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.