News Channels and Attention Deficit Disorder

Yes, we live in an information age. Find the remote control for your television set and try to count the number of news channels that you are subscribed to! Amazing isn’t it… for a diverse country like India with so many languages dividing us regionally – the news broadcasters have managed to create a network of news channels covering all the languages and regions. My one question is – do we have some much news worthy of reporting?

One advantage of this is you never miss a news – petty or otherwise; Additionally, regional news seems to have gained a lot over regional newspapers and tend to create bigger fuss over smaller issues! Though all of this is true and seems like progressive step, no matter how infinitesimal, is pushing us to move in the right direction. But then I use my remote control again and surf to ‘Aaj Tak’. Suddenly, I am awakened to a new aspect of the information age – news spicing and bombarding! And make no mistake this is not limited to Aaj Tak but also encompasses apparently reputed news networks like Times Now, IBN 24x7, Headlines Today, etc. Try switching over to your favorite news channel and count the time they spend on one story and the way the limited visual footage they show of the incident. I will bet you this will definitely blow your mind. The whole news story will have no content that cannot be explained in less than 1 min and still goes on for about 10 with at least 2 commercial breaks to show the same reel of a file footage and same readout from the newscaster over and over again. This brings me back to the same question do we have enough news happening around us to be updated with or is the news corporation trying to rewrap and resell the same stuff over and over again. I miss ‘Doordarshan--days’ when boring/interesting was not a measurement for worthy news broadcast – it was the governed by precision and sense of bias.

Another thing worth mentioning is the attention span of human beings i.e you and me! With so much happening around us we have been continuously stuck in a state of overwhelm! It is like the Tata Vista advertisement our eyebrows never seem to return to their God-given state. We have been bombarded with so much information since the beginning of time that we have hardly had any time to process it. We have developed a super power and it is called ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Our environment has stunted our attention spans from few hours to few seconds. Try this out – switch on the TV set with the intention of watching a new channel and hold the remote in your hand; set it to one of the many news channel. Now time yourself for the amount that it takes for you to shift to another channel or just to start channel surfing. You will realize the one thing we are missing from our homo sapiens ancestors is the virtue of patience! We are so easily bored and/or swayed and/or irritated by everything around us that unless it is eye catching and/or shocking- we do not even bat an eyelid. Another good example of small attention spans is this video.

Gone are the days when simple really meant simple and complex was something unexplainable. Today news corporations create their own spindle of yarns to weave their own fabric of truth and reality. Choosing sides is essential part of democracy but biased news is not. I believe in being my own censor and missing out on the ‘san sani khej khabre’ !

Why the Google Nexus One fails?

I used to think that my use of a smartphone was not smart enough. I did not use enough features to actually make the cut to comment on the ability of a smartphone. I have come to realize, however, I use my smartphone better and more efficiently for extensive number of applications than most techno savvy people do. This was one of the reasns I had convinced myself with when buying a new Apple iPhone 3GS ( - thats the newest one with all the perks). For the most part I liked the iPhone. But after a while I missed being able to multitask  and browse videos from any website other than Youtube and even not being able to  use any other program to sync my smartphone except the shitty and slow itunes. Finally fed up with the inefficiency and incosistency of the device I had to abandon it for the new and upcoming and seemingly very promising Google Nexus One.

Bought it about a week ago. Though it overcomes most of the problems with the iPhone, it fails to deliver where iPhone worked brilliantly. Google Nexus One does a great job of integrating Gmail with the phone but still fails to create an attachment feature for the email system. The screen and the resolution is definately at par with the iPhone but the screen transitions not as smooth. The GUI experince is not smooth at all. Hard to believe its a multitasking phone with no internal memory management. No aplication to reegulate or user control it. Fiortunately a tons of applications are available for it in the Android market. Not necessarily a good thing though. A lot of choice but not enough quality, almos like Google search results! 

The Android market is amknig a lot of buzz in the mobile world and attractinga  lot of people/companies. The problem: you cannot find the original application from the service provider for a service like Dropbox. Try it!

Another problem with the search feature is that application names with common words return hundreds of choices and not the one you are looking for. try searching for the hugely popular where app on Android. I wasted around an hour trying to find it today. Android market needs a clean up crew. Open OS development and free and all is find but it is frustrating when there is no quality control.

What's with the five screens ? I get that people like it but why isn't there an option to shut it off or reduce it to 1 screen to save memory or something! Google cloud thing is fine but I like to manage my phone on my desktop or a laptop. I would prefer to work on a full size computer and manage my smartphone from there. Guess what there is no app for that! No you cannot find apps on a website and have direct link to download it on your phone or your management software on the PC. A one up on iPhone is an excellent contact management in the Nexus One. You can add Facebook, Twitter and Google and Microsoft Exchange contacts easily into the phone. 

Some of things that make me pull my hair and both the smartphones fail to accomplish are the battery life, memory management and the cool looking hand gestures from 'Minority Report' (Of course, I can forgo this one for a while!) But all in all, the technology in smartphones is still not smart enough to reduce my work load. All the devices around me tend to add into my daily routine rather than seamlessly moving into it.

Update post:: The Dropbox official app is now available in the Android market. But a missing multitasking app still needs to be added to Android. Awaiting the 2.2 FroYo update!