For us nothing marks the march of Time better than the diurnal rhythm of night and day. Like it or not, the relentless beat of Time is the rhythm to which man and what we call progress march. Developments in science and technology, like Time itself, have no clear demarcations of a beginning or an end. One thing leads to another, and often to a dozen other things. The twelve cubby-holes into which we straitjacket Time serve our purpose of stopping it enough for some kind of a stock-taking.
Here are a few things that had remained in our viewfinder as markers and milestones of the eventful twelve months we had traversed in 2012.
Peter Higgs and bosons
There was one thing that was on the lips of everybody in 2012 -- Higgs boson. Whether you understood particle physics or not, the 'God Particle' (a nickname strongly disliked by many physicists) was the trigger for all sorts of conjectures, both at the rarified heights of science or at the lay level. People dropped the name of Peter Higgs left and right, but many appeared to have no clue as to the Indian connection hidden within the boson. (Bosons are particles that are governed by Bose–Einstein statistics --though that explanation doesn't make things any easier for most of us!)
Whatever your take might be on the Higgs particle or the technological benefits of 'catching' it, you have to agree that the proton-smashing Large Hadron Collider was one mammoth experiment to 'tech' things forward into the next year!
GM is not always General Motors
With the success of the Human Genome Mapping project, man got his hands on the 'blueprint of life'. But man was not about to try his hand at‘re-building’ according to the good old blueprint. What he wanted to do was more like 'genome engineering' or modification of the DNA to play God.
A related fallout that created a lot of anxiety in the lay mind in 2012 was the question about the safety and advisability of Genetically Modified foods and crops. Studies, mostly conducted by the makers of GM foods/crops, quickly gave a “clean/green chit” to them, though there were serious “conflict of interest” issues behind them. On top of that the lobbying by the concerned companies and the news of the manipulation of media in their favour, all gave the layman enough heartaches trying to sort out the truth from the barrage of mis-/disinformation.
The Three C’s
Computing. Communication. Convergence. Finally, they sort of gelled in 2012. Convergence -- the coming together of ‘bits and pieces’ of technologies that offered a synergy of its own, and perhaps for the first time gave man a 'super tool'. Convergence of communication and computing was a term hyped about in the closing decades of the last century.
Today it has finally 'come to be' thanks to the spread of the mobile ‘smart’ phone, which had an idle (for most of the time) computer within, and which was 'connected'. All we needed were suitable 'apps' to make it do anything/everything and make it into a software avatar of the Swiss knife. The medical 'Tricorder' has teleported itself from Star Trek to the app stores of today. You can read, you can play, you can keep tabs on your health, you can pay your bills (with NFC-enabled devices), you can work 'in the Cloud', you can explore the Web, you can navigate, and yes, you can communicate either visually, by mail or by message, and also in the old-fashioned 'phone way'.... all thanks to the 'smart phone' and the smarter apps that are mushrooming around us. In 2012 we didn’t need to carry around a dozen devices to do all that and more. If that is not true convergence .....
Take a Tablet
As the cognoscenti might say, 2012 was the year of the tab. Whether you owned one or not, the 'tab' or the tablet computer was in the news and you saw it everywhere. India jumped onto centre-stage with the government announcing plans of empowering the millions of school/college students with the world's cheapest tablet sourced from a company named Datawind. Surely a new wind was set to blow in the Indian 'aakash' (sky). No prizes for thinking of another 'maruti' (the God of wind) that had transformed the Indian roads, and here was another avatar seeking to "burn the rubber" on the information superhighway. Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC (no, that is not an "ol' personal computer"; it was his brainchild, the One Laptop Per Child organization) had struggled along for a full decade without getting anywhere near its projected goal, and here was the Indian behemoth all set to open a floodgate of connected, cheap tablets.
Another plus for the tab invasion-- perhaps for the first time, users finally could concentrate on the 'apps' to get their work done, instead of wasting their time and money on selecting a 'super-hyped' OS (operating system, which ought never have been the concern of the lay user). Now we all know how Microsoft and Intel made all that stash of cash. And all are pleasantly surprised that computing is zooming along faster, thanks to the 'lean and mean' tab which has left in the dust the 'wintel' juggernaut.
Climb onto a Cloud
If you wanted to be on a cloud, well, you would choose to be on Cloud 9. Not that anybody knew anything about the experience of being on Clouds 1 to 8. But even the dictionary tells you that being on the ninth cumulo-nimbus is a euphoric experience indeed. Today's cloud enthusiasts know little about the US Weather Bureau's terminology that places the ninth class of clouds at 30,000 to 40,000 feet up in the sky-- high enough for euphoria to set in! Rather, they have in mind the stylized cloud-shaped symbol as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure that delivers computing resources to them.
2012 was the 'Year of the Cloud' for most of ‘us’, when the average guy in the street could jostle a natty Tom, Dick or hurry along with Harry while "on the Cloud" for free -- and, to boot, do some real work and collaborate in real time, breaking all time and geographical bonds. That was courtesy of Google (a company that is becoming as big a presence in our lives as the big math number on which it modelled its name) and its Drive, a file storage and synchronization service, mated with productivity apps and tools released in April last. Perhaps the only question is at what cloud level that will be classified.
Testing Time for HIV
In a manner of speaking, 2012 was the year when man (and that includes woman too!) finally could get a handle on HIV/AIDS. The $ 40 rapid home HIV test (OraQuick), according to The Lancet, the respected grand-daddy of medical journals, "...poses dilemmas and opportunities..." for the wo/man in the street.
The test involves a simple mouth swab that detects HIV antibodies in saliva. The swab in placed in a vial of developer solution for 20 -- 40 minutes, when you get the result. There was a time when ignorance (especially about your sexual partner's HIV 'status') was bliss; but these days, knowledge of that could very well be power to make choices. Why fear dilemmas when opportunities abound?? Power, at long last, to the people!
Printers Go Solid
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| 'Printer'- Gutenberg era (Courtesy: Wikipedia) |
Not much had changed since the time of Johannes Gutenberg, the 15th Century German polymath, whose invention of printing ignited the launch of the modern era. From the crude hand press of the medieval master pretty little had changed despite the "massive strides" printing had taken over the intervening centuries. Lithography, offset, rotogravure, intaglio and the current favourite, digital printing, all were incremental improvements on the combination of techniques perfected by the inspired master in the bygone era.
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| RepRap 3D printer (Courtesy: Wikipedia) |
Until, that is, 2012, when the word 'printing' took on an entirely new connotation, divorced as it was from paper and ink. Long a lab curiosity and an enchanting research project, 3D 'printers' achieved the goal of self-replication by 2008 with the RepRap project. Another landmark was the release of a DIY 3D printer by the open source company Makerbot in the very next year.
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| MakerBot Replicator |
The way things are moving in the field of 3D printing, it will not be long before we accept as the norm a different paradigm for the distribution of physical goods. Today's technology can already 'print' gun parts, working models and even prostheses. Think how instead of buying new furniture, we could buy new replication materials and download the designs over the Internet. If the replication materials are recyclable, we might be able to change our home’s decor in very little time and at a lower price point. This then could very well be the frontier of creation!
Android Rules
Android enthusiasts, and particularly Google, would love it if someone were to go 'official' with the statement “2012 was the Year of Android”. To those who still think that it is a loveable little green Droid related to R2D2 of Star Wars, well that is what Google calls its open source (Linux-based) operating system for mobile devices with touch screens. A secretive California startup founded by four enterprising young techies, Android Inc. was acquired by Google in 2005. Later the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of hardware, software, and telecom companies and the open standards compliance opened the doors to a wider acceptance. Though Android achieved 'critical mass' in 2011 with a user base that crossed 50% of the mobile market, it was in 2012 that it cemented its place as numero uno with a market share of 75%, according to many market surveys. In the era of the Smartphone wars, may the 'Force' be with us during the coming years too!
TWTYTW. TC!, as the Gen Text might SMS you.
(Translation for the rest of us: That was the year that was. Take care!)
Let’s join the march to ‘tech’ things forward into another year of innovations that have the power to change life beyond recognition.
Come to think of it, one might agree that dreams are the stuff technology is made of!
-- The Prof
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Web links to explore further:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/large-hadron-collider.htm
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/28/higgs-boson-discovery-may-signal-the-worlds-last-physics-experiment/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2012/12/07/what-you-need-to-know-about-gm-foods-is-half-the-story/
http://tribune.com.pk/story/480482/genetically-modified-food-crops-blessing-or-curse/
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/gm-crops-should-go-back-to-the-lab/article4074872.ece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tricorder
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Negroponte
http://www.ubislate.com/
http://tech2.in.com/features/tablets/aakash-2-indias-low-cost-tablet-dream-come-true/656122
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/cloud-computing.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Drive
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61585-2/fulltext
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/health/another-use-for-home-hiv-test-screening-partners.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press
http://individual.troweprice.com/staticFiles/Retail/Shared/PDFs/3D_Printing_Infographic_FINAL.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RepRap_Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/makerbot-replicator-2-opens-door-high-quality-home-3d-printing.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
http://www.bitrebels.com/technology/the-complete-android-history-timeline-infographic/
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