Information Technology

From the past… into the future

Yesterday
Information Communication - A necessity which became the genesis of mankind’s greatest achievement - Information Technology. Everything that is technological in itself acts as means of communication. Be it human to human, device to human or device to device, everything that is transmitted is a form of information or data.

Predating the era of Information Technology, the only means of transfer of information was via “writing”. Writing had a profound influence when it came to understanding and communicating data / information. The medium was strong enough to be preserved and carried to many generations. But the need for faster and wider data transmission arose. Technological advancement such as telephone, telegraph and television originated as a new medium of data communication.

These mediums worked across immense distances and still had data being transmitted in the blink of an eye It was indeed a golden era of information management across diversified communities and mediums. But the need for data to be stored, managed, maintained, modified was the only drawback that these mediums had. Thus a new day dawned in the era of information technology - Computers.

These machines had tremendous capabilities and were powerful enough to understand, manipulate and produce data; they made massive tasks seem minuscule to accomplish. The era began with the growth of technologically advanced machineries, devices and peripherals which were even more powerful than their predecessors.

Today
Now we live in an era of handheld devices and form factors. It is very unusual to find a home that has its members not glued to any screen based form factor. There was an era of cameras, telephones, pagers, video recorders all unique in their own space. But today we have devices that transmit, carry voice, manipulate and capture images and videos and also act as high end gaming machines all within one device, the size of ones palm.

Humans presumed this revolutionary change was the ultimate pinnacle that technology could achieve. However this will never cease to grow. The growth is rapid and practically uncontrolled. We now have switched from handheld to wearable devices. Companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft which used to manufacture Personal Computers and operate search engine are now the foremost players in this industry. SIRI, Google glasses, Microsoft Surface made their foray into this industry. We also have data being stored in an “As-you-wish-you-get” storage - Cloud Computing. Together all these technological advancement gained prominence and have become an integral part of our everyday life. The show must go on.

But where is the future heading?

Tomorrow?
It is heading into a new paradigm- Contextual computing. Many companies are trying various methodologies to understand human behaviour and psychology. There are devices that detect human behaviour and are programmed to react to situations and circumstances. Music players that calculate the seasonal changes, an individual’s mood to generate random songs that fit the scenario. The world’s first twitter wearable dress was launched which displayed live tweets. LED T-Shirts and self-Augmented reality, smart watches, health and fitness tracking.

Companies that use and harness these emerging technologies will be on the forefront as always. The era is never stopping. What was a myth turned into a reality and with every innovation, technology left a legacy behind. This legacy will soon be carried ahead with technology that shall be with us.. on us… and around us.  

 

Hardy Thomas, co-founder of Frozen Digit -
A Company acquired by Direction expanding its operations in Mobile domain.
www.frozendigit.com