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Monday, October 31, 2011

Technology Extracts a Heavy Price

Microsoft has come out with this envisoning thingy about the future. What I like about it is the fact that you can have a taxi by just putting on the relevant designer glasses. The girls walks seductively to the street intersection, takes her cool designer glass out and wears it, lights flash on the support rod, sort of sensor, and immediately a taxi comes and  stops near her. I like that one.

In Belapur where I live rickshaws are in short supply. The result is sometimes they are as lemmings, meaning there are a lot of them. Sometimes they are like the Panda, i.e., rare. I would like such glasses to be part of my accouterments. Oh, yes. I would. The rickshaw is not fighting a losing battle for existence but the poor rickshaw-wallah is fighting back. He needs to, or, he will be wiped out.

How about also pointing out to me the nearest idli-dosa joints when I am hungry. (I trust only hot-from-the-tava idli-dosas when I am hungry. They are hygenic in this germ-filled city.) Yes, there is a similar application on her i-pad-like contraption. As she is being driven in the taxi, she is holding a pad-shaped thing which has a map showing: eating joints, movie joints (so, I suppose) among other things. When she touches one of these things it shows the direction to these places.

Amazing isn't it? Who said the world is getting more complex in the post-Saddam, post-Gaddafi world. Yes, true, it is getting slightly more expensive. All these comes at a price, a steep price. I don't know how many farmers/technicians/support staff must have committed suicide to bring this technology into the market. But a price is extract for every new technology. I am just saying.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

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