A Mobile Life

I have been an avid mobile user right from the end of the last millennium. I have been through a lot of phones and have had unique relationships with all of them. Here’s a story that goes back 15 years
I celebrated the green LCD screens with the merry Motorola C200 (2003), a welcome change from the standard grey on the Talkabout slab I started with (2000). I gazed adoringly at my Samsung C100 with its 65K colors and polyphonic ringtones (including a realistic cat meow, in 2004). I was blown away by the connectivity options and the ease of interactivity on the Sony Ericsson T610 (Infrared AND Bluetooth, in 2004!)
I spent a couple of years with the T610 before moving on in search of the next big thing, which came in shape of the Nokia E61. A proper OS, a great QWERTY keyboard, a functioning browser, and actual apps—what more could a geek ask for in 2006? It was good enough to keep me going for a couple of years, the longest I lasted with a phone.
By 2008, I had moved on, trying to find something more fulfilling. I flirted with Windows Phone on an HTC P3400 (WinMo 6.0 in 2008) and an Asus P565 (WinMo 6.5 in 2009), but realized that this was far from what I wanted, far from the real thing. I tried Symbian again when I tried out the Nokia N97 Mini, fascinated by its metal body and slide out QWERTY. It was a gorgeous phone, but Symbian was already getting old and the wrinkles were beginning to show. iPhones never interested me because they were too tied down, too locked up. I was beginning to despair.
And then, I bought my then girlfriend the HTC Legend. Gorgeously flawed Froyo on a great screen with a machined aluminum unibody, the Legend was one of the best looking phones of its generation. However, what really got me going was the beauty that lay underneath the HTC Sense skin; Android. I immediately got myself the HTC Desire. 1 GHz inside a phone was unheard of, and it came with Gingerbread, which was miles ahead of Froyo. I fell completely and truly in love with Android.
I put the Desire through a lot of custom tweaking before it started choking up, primarily because of the lack of internal ROM. I knew I needed a more serious device, and this time, I wanted it straight from Google. It came in the form of the Galaxy Nexus. A slim body, a gorgeous screen in a flat, back panel (with no other embellishments), and a powerful dual-core processor; the Galaxy Nexus also featured ICS, what some call Android’s first mature release. The GNex is where I first tried out serious gaming on a mobile, and the GNex is where I started using all the apps that the market had out there. There was still the occasional lag when I would ride the phone beyond its considerable endurance.
The GNEX finally succumbed to a nasty fall, and I had to look for options. The logical choice was the Nexus 4, but 16 GB wasn’t enough, I had realized with the GNex. I got the next best thing; the LG Optimus G (the carrier companion to the Nexus 4). Quad-core processor, 2 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of memory. I am finally satisfied. There is no lag and I cannot over tax the phone no matter what I try. I think I can sit back and enjoy this one without worry about what else is possible on phones, because for the moment, it does not matter. My mobile device matches the speed of my thoughts, and that’s fast enough for me.

The Real Virtual Life

Every year, we take another step towards the future that has been explored in virtual reality based sci-fi literature and movies. While true immersion probably needs a spike driven into the human neural network, a la The Matrix, quasi-immersion is becoming more and more real.

Oculus Rift and their virtual headset have left the most cynical game reviewers slack-jawed with amazement, itching to get their hands on a full-fledged game built in the system. Leap Motion and its accurate 3D gesture tracking has got gamers and designers (not to mention air guitarists) drooling in anticipation of a future full of freeform motion. Tactus is working with microfluids on tactile surface to create interfaces that form and reform based on what you need. In the meanwhile, other groups are researching simulated haptic feedback through controllers as well as imbuing holographs with haptic feedback through ultrasonic technology. While some focus on touch, others are focusing on smell and taste, through digital scent and taste.

The picture being painted by these diverse and distinct geniuses is the same one; the truly immersive virtual world. The potential of such a universe, from a professional or entertainment angle, is immense. This kind of technology will make it possible to truly be somewhere else without moving an inch. Dystopian cynicism aside, this will take today’s shrinking world that relies on video conferencing and purely visual virtual environments to the next level.

As a designer, writer, and gadget addict, I feel like I am living in the golden age of interactive technology. A few decades back, one had to wait years to move to the next generation of technology. A few decades later, we will have lost the innocent wonder of making magic come true and will have gained an ugly sense of entitlement (something I already see in the next generation). This is the moment when it’s all happening. And I am glad I’m here.