Technology has always changed our lives here on earth, sometimes totally disrupting it. Look what DVDs did to VHS. Lately, the progress has been so swift that keeping up is sometimes head spinning. There is also the tendency to look at the most recent developments as luxurious. That is where I tend to differ. The following story might explain why.
After going through the security check at the airport today, I got to my gate and couldn’t find my iphone! My initial thought – I left it at the security check point. It’s 30 min to board! I rushed back to the TSA folks. Well, none of them had seen it. One lady was actually quite helpful – she called my number and rescanned my bags. No phone! I retraced my steps to the gate – no phone! It’s 15 min to boarding time!
Plan B – i whipped out my Macbook Pro, bought a day’s pass for the T-Mobile Hot Spot and logged on to my MobileMe account. There are apps there to locate the iphone, lock it, wipe it clean or send a message to the phone and have it alarm at the same time if one looses it. I tried locating it but the GPS position was vague. So I activated the alarm and sent a message: “I lost this phone. If you find it please bring it to gate ..”
Two minutes later, I see a TSA lady walking up with the phone. I had left it in one of the trays and someone had stacked other trays on top of it. The alarm had alerted them.
A thank you and a hug later, I’m praising Steve Jobs, Apple, technology and the power of the internet.
Who said technology is a luxury!

Did anyone get the ipad yet?
I played with it for about an hour on Saturday.
Did not get one yet ‘cos am waiting for the 3G version.
Man does it rock or what.
The screen’s resolution is awesome and the processor really fast.
It fits really well in your hands but has some heft to it.
It’s potential will be seen with time.
I don’t think it replaces you laptop but it fills a niche.
Whether it displaces the laptop or not will be seen with future versions.

It is not an iphone without the phone or a big Ipod touch. Get one in your hands and you’ll realize what it is  – a new way of personal computing!

Say you travel a  lot…well, keep that laptop packed away if you want to watch a movie.
Watch it on the ipad with it’s 10 -12 hours of battery life!
Have a presentation?
Get the pages app (the apple equivalent of PowerPoint) and the VGA cable, hook your iPad to the projector and voila!
So you do some photography and need to show your work?
Well, there is an Ipad for you.
You are going on a looo-nnnn-g road trip, say from DC to Miami.
Stick that Ipad in your kid’s hands and there is total silence for 10-12 hours.
Imagine rounding on your patients with an Ipad connected to the hospital database.
You can pull up Xrays, labs, echos etc.
Read a lot? What about your whole library on your iPad.
The cool thing is you can use iBooks from Apple as well as the Kindle app from Amazon to get books.
Wake up in the morning and pull up all the news immediately – WSJ, NYT, the Post.

I think Jobs has a product that is going to revolutionize the laptop/net book sector.

I fell in love with the idea of an electronic reader several years ago when I got my first PDA and loaded a few books on it. For an avid reader, it was awesome to be able to read anywhere without carrying the load. I yearned for an e-reader with the size of a real book.
Sony released a reader but the reviews were mixed so I held off. Then came the Kindle. My excitement grew. Just as I was about to pull the trigger, the rumor started that Apple was going to possibly release an e-reader this year. Now being a believer in all things apple, I decided to wait.
Today, it finally happened!
The iPad is here and I cannot wait till I have one in my hands.
I think all these developments spell the doom of the book as we know it and that is not so bad. Sure, the publishing industry will loose jobs. However, think of all the trees that will be saved. You can literally carry your entire library with you (those heavy textbooks!) Revisions to textbooks will be downloaded  – no need for publishing another book. You can buy books on the fly. It might actually simplify getting published. There won’t be stacks of newspapers, journals and magazines to go through. I could go on….
Maybe in a few years we will look back and wonder where all those records, VHS-tapes and books are!

The impact of wireless technology on third world economies and way of life has often been written about. I experienced it a few weeks ago when I was in Ghana.

My wife needed some kente stoles woven. Most weavers work underneath the shade of a tree. The city of Accra tolerates that for the most part so the weavers save on rent. Every now and then, the city evicts them from their free places of work and the weavers have to find another tree and another shade.

So there I am in Accra looking for this weaver who had been evicted from the tree we knew he worked under. How do you find a weaver in a city of about a million people who works under a tree? Enter the cell phone. My wife calls him from the US on his cell and gives him my cell number. He calls me and gives me directions to the street corner where his business is.

Now beat that!

nana