Tablet Wars…

Gone are the days when a person was stuck in his house, office or a shady cyber-café to be able to access the internet. In the age where being connected to the internet means being connected to the world, technology has to ascertain that a person no matter where should stay connected. Laptops and smartphones have had a big role in making this a reality, but a recent trend in the market is all set to try and make them obsolete.

Apple ipad the trend setter

Apple’s iPad, much like many of Apple’s other products, set a new trend in the market for Tablet Pcs. A tablet personal computer (tablet PC) is a portable personal computer equipped with a touch screen as a primary input device and designed to be operated and owned by an individual. The term was made popular as a concept presented by Microsoft in 2001.

A person can use a tablet as a miniature version of laptop or a larger version of a smartphone. You can surf the internet, listen to music, watch videos, use the office tools or just play games on it. Being connected to either the Android store or the Apple store, gives you options to customise your tablet according to your need. Tablets use 3G or Wi-Fi to stay connected and boast of decent battery power and thus are the ideal device to carry with you when travelling.

Though not the perfect piece of hardware by any standards, iPad still was a huge success selling 3 million in just 80 days. It has since then sold more than 14 million devices and this is largely because of the absence of any kind of competition. Though in 2010 other tablets were introduced, iPad still managed to garner 75 percent of the market share in the tablet market.

The competition though has just got tougher with the introduction of two heavyweights; iPad’s successor the Apple iPad2 and Motorola Xoom.  Both incredibly powerful and boasting configurations which are way ahead of the rest of the pack, they are two of the most-awaited gadgets. With other options becoming available like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab series, HTC’s Flyer, BlackBerry’s PlayBook, Viewsonic’s ViewPad 7 and Olivetti’s Olipad among others, this is surely a very exciting time.

There is certainly a buzz going on in the market and companies are eager to cash in on this changing trend in computing. But only time will tell if tablets prove to be a technological revolution or merely a ripple-effect in the ever-changing world of computing technology.

To Say or not to Say...

Oxford dictionary defines the term 'Communication' as a way to convey or transmit an emotion or feeling to another. Man being a social animal, communication is in his very nature and something without which he cannot live or function in a society. Over the years it is only the means of communication that have changed and not its definition. 

First, man started communicating using sign languages. As he evolved he went on to use complex words to communicate, both verbally and symbolically.  Communication was revolutionised when the telephone was invented. From then on communication has evolved with leaps and bounds. With the invention of satellite, communication across the globe became accessible and with the development of the internet, communicating across the globe became a reality for almost every human on the planet. Today its not very uncommon for a person sitting at one corner of the world to talk to a person at the other corner as if he or she is sitting in the other room. I personally do it when I talk to my family or friends back in India. 

Yet with considerable knowledge about technologies and being a human myself, I have always been told that I am really bad at communicating with others. They say communicating is an art and I am as knowledgeable of it as Bush was of Osama's hideout.

Be it family, friends, someone special or relatives, everyone at some point of time have complained about my communication or rather about the lack of it. I have had to face firings, disappointed friends, angry friends, a failed relationship and much more due to it. When I went home for vacations, I spent most of my time with friends and didn't contact any family friends or relatives. This didn't go down well with my parents. I also only spent time with a very few friends, thus angering the others whom I didn't even contact. Due to this, and I kid you not; I have a fatwa declared in my name by a friend for if and when I go back to India. Bet even Salman Rushdie would be proud of me!

What is really funny (or not) is that I know about all this but somehow I have not been able to overcome this problem. I have faced endless lectures from my friends, read articles about it and my parents have tried their best, but to no avail. There is no denying the fact that over the years I have massively improved on my flaw, but there is still a long way to go. Communicating is still hard-work for me and being a lazy-ass, I see quite a rocky road ahead. Wonder what I have in store for me....