Have mobile phones taken over our lives??
Dumb question. Of course they have ... if it was computers two decades ago, this is the era of the mobile phone. There was a 'Voice Your Views' column in The Hindu featuring precisely the same topic and thats what gave me the idea for this rip. What started as 15-pound bricks now are sleek, easy-to-use, stylish, trendy, feature-filled, and what not ... this adjective list is never-ending. They were conceived primarily as a device that could be used to make calls when a land-line (fit only for the museums now) was not available, and to exploit the wireless technology. But well, as of now, their 'primary' use is still to make calls, but an array of many other features also exist, each of which would have been awe-inspiring for any layman fifty years ago. Hell, who would have believed even in 1980 that it would be possible to take photos & videos, send instant messages that conveyed your message to any person around the globe in a minute and schedule your appointments, surf the internet, publish blogs online, play games and listen to music and the radio on a small varied-shape object that weighed half a football??? After computers, mobile phones are the technology that has grown double exponentially over the last decade or so. The size, weight and cost of the mobiles have reduced, and the features they can offer are steadily on the rise.
The SMS. Ask any student in the world what he/she would miss most if all mobiles in the world were to suddenly vanish, and pat would come the reply...SMS. Short messaging service. That caters to the general as well as intricate needs of not only students, but other people as well. The best ever invention as far as mobiles are concerned. Most service operators in India today provide 100 messages a day. Not enough. Well, for some atleast. Message forwards. Created in hundreds by the day, related to everything. Mobile jokes. So many things relate closely to the SMS. A new form of English even has surfaced because of the SMS. There's a separate section in The Oxford English Dictionary that provides the expansions of short-forms used in SMSses. Smileys. Which can depict every emotion of your with semi-colons, braces and hyphens alone. Wow. A whole new world. Everything cos of the mobile phone.
Lets forget the SMSs for a bit. The next big thing - GPRS. General Packet Radio Service. A relatively new invention to the SMS. Through which you can surf the internet on your mobile phone. Soon, broadband internet speeds will be achieved on it. There are separate portals that are especially for the mobile users. GPRS is turning out to be a multi-crore business in our country, and revenues are being generated in torrents, through advertisement, and DOWNLOADS. Wallpapers, ringtones, videos, games, news and what not. Everything costs money, and money makes business.
Games. The next big thing. People are addicted to it. See any owner of a primitive nokia phone, and one of the first questions you'll ask about the phone is the Snake game high-score. Games, Games, Games. Games on everything, about everything. Downloaded free from some sites. People exchange bookmarks for free game-sites. Gaming mobiles, like the N-Gage QD, especially designed for those freaks (no offence) who can't stay one day without having tried a new game. Action games, racing games, card games, casino games, battle games. So many different genres. That keep you hooked, for atleast a while. A person who has a decent mobile cannot simply say he has nothing to do and is bored, because supposing he's ready to spend some money, there's SO BLOODY MUCH to do.
Ok, lets forget going berserk about the implications of games, SMSs and GPRS. Coming back to mobiles on the whole, there are so many different models, known by their 'numbers', each of which caters to a different section of people. Rates vary, from 3,000 to 30,000. Black-and-white phones, colour phones, camera phones, radio phones, GPRS phones. So much of variety and choice. Choose carefully before buying. New models come in very often. They become thinner and thinner. Slimphones, they call them. There's a mobile available for almost every budget.
There was a recent news article on how the idea conceived to ward off teenagers from loitering in work-areas was fine-tuned to their benefit. The first thing was a new kind-of alarm like device (the mosquito box) that could be fitted outside workplaces where teenagers created problems. It emitted a sound at a very high frequency that adults above around 20 years of age could not hear because of the so-called 'aging ear' syndrome. As for the teenagers, it filled their head with an annnoying buzz that forced them to leave the place. More recently, the company (Compound Security Systems) has come out with 'mosquitotone', which is sweeping through the entire United States. Teenagers can henceforth be alerted to their SMSs while in class, without the professor hearing a thing!!! See if you can.... hear the tone from here
There's recently been a huge and still-raging controversy about whether students should be allowed to use mobiles in their college. Ban or no ban, students still will continue to use them with the same intensity they do now. They will device new methods to conceal the phones deep inside their clothing. They will invent new ring-tones only teenagers can hear. A student could feel handicapped without a mobile. Such importance!!! Where did all this result from?? Who is to be blamed???
Ah, DEBATE. We can debate later. There's too much to debate about, too many things to argue about, too many controversies, too many different opinions. I shall stop here, however abrupt or absurd it may seem. Hell, i'm bored of typing. Will be back with another rip.
Dumb question. Of course they have ... if it was computers two decades ago, this is the era of the mobile phone. There was a 'Voice Your Views' column in The Hindu featuring precisely the same topic and thats what gave me the idea for this rip. What started as 15-pound bricks now are sleek, easy-to-use, stylish, trendy, feature-filled, and what not ... this adjective list is never-ending. They were conceived primarily as a device that could be used to make calls when a land-line (fit only for the museums now) was not available, and to exploit the wireless technology. But well, as of now, their 'primary' use is still to make calls, but an array of many other features also exist, each of which would have been awe-inspiring for any layman fifty years ago. Hell, who would have believed even in 1980 that it would be possible to take photos & videos, send instant messages that conveyed your message to any person around the globe in a minute and schedule your appointments, surf the internet, publish blogs online, play games and listen to music and the radio on a small varied-shape object that weighed half a football??? After computers, mobile phones are the technology that has grown double exponentially over the last decade or so. The size, weight and cost of the mobiles have reduced, and the features they can offer are steadily on the rise.
The SMS. Ask any student in the world what he/she would miss most if all mobiles in the world were to suddenly vanish, and pat would come the reply...SMS. Short messaging service. That caters to the general as well as intricate needs of not only students, but other people as well. The best ever invention as far as mobiles are concerned. Most service operators in India today provide 100 messages a day. Not enough. Well, for some atleast. Message forwards. Created in hundreds by the day, related to everything. Mobile jokes. So many things relate closely to the SMS. A new form of English even has surfaced because of the SMS. There's a separate section in The Oxford English Dictionary that provides the expansions of short-forms used in SMSses. Smileys. Which can depict every emotion of your with semi-colons, braces and hyphens alone. Wow. A whole new world. Everything cos of the mobile phone.
Lets forget the SMSs for a bit. The next big thing - GPRS. General Packet Radio Service. A relatively new invention to the SMS. Through which you can surf the internet on your mobile phone. Soon, broadband internet speeds will be achieved on it. There are separate portals that are especially for the mobile users. GPRS is turning out to be a multi-crore business in our country, and revenues are being generated in torrents, through advertisement, and DOWNLOADS. Wallpapers, ringtones, videos, games, news and what not. Everything costs money, and money makes business.
Games. The next big thing. People are addicted to it. See any owner of a primitive nokia phone, and one of the first questions you'll ask about the phone is the Snake game high-score. Games, Games, Games. Games on everything, about everything. Downloaded free from some sites. People exchange bookmarks for free game-sites. Gaming mobiles, like the N-Gage QD, especially designed for those freaks (no offence) who can't stay one day without having tried a new game. Action games, racing games, card games, casino games, battle games. So many different genres. That keep you hooked, for atleast a while. A person who has a decent mobile cannot simply say he has nothing to do and is bored, because supposing he's ready to spend some money, there's SO BLOODY MUCH to do.
Ok, lets forget going berserk about the implications of games, SMSs and GPRS. Coming back to mobiles on the whole, there are so many different models, known by their 'numbers', each of which caters to a different section of people. Rates vary, from 3,000 to 30,000. Black-and-white phones, colour phones, camera phones, radio phones, GPRS phones. So much of variety and choice. Choose carefully before buying. New models come in very often. They become thinner and thinner. Slimphones, they call them. There's a mobile available for almost every budget.
There was a recent news article on how the idea conceived to ward off teenagers from loitering in work-areas was fine-tuned to their benefit. The first thing was a new kind-of alarm like device (the mosquito box) that could be fitted outside workplaces where teenagers created problems. It emitted a sound at a very high frequency that adults above around 20 years of age could not hear because of the so-called 'aging ear' syndrome. As for the teenagers, it filled their head with an annnoying buzz that forced them to leave the place. More recently, the company (Compound Security Systems) has come out with 'mosquitotone', which is sweeping through the entire United States. Teenagers can henceforth be alerted to their SMSs while in class, without the professor hearing a thing!!! See if you can.... hear the tone from here
There's recently been a huge and still-raging controversy about whether students should be allowed to use mobiles in their college. Ban or no ban, students still will continue to use them with the same intensity they do now. They will device new methods to conceal the phones deep inside their clothing. They will invent new ring-tones only teenagers can hear. A student could feel handicapped without a mobile. Such importance!!! Where did all this result from?? Who is to be blamed???
Ah, DEBATE. We can debate later. There's too much to debate about, too many things to argue about, too many controversies, too many different opinions. I shall stop here, however abrupt or absurd it may seem. Hell, i'm bored of typing. Will be back with another rip.
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