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.