I recently experienced the technology of receiving the “bar coded boarding pass” on my cell phone, via e-mail, which I could just swipe prior to boarding the aircraft (no paper whatsoever!). This led me to think about the advancements in technology during my lifetime and how we see multiple generations of it in one lifetime of ours – the quartet below is a tribute to that!

When the telegram gave way to the letter,
Communications surely changed for ever;
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better,
Began the era of e-mail on the computer!

Televisions evolved from Black and White to color,
Transformation in displays was much sooner;
Looking beyond the question of projection or plasma,
Began the era of the LCD charisma!

Reading used to be on the old styled book,
Carried it around every corner and nook;
To prevent a pile up that needed a ladder,
Began the era of the e-book reader!

Calls over the wired phone began with the trunk kind,
Slowly and surely happened the liberation of the bind;
Trying to come up with an all-in-one solution,
Began the era of the mobile revolution!

Image Credit: I Love Butter

Popularity: 23%

Dosas and paranthas made the breakfast surreal,
Now the entire focus is on the cereal;
Chai was drunk with glass or tumbler,
Latte has transformed it to cup and saucer;

All that came with the meal was a pickle,
Now a missing salad deems you fickle;
A sumptuous dessert followed the meal,
Calorie counting now just gives the look-and-feel.

The scooter of choice was a Bajaj,
Now everyone’s thinking of a two-car garage;
The whole household had one telephone,
Cell phones are now being handed down.

Sharing photos was by showing the picture,
Now it’s all done using the Flickr;
Letters used to be mailed from the post office,
Using the e-mail will now suffice.

Fashion and style were last on the mind,
Now ignoring it won’t even make the wife kind;
Bermuda was only known as an island,
Not owning one will banish you to no man’s land.

Buying a TV was a big discussion,
Now the size of LCD is the main contention;
How did you buy it was never a question?
The credit crisis has changed the equation.

Image Credit: Sashwat Nagpal

Popularity: 20%

Image Credit: Viernest

HP had unveiled the slim-line touchscreen system in their annual conference in Berlin. This touch-screen PC looks very much like your LCD TV and can easily be made to act like one too. With this system they have started the race for the touch-friendly PCs for homes at home budgets. It may be recollected that the original TouchSmart PC was debuted in the middle of 2007.

The system unit is all in one 22-inc

h panel display. The screen remains almost impossibly thin and includes a slot loading optical drive. There is a wireless keyboard and mouse along with a neatly packaged wireless remote too. Base spec start with a 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. Higher models come with more powerful processors and a GeForce 9300M GS video card. These expensive babies also have a digital TV tuner and a decent 500GB storage.

The screen is scratch-resistant and supports a range of touch and tweak features like one-finger tap, scrolling, drag and drop actions and some two-finger touch actions for working with images and pictures. Something similar to those in the iPhone. The core OS is Vista and HP has packaged a cool TouchSmart UI for accessing Net-based info, viewing photos, playing music and video. This UI is pretty neat and achieves its purpose to thrill the user. Looks apart, there is also a cool light strip that runs along at the bottom of the display to illuminate the wireless keyboard. An ambient light sensor adjusts the brightness for your viewing pleasure.

While the machines are great for daily home users, the techies will have a lot of fumbling to do. There is not much in it for them at such a high price except for the looks. The other setback is the inability to customize or grow the system over time like the good old desktop. Look for this system more as a lifestyle accessory or an ideal gift for those who don’t do much else than browse and share.

The price start at $1999. Higher models are a bit of a rethink in the current economic situation.

In India, HP has released this model for Rs.87990.

Popularity: 17%