Life Vs Technology: Who is Supporting?

How is the technology space behaving in these times? Ofcourse the technological breakthroughs keep coming every day. Even as I write some one must be having his/her eureka moment right now. But then, how many of those breakthroughs are worth it. My gauge to see their worth is not how cool they might sound or how well I can impress others if I have access to those technologies. It starts from the basic utility of the technology developed and maybe ends at how viable is it to produce and make it reach the masses (ofcourse at a one up affordable price). I do not say affordable as that wouldn’t be practical. Come on, how many new technologies do you see having a price tag which doesn’t pinch your pockets?

Anyways, what I gathered from the last post’s feedback was that all of you are aware of many such technologies which are used for the benefit of mankind and some others which aren’t. Then there were moral arguments about many technologies used in healthcare domain – whether they should be used or not. The example is, the Life Support System or commonly called the Ventilator. I’m sure almost everyone must have heard about it and it sure does keep a person alive medically even though the most vital organs might have stopped functioning. Majority of arguments about this technology or its use comes as it is being abused by the healthcare industry to get more money out of the patients’ kin. Many argue that keeping a patient alive with this system is not a solution when the person’s body is not in a situation to bounce back to normalcy.

It is also worth noting that the use of this technology may turn out to be a ray of hope or in some cases a life saver. Many people who would oppose the use of this technology might have gone through this phase for their near or dear ones and at that time vouched for using this as well. Forgive me for saying but not many would have the resolve to be practical and not at all emotional at such times and ask the medicos to remove the Life Support and let the patient die his/her own death. Again, that’s all I wanted to say about this as it is a topic which does not involve only technology. I always believe that technology is good but People are better as they have many such technologies inside them which cannot be emulated by any tech gadget in today’s world.

Let’s look at other possible positive applications of technology in medical sciences. I’m going to touch a turf which is very ambitious. So, fasten your seat belts and keep your mind open till the end. Imagine a world where you could order a new liver from the nearby hospital when your existing one is not working properly. How is that possible? Well, it isn’t something directly from a Sci Fi flick but using today’s technology, medical scientists have been able to regenerate a brand new liver in lab. I will talk about this technology in a bit but before that think about a scenario when this can be applied to every vital organ of human body from the liver to the kidneys and the heart or for that matter their auxiliary parts (like the valves for the heart etc). Amazing it would be isn’t it?

This could be an extension of today’s technology called Stem Cell Therapy. In a simple language, stem cells are the simplest form of cells in our body which can be nowadays extracted from various means and stored in cryogenic (very low temperature) facilities. These stem cells have the inherent nature of repairing cells. They are being used to repair various parts of human body by injecting them to the affected area. Ofcourse, the treatment and preservation is costly today but that can be worked out later if its use increases.

Let’s think about adding to this tech a bit. What if we were able to merge the 2 fields of microprocessor controlled devices with the stem cell technology using biotechnology. As a result of this, we could control the behavior of the injected stem cells via microcontrollers and direct them to do (repair/rebuild) exactly as we want them to. I’m sure you are asking how would we control stem cells via microcontrollers. By embedding or amalgamating these microcontrollers within the stem cells. Ofcourse, then these would be called nanocontrollers and it might sound a coincidence to you all that nanotechnology is also an existing field of study and application today.

Sounds exciting, foolish or far fetched ??? Exciting it is for me but not impossible. History is witness that imagination has always been at the root of affairs while any big discoveries or inventions were happening. Take it from a classic tale by Isaac Asimov called The Fantastic Voyage where a team of doctors and engineers are made to board a submarine which is shrunk to a size such that it can be injected into the body of a patient who has a clot in his brain. Watch a movie made on this with the same name and you’ll see how wild any imagination can be. There might be regulations, laws needed to govern the access to these technologies for sure but imagine not losing your near and dear ones to these organ failures. There’s also going to be argument whether this is not intervening with the natural process of a life or in simple words – the GOD’s will. No comments on that for now J

I urge you to think about these things in the next few days and put in your thoughts to word on the comments section of this post. I will leave you with a question whether Life supports Technology or does Technology supports Life. Till we meet again, Happy reading and Keep Up With Technology!

Cheers,

N E O

Good Tech Bad Tech - No Clouds

Well, I see that the cute cloud is no more in demand. Ofcourse, it’s my fault as I gave in too much too soon on the cloud. So, let’s rest the clouds for now and move ahead with a promise to revisit them soon. We can talk about technological applications in various fields of daily life. Not that I want to become an advocate of anything technology brings about but its just that every tech has its core field of application and sometimes if we get carried away and start applying it into other areas, it may not turn out to be good. A classic example was shown in a Hollywood flick called Small Soldiers. The war between the Gorgonites and the Commando Elite takes an ugly turn when the toy company starts using Defense developed technology in toys.

That was Hollywood! Imagine if something like this happens in real life. It will be fun to see toys talking to each other though but then it can take an ugly turn anytime. So, where do we draw the line for technology? I personally am not a conformist to the new age education technologies. I see schools advertising that they now smart classrooms where digital aids are being used to teach children. I admit this would have a different impact on the kids while they see and touch things while learning about them. Graphical representation is always more effective. But the flipside is, we have this tendency of giving in to technology when it comes to assist us in our daily lives.

What does that mean?????? Is that the question? What I mean is that the moment a school teacher gets his/her hands on to technology, they would forget about the things he/she still needs to do as tech cannot replace the human element. A technology cannot teach any child how to respect each other or elders. It needs the warmth of a human guide to carry these things into the basic fabric of a child's psyche. Can you expect a digital interactive screen being able show the importance of love and compassion to kids? Naah, I can’t see that happening. One example of a humane aspect where we should leave out the tech and do stuff the old fashioned way.

So, again it all depends on how we use technology that comes our way. We visited our epics in the last post where Arjuna might have used some tech of their time to augment the capabilities of his weapons. Also, as one of the readers of this post added that Sanjay narrating the entire war episode to Dhritarashtra while not being present at the warfront - Sounds like Cisco Telepresence. Isn’t it? Looking at those things of past and what technology is bringing us now, it sure looks like there was a huge knowledge and tech in those times which was lost and now we are reinventing all of that. Maybe it would be a good idea to read the documentation of those old times. Isn’t it? Ofcourse all the techies dread reading the documents and insist of starting from scratch.

Now, this discussion is not exciting enough until I ask you all to pour in your views on the above ideas. So, I would like you to tell me via your comments that what is that one technology you have seen which is being used in the correct place and one which is being used in a not too appropriate place. Free Your Mind of the clutter and think whether all the tech you use today is doing you any good or does it belong to the place for where it was initiated in the first place.

Meanwhile, I will gather more stuff for you and let’s attach our views together to get to some conclusion, maybe. Till that time, share your feedback and as always Keep Up With Technology!

Cheers

N E O

Epics and the Future - A cloud without wires

Hello, I'm back into the grind after being inactive for weeks. I wouldn’t like to bore you with all the stuff which prevented me from blogging all this while. I guess we can just take this as “things came up”. Although, I promise I will overcome these hurdles and be a regular blogger from now on.

Now that we had started a good debate over the technology beast and its pros and cons, let’s look at other aspects of our association with it and how these can help. Before that, I would like to share an idea which is somewhat weird but I find it appealing. The idea is that maybe our mythological stories or tales already had the concept of a cloud envisioned. Anyone who has seen or heard about The Ramayana & The Mahabharata, could recall that many of the fantasy stuff shown in those epics could well be implemented in the future using cloud services. Going crazy over this idea already??? Read on...

Think about a wireless extension of a country wide or a Global network which hosts all those cloud services which we have talked about earlier and more. Look at all the business services related to finance, people, facilities, infrastructure management and they could all be available in future over the cloud. Now, look back at those epics.

Everytime, you saw Arjuna closing his eyes before firing up his weapon, he might have been requesting some services to be attached to his weapon from the cloud. Does it sound absurd? I'm not sure but it was something which came up and I thought I could share it. It’s not advisable to have a dose of insanity with technology but I took the risk.

Anyways, the purpose of sharing this wild idea was to take the cloud to the next level. Till now whatever things we are expecting the cloud to do for us are based on the fact that there is a service provider which is hosting these services for us and we need a computer/PC to use these services. What if we have a scenario that you really do not need to have a PC to use these services? Why can't your cellphone do this for you? We have started on 3G now; 4G would not be far away too. So if we have a network which hosts all of these services, we would use them wirelessly from our phones or other small gadgets.

Imagine going to a store where you buy some stuff and then at the payment counter, all you have do is let the cashier take your retina scan which can be embedded in your digital certificate. This digital certificate can zip across to your bank for authentication and instantly, you have an app popping up on your phone asking you to approve or reject the transaction. You approve and payment is done. No need to carry cash or cards, it’s as secure as it can be as no one can trick your retina scan without taking out your eye.

Now, for you as a consumer it is very convenient but for a bank who is also hosting its business on the cloud service provider's network, it needs a lot of work, lot of concerns about security etc. But I'm sure it all can be worked out. The real challenge will not be technology, as always. It will be the people and laws/regulations which need to be changed by none other than People. Also, for a consumer to have confidence in these kinds of services, it will take a lot of effort and money from the service providers of any of those services. Even then, it would come down to how much of your people are willing to commit to such services which is far away from the traditional way they have been using it, for instance, banking.

I know the ideas presented in this post are not easy to digest but being a technology enthusiast, I really can't adhere to any boundaries when it comes to thinking about what this friend can do for us. We will talk about many more aspects of technology (not all as wild as the ones above) which can help us make our lives better and of course we will talk more about the debate on whether technology is bad for us or vice versa. Till that time, keep your suggestions and feedback coming in. Happy Reading and Always Keep Up With Technology!

Cheers

N E O