Circa: Late 2003. My (office colleagues professing to be) friends and (on her way to becoming) my girlfriend convinced me that it was time I got a mobile phone 'of my own'. A couple of months back I had moved to Bangalore to take up a position with an MNC. Calls were being made a couple of times a week to my concerned parents and sisters back in Delhi and occasionally to friends (concerned about my mating options). My 'social circle' at the time was limited. 6 degrees of separation was still a movie and Facebook was still being beta tested within the precincts of Harvard. And LinkedIn was going through labor pain.
Kids this generation will not understand this. But to spend Rs. 5000 on self seemed criminal. I remember calculating that I could use that money to make calls to Delhi from the local phone booth for almost a year. And so, I tried to defer the purchase decision - unsuccessfully.
One of the evenings, an office colleague decided to show me the way and in a little bit we were at St. Marks road. Yes, you actually went to a store to buy yourself a mobile phone. I picked up a Motorola phone with an orange display. It felt like a prize in the hand and it somewhat diluted my guilt of splurge. Only time would tell if it would make me truly mobile.
I was fascinated at what all it allowed me to do. Making and receiving calls at your own convenience was certainly on top of that list. And then it allowed me to reach out freely to my lady at that time. This included texting minute by minute developments of post office hours from the barely 10 x 10 ft room that I called home. In those good old days they used to pack every phone with preloaded games and FM radio with a pair of earplugs thrown in as an accessory. I was suddenly not lonely - and was beginning to feel 'connected'.
Over the next decade I would continue to exchange my phones for new ones. But it was not until 2010 that smartphones started to become mainstream. Data was still a 'value added service' and one counted the kilobytes consumed every time it was briefly turned on. GPRS gradually gave way to 2G which then became 3G which is now almost being made obsolete by 4G. This, as we know, coincided with exponential drop in data charges. And then shit happened. Mukesh Ambani had a digital orgasm! Data became free.
But another revolution was taking shape. Artificial intelligence, arguably, is powering the 'smartness quotient' of our phones. Smart algorithms based on machine learning techniques can now learn from your habits and suggest things to help our lives. The proliferation of innovations has however made it difficult for us to keep up with. We are probably being outpaced (if not outsmarted) by our own invention.
Recently I upgraded my phone (the 11th time in all). Well as is the case, nothing was really wrong with the existing phone. But the specifications were far superior and the looks were more inviting and I found myself uncharacteristically queuing up to purchase it within the first few minutes of its launch in India. After the initial euphoria died down, I sat down to rationalize the purchase. And also how much I really knew about the phone's capabilities.
There is a quick calling feature that is voice enabled. You instruct the phone and your virtual assistant digs out the contact and connects the call. You are allowed to view multiple screens at once, a feature that splits the screen into 2 or 4 depending upon your purpose and urgency. The camera can be enabled even if the phone is locked. The pedometer counts the steps taken in a day effectively discounting driving from walking. And the phone prompts an eye protection mode if looked at for long hours. The screen can also be shrunk to allow for a one handed use for those with smaller fingers.
And these are just some of those that I know of. There is no way to know whether this has allowed anyone of us to be more productive. Phones now sell on hardware specifications. Some that seem evolutionary, some that are revolutionary. And most others that we do not understand. After all, it is anybody's guess if octa core (over quad core) processors have saved people any time or if has anyone benefitted from multitasking using a Snapdragon 835 chipset over its previous iteration. A 'flagship killer' has recently launched a phone with 8 GB RAM. Probably the idea was to allow users to do in-memory processing of BIG DATA on their 5.5 inch screens.
As I marveled at my new phone one more time once again this evening, something took me back to those early days. I had used up over 200 MB data over the weekend. The size of the first data pack that I took many years back was 512 MB - to be consumed over an entire month. Else the overage charged was atrocious! I am not sure if the gains out of the additional consumption has been proportional. My economics professor would have probably smiled. The law of diminishing marginal utility could never have been better explained.
Kids this generation will not understand this. But to spend Rs. 5000 on self seemed criminal. I remember calculating that I could use that money to make calls to Delhi from the local phone booth for almost a year. And so, I tried to defer the purchase decision - unsuccessfully.
One of the evenings, an office colleague decided to show me the way and in a little bit we were at St. Marks road. Yes, you actually went to a store to buy yourself a mobile phone. I picked up a Motorola phone with an orange display. It felt like a prize in the hand and it somewhat diluted my guilt of splurge. Only time would tell if it would make me truly mobile.
I was fascinated at what all it allowed me to do. Making and receiving calls at your own convenience was certainly on top of that list. And then it allowed me to reach out freely to my lady at that time. This included texting minute by minute developments of post office hours from the barely 10 x 10 ft room that I called home. In those good old days they used to pack every phone with preloaded games and FM radio with a pair of earplugs thrown in as an accessory. I was suddenly not lonely - and was beginning to feel 'connected'.
Over the next decade I would continue to exchange my phones for new ones. But it was not until 2010 that smartphones started to become mainstream. Data was still a 'value added service' and one counted the kilobytes consumed every time it was briefly turned on. GPRS gradually gave way to 2G which then became 3G which is now almost being made obsolete by 4G. This, as we know, coincided with exponential drop in data charges. And then shit happened. Mukesh Ambani had a digital orgasm! Data became free.
But another revolution was taking shape. Artificial intelligence, arguably, is powering the 'smartness quotient' of our phones. Smart algorithms based on machine learning techniques can now learn from your habits and suggest things to help our lives. The proliferation of innovations has however made it difficult for us to keep up with. We are probably being outpaced (if not outsmarted) by our own invention.
Recently I upgraded my phone (the 11th time in all). Well as is the case, nothing was really wrong with the existing phone. But the specifications were far superior and the looks were more inviting and I found myself uncharacteristically queuing up to purchase it within the first few minutes of its launch in India. After the initial euphoria died down, I sat down to rationalize the purchase. And also how much I really knew about the phone's capabilities.
There is a quick calling feature that is voice enabled. You instruct the phone and your virtual assistant digs out the contact and connects the call. You are allowed to view multiple screens at once, a feature that splits the screen into 2 or 4 depending upon your purpose and urgency. The camera can be enabled even if the phone is locked. The pedometer counts the steps taken in a day effectively discounting driving from walking. And the phone prompts an eye protection mode if looked at for long hours. The screen can also be shrunk to allow for a one handed use for those with smaller fingers.
And these are just some of those that I know of. There is no way to know whether this has allowed anyone of us to be more productive. Phones now sell on hardware specifications. Some that seem evolutionary, some that are revolutionary. And most others that we do not understand. After all, it is anybody's guess if octa core (over quad core) processors have saved people any time or if has anyone benefitted from multitasking using a Snapdragon 835 chipset over its previous iteration. A 'flagship killer' has recently launched a phone with 8 GB RAM. Probably the idea was to allow users to do in-memory processing of BIG DATA on their 5.5 inch screens.
As I marveled at my new phone one more time once again this evening, something took me back to those early days. I had used up over 200 MB data over the weekend. The size of the first data pack that I took many years back was 512 MB - to be consumed over an entire month. Else the overage charged was atrocious! I am not sure if the gains out of the additional consumption has been proportional. My economics professor would have probably smiled. The law of diminishing marginal utility could never have been better explained.
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