What began as a collective effort of hundreds of people was soon reduced to a bunch of tech geeks making a movie. The last straw was when filmmakers realized that actors were no longer needed – they could be replicated on screen using CGI. The casting director, the casting agent and the casting couch soon found themselves without a role to play in the business.

Soon even actors began finding it difficult to find work – their computer generated counterparts filled in for them adequately. (Besides, producers were glad to do away with star tantrums, long breaks, big egos, bigger vanity vans, their burgeoning entourage and the huge monies they demanded.) But audiences the world over began to get restless. The magic was missing and soon they stopped going to the theatres. In the beginning, it was mistaken to be the onslaught of television. In the 80s, it was attributed to home videos and a decade later, piracy was made the fall guy. Finally, it took the utter failure of Avatar VII – the Titanic goes to Mars, for the film fraternity to realize what had gone wrong. The audience was missing the human element.

To bring back actors on screen would be regressive. Technology was doing a great job of simulating them in the movies. How else could one get the audience to see real people on screen? “For at least 5-10 minutes, if not the entire duration,” theatre owners pleaded. Much thought went into it and finally, after intense research, the experts found the solution.

And that was how, starting April 1, 2020, the newsreel came back into our lives. 

Be what your boss wants you to be

There's a big difference between working hard and working smart - and that's where technology comes into play.

As humans, most of us spend over 30% of our life at work. And when we transmogrify into mules, donkeys and dogs at the workplace, the number increases alarmingly to 50%. Spending half our lives in the office is bad enough, so why make it worse by working hard as well? The problem is, most of us don't know the difference between working hard and working smart.

This is explained better by ‘Gates Theory of Diminishing Productivity’, which states that 20% of all employees spend 80% of their time staring at Windows Office while the other 80% spend 100% of their time staring out of their office windows. In other words, what you choose to stare at determines how hardworking you are.

One of the first steps to making your boss believe that you’re the man is by making your presence felt in conference rooms, during brainstorming sessions, meetings and presentations. What you need to do is spew jargon until it impresses the right people. Just google for ‘bullshit generator’ - and you'll be surprised at the sheer volume of bovine droppings present online. So how do these corporate poop creators work? By stacking three columns of words, of which the first set could be actions, the second, descriptors and the third, systems, for instance. So, at your command, the site pulls out a word randomly from each column, puts them together and magically creates phrases for you to fling around, like ' mesh best-of-breed architectures', 'integrate user-centric paradigms' or 'disintermediate enterprise supply-chains'. If you’re in IT, there are sites that specialize in jargon that might interest you, like 'beta-test authentic APIs', 'capture peer-to-peer blogospheres' and 'share semantic tagclouds'.

If you need something a bit more pompous to suit the environment, go for sites that create entire statements, like 'Double-digit throughput increase impact compliant market opportunities reaped from our organic efficiency gain, whereas the clients enhance the situational paradigms'. A statement like this has enough bullshit to power you to the corner cabin. If you are in HR and have the unenviable job of handing over titles to a million minions, ("Make it fancy and impressive or we'll leave - CTS is hiring") opt for sites that can generate job titles. Fancy designations like Customer Usability Associate, Dynamic Quality Representative and Forward Assurance Architect are sure to leave your employees in such a state of euphoria that you won’t have to give them a raise.

Besides the conference room, another key location in your office where appearing busy and seeming productive helps is your workstation. A simple but effective way to do that is by downloading an Excel sheet screensaver that will make it look as if you are busy working on an Excel file whenever your computer is idle, which is probably the whole day. If you can't download the file because of admin restrictions, fear not. You could make it more authentic by converting your existing Excel sheet into a screensaver – check out any of the zillion websites available for this purpose.

So the choice is really between what Garfield says and what Garfield says. You could go with the former President of the United States, James A Garfield, who said, "If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it", or concur with Garfield the cat who believed, "Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?" If you believe in the latter, you’re in luck - technology is right here to give you a helping hand. 

If only mobiles could talk...

If you think technology has made our lives complicated, spare a thought for the mobiles…

Ask any mobile and it will tell you that one of the biggest problems it faces is Electro Mannetic Radiation (EMR) – in other words, harmful radiation from man - in the form of body odour and bad breath – that can send it into a state of shock. The problem is not only limited to such unsafe emission, but also to prolonged exposure to nonsensical conversations carried out by people with suboptimal intelligence. This is measured by mobiles in SAR - Simply Awful Rants. The next generation of mobile phones have been instructed to choose their owners based on the SAR ratings as high SAR values can spell doomsday for them.

Research has also shown that mobiles suffer from acute thermal effects because of staying pressed to the face of the speaker, as a result of which his body heat gets to the phone. Phones suffering from this problem have reported several symptoms, ranging from faded and jaded display screens to a sense of numbness, where they don’t respond to touch. Other symptoms include needless vibration during the most inappropriate of times, erratic sleep modes, partial or complete memory loss, poor reaction times and occasional blank calls.

A few mobiles decided to save themselves through an ingenious technique – they would die on their human owner in the middle of a call, leaving him stranded in mid-stride, mid-sentence and hopefully in the middle of the street that he was crossing. But man’s power of coercion is legendary - he would take the mobile apart, pull the battery out, rub it against his dirty jeans or worse, and put it back. So mobiles quietly went back to work, fearing infections. Besides, worse things could happen to them. They could be sent to some shady service centre in the neighbourhood, where their body parts could be removed and sold at exorbitant prices abroad.

Meanwhile, the mobile union has risen up in arms, protesting against the way mobiles are being exploited. "In the good old days, there were only GSM and CDMA to contend with - and life was simpler,” sighed a clunky Motorola with a gargantuan antenna sticking out of its head. “We just had to make and receive calls and send a few sms-es - even these were rationed because of high air time costs. But now, with Wi-Fi, AR, QR, 3D G-Sensors, motion gaming and other equally complicated jargon, we are so confused that when there’s an incoming call, we start hunting for an app to attend to it.”

A few other mobiles decided to use their ‘size zero’ look to their advantage and would hide amidst files and books, or slip into the gaps between car seats or sofas, thus making it impossible for the owner to find them, especially if they were on silent and the vibration mode was not on. The humans would invariably lure them out of their hiding places, with threats of getting a new mobile.

Some mobiles went for snazzy covers and scratch guards that were actually shields against human radiation. It saved them from all the wheezes and sneezes, the coughs and laughs, all of which drenched them with germs. The Association of Intolerant Radio devices Trying to Impede Mobile Extinction (AIRTIME) finally came up with an idea that would save mobiles from all these problems - hands-free technology. The farther mobiles were from men, the safer they would be.

The other option would have been to construct a radiation shield that would protect all mobiles from such harmful emission, but the mobiles would have to wait at least until the end of 2013 to do that. By then, the world would have more mobile connections than human beings - and it would then be man’s turn to go into silent mode.