Saturday 31 October 2015

Smartphone evolution Part I

Today the smart phone acts as a five inch any-time any-where television. The smartphone should be either renamed as 'microTV' or 'personalTV' or else we have to accept it is an irony (using a phone to see video). The name smartphone suggests that 'it is an intelligent phone'. We can infer the 'device' was not developed to see video. But it acquired the capability to display video.

Working of telephone or any other artifacts of technology are explained in books or magazines through technological point of view. If we are not able to grasp the technology, then we are unable to understand the working of the device. Technical systems are explained with use of mathematics. Invariably common man's grasp on mathematics is poor and in turn makes shallow understanding.  Next, technology-centered explanation uses lot of technical words. This makes English as the best medium to convey concepts. Thus a "glass ceiling" is created for common man who lives in Asia or Africa. As the technologies are changing rapidly and technology centered pedagogical approach is really outdated.

We can safely presume any technological device is produced to carry out function(s).  This leads us to write a pseudo-mathematical equation 

Device = Function + Technology                                                                   ... (1)