Is iPhone a Music Phone?

The iPhone is a fancy Cellphone with a fancy MP3 player (iPod). But is it truly a music phone? Let's find out by checking it against the features of music phones. Note that I have deliberately left out Cellphone features (Speed Dial, Ring tones, Profiles, etc.) and Music Player features (Playlists, Sync, Storage, etc.), concentrating solely on Music Phone features (as I see them).

1) Dedicated "Music" button. Hmm...a difficult call for iPhone. It has an iPod icon on the main screen, but it is not exactly a dedicated button. The icon is accessible whenever the phone is in ready mode, but inaccessible from inside other applications. Other touchscreen phones have a physical button, but iPhone skipped the feature for elegance. If I were to vote on it, I would say the iPhone barely misses out on this criteria.

2) Earphones/headphones have dedicated music controls. The iPhone uses the standard 3.5mm jacks and does not have a controller with music keys.

3) Remote Music Access. That is, while on call using earphone, if the phone user starts the music player, the person on the other end also hears the audio being played (in addition to the voice). The iPhone fails this one too.

Unfortunately failing all the three criteria, I come to this conclusion that iPhone is just a Cellphone with MP3 player, and not a true Music Phone. And I totally understand iPhone lovers commenting that nobody cares about technicalities when everyone knows that iPhone is the best Music Phone ever, and you can actually 'touch' the music, and whatever. Either way, I am amused that the most talked about 'Music Phone' is technically not a Music Phone.

Elements of Logical Comprehension

We are all aware of the often-used literary technique in which the author shows interaction between the protagonist and a stranger. The stranger ends up being the villain of the story, doing things only expected of a mad man. Only by the very end, the author pulls off a shocker, telling us something that wasn't known before. It changes the whole meaning of the story, and we suddenly start sympathizing with the stranger. One famous story that comes to mind is "Broken Routine" by Jeffrey Archer. This technique works because we, as readers, place full faith in the author in telling us the complete account of events, both seen and unseen. Indeed, intentional gullibility is often the best way to enjoy classical literature. But this shouldn't stop us from understanding the essential principles to be followed to have a complete understanding of any event. What follows is my understanding of the elements that should be used in any attempt to understand events in a logical manner.

Any piece of information, by itself carries little meaning. If you hear someone saying "Yes", you can't expect yourself to form full picture of what was going on. However, it is common human nature to synthesize stories (or theories) around facts where none exist or are not immediately clear. This has the potential to create confusion, but often helps us guide through decisions based on incomplete information. It is not without reason that many people believe humans are much more suited for the real world than computers, who tend to wait for enough data before taking any action.

Any event comprises of three components: Context, Perspective and Expression. Take away one, and you create the potential of confusion.

Context is the most visible part. Context refers to the situation that exists when and where the event takes place, the metaphorical page everyone has to be on at the start of a conversation. Context can be defined as something that is easily visible to anyone present where the event occurs. Since physical presence is not the only way to be present, presence can broadly be described as ability to sense the essence. In a public speech, it is knowing and seeing (at least) the speaker and the crowd. In a teleconference it would be knowing the speakers, the agenda, and the mood. Gossip columns thrive best by quoting celebrities out-of-context, which is often the easiest way to tell half-truths.

Perspective is about knowing the background. It is seeing the unseen. The story I referred to in the first paragraph is an example of one with missing perspective. A missing perspective is easily left unnoticed. You can't know so easily if the labor union leader who betrayed his fellow workers was just greedy, or had received death threats. Whenever possible, we should try to establish a working communication with the person in question before forming an opinion, giving enough time to clarify his reasons and beliefs. But again, this is not possible every time. In such cases, the best we can do is asking question "Do I know enough to form an unbiased opinion?"

Expression refers to the active part of the event. In its most general form, it is a sentence (or sentences) in a natural language, though it can also be a facial expression or body language. Unadulterated understanding of the expression (cognition) is key to forming an unbiased opinion. Language and cultural barriers are the biggest hindrance in assimilating the expression. While lacking a funny bone is a case of missing perspective, having a poor understanding of the language is an example of inaccurate cognition.

I have tried my best to come up with all possible elements that make up logical comprehension, but there may be more that I missed. I will be glad to include any suggestions, which can be left in comments.

Signs Of The Times

Nostalgia is a very powerful element in art. By reminding us of something with which we had strong association in the past, an artist can instantly bind with the audience. But the techniques (or rather effects) used to bring nostalgia have varied a lot over the years. Quite predictably so, as they have to spark the minds of people who once associated themselves with these things but today's world does not provide enough exposure to these things, making the association nostalgic.

Some of the effects that are currently used for nostalgia are:
1) Black&White/Sepia tone in photography.
2) Gramophone "hiss" and static for audio.
3) Image distortion and dislocation/streaks across screen/editing errors/blanking out/etc for video.

These effects remain quite powerful even today, thanks to the large population that associates with the period these things were common. However, the industry will soon need to invent new things that the younger generation needs association with. But with the great advances in technology, do we still have things 'bad' enough that they will spark the minds of this generation in years to come?

This got me thinking: What are the things that are common in today's time that will bring nostalgic effect 20 years later? Quite surprisingly, the list turned out to be longer that I had expected. Here's my list:

1) Two-dimensional cartoon (the ones used in most mainstream cartoons like Tom and Jerry) as against the three-dimensional/realistic one (like the ones used in movies like Wall-E). Two-dimensional cartoon are pretty common even today. Start any cartoon show and you will find that most of them are still 2D. This will surely change, and thus, 2D cartoons will bring nostalgic effect. On a side note, I don't think 2D cinema (as against 3D, that is watched using special glasses) will ever go out of fashion. This will remain true irrespective of the fact that future will bring many more 3D movies, techniques will improve and so will the user experience. Just like videography didn't kill photography, 2D movies are here to stay.
2) The characteristic movie loading animation as seen on online video sharing sites like YouTube. We all have seen and experienced the revolving circle and spokes while trying to load long videos. Future will surely see these being used for nostalgic effects even if the video loads in an instant.
3) Fonts. Without question, the fonts of our times will have nostalgic effect ones they go 'out of fashion'. I don't know which it will be: Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, Courier New or Comic Sans? I just hope it isn't Comic Sans. I would love to see it around forever.
4) Microphone echo. Unfortunately this is one of the few things that are actually broken in today's world. Microphone's shrilling echo is something that needs to be buried deep into the past, and I am not sure whether I will enjoy the nostalgic effect 20 years on.
5) Command prompt/DOS mode. I am not very sure of this one, but it can really become a big nostalgic effect if the Linux community decides to 'move on' with better stuff. If they choose to stay geeky, the future will be less colorful and less nostalgic. I think they should rise to the occasion for the greater good of human race's future.
6) Windows 9x style windows and software. Vista/OS X have already changed it for good but they still haunt are recent past and are in our short-term memory.
7) Faded/yellowing paper. Most mainstreams publications don't have this problem, but if you are used to buying Rs. 20 detective novels (made from 100% recycled paper) from stalls in railway stations, you know what I mean.

Let me know your opinions on it, and suggestions for addition to this list.

The Great Indian Railways

No, I didn't go to Dhanbad again this time. And this being my Socio-political views' blog, I will anyway not do it here. So let's come to the point straightaway.

Over the last few years, the Indian Railways has gone a long way, boasting an achievement one too often. Let's have a look into how the Great Indian Railways has evolved since its conception 150 years back.

Back then when the first train started from "Boree Bunder" (Victoria Terminus, later changed to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) to "Tannah" (Thane) on 16th April 1853, nobody had imagined the big system it would grow into over the years. Back then, we had only royal steam engines and it was sight to watch as they zoomed past the village landscape. For the people who wanted to travel, choices were very less and the only source of excitement was whenever a new train was commissioned or a new railway line was started. But the journey to progress literally stopped with the Britishers leaving the country. The railways became plagued with corruption as many cases came forward of nepotism and bribery in getting railways job and as a result the whole system suffered. Add to it the damage done by politicians who tried to appease the masses with the power of this portfolio, making the railways as inefficient as as ever. This mindset is still present as the politicians still 'fight' to get this portfolio, sometimes even exceeding the fight to become the Prime Minister.

In the background, the railways continued their slow progress to betterment by converting narrow-gauge to meter-guage and meter-guage to broad-guage, adding new trains to the system and increasing the frequency of the existing. The only news railways made was when there were train accidents, something that haunts the railways still now. Most of the people from today's generation wouldn't know that the trains like Howrah-Mumbai Mail are names so as they were the prime post carrying trains of the past, and have decided not to change name when literally all of the Express trains started carrying them.

The railways were notorious for being late and this was a big deterrent for people to trust the railways, but in the absence of better alternatives, they were forced to stay loyal. The people of India have a lot of nightmares associated with the emergency of 1975, but ask anyone about any positive side of emergency and 9 out of 10 would reply that the trains then ran on time! With such sorry state of affairs, the railway ran till in the late 90's. computerized reservation was started, and was hailed as a major achievement of the railways. With this started an era of improvement that continues even till today.

The next major news was the inauguration of Railways website that allowed people to check their ticket status and plan their travel by getting first hand information about the available train with their reservation status. Soon, more websites came up that even allowed passengers to book their tickets online and get them via a courier. Another unheard of website is of the Central Railways that somehow didn't get much attention. It offered online train status and offered support by either SMS (on mobile) or E-mail. Currently, the railways are also planning to extend the online reservation facility to allow passengers to print their tickets sitting at their home and not having to travel to the reservation counters. But of these things that have made news have very low trickling down effect in terms of benefit to the common man. But fortunately for him, there were good news for him too. Three of such stories that didn't made much news were the computerized train inquiry on phone (allowing railways to open more lines for train inquiry without having to employ more people), the Tatkal facility(keeping aside a few seats for passengers having to travel in emergency, set aside to be filled only on the last day) and the coach position/location panels on the platforms. These things were actually of most utility but sadly didn't get much attention from Mainstream Media. And while such big success stories were enough to give a 'Pass' grade to the Railways, they have much more to their pride. The conditions of railway stations in the country have improved overall. And we even hear that Habibganj station in Bhopal has became an ISO 9000 certified railway station. And (Shan-E-Bhopal) Bhopal Express became the first ISO 9001 certified train. This train even has a webpage! of its own that gives details about the train. I have also heard that Malwa Express has also got the ISO certification, but haven't been able to confirm it from reliable sources. My gut feeling is that its not true as the two times I have travelled in that train, once it reached 12 hours late, and the other time 25 hours late!

The coaches in the trains have also improved with even the Sleeper coaches having mirrors and mobile phone charging points keeping in view of the changing face of the Railways customers. Pantry services are also on upbeat with quality of food improving as compared to the last decade. The railways have also allowed fast-food joints to start operating inside the railway stations, and much more space is being given for retail outlets. Anti-pollution drive or social gimmick, the railways also started to serve tea in kulhads, which though wasn't very successful.We even hear that the railways plan to take a big step towards modernizing the station on the lines of airports, though some feel its impractical and is only tried to face the threat of revenue loss owing to the advent of Low-cost airlines like Deccan Airways and Spice Jet.

But even with all these, the railways still have a long way to go before they can get an 'A+' grade. Let us take a look into what the railways can do to make themselves trustworthy.

Firstly, the railways must do much more to stop the high accident rate that is a hallmark of the Indian Railways since a long time. Though people say that railways are going to introduce automated systems that will enable trains to operate even driver-free(!), I believe it will still take more that 20 years to get implemented on major routes even if it starts today.

The second major problem that the railways face is security. This is a multi-dimensional problem. There are still numerous cases being reported frequently about cases of theft and robbery from passengers. Though the railways have done sufficient work in educating the people (with notices urging people not to accept eatables from strangers), very less seems to be have done in order to actually stop these cases by improving the efficiency of Railway Police. Another dimension of the problem is the problem faced by the employees of the railway staff themselves, the engine drivers. Even now it is reported that there are hundreds of unauthorized halts in parts of Bihar and adjoining places that engine drivers are forced to halt at for the fear of getting beaten up by the locals. In order to avoid punishment from the authorities, they have to even cook up faults like 'vacuum failure', etc. This causes much problem for the rest of the passengers travelling in the trains. With all the railway ministers coming from this state over and over again, there is little hope that the situation will improve.

The next major challenge in front of railways is corruption. Be it the admission into the railways, or the ticketing, corruption is rampant everywhere. There's hardly an year in which we don't get to hear stories of how corrupt the system of railways gets when it comes to taking in new people. The aspiring candidates sometimes even pay up Rs. 2 lakh as bribe to secure a job as it is considered very safe job. Instances of nepotism are also widely reported. As the majority of the system seems to get corrupt, it would be a good idea of the railways try to outsource the recruitment process to some reliable third party. Now, let us see the corruption in ticketing services. All of us are aware how much black-marketing is done on railway tickets between two important destinations or for a particular train. With regards to this, I remember a true story that was told to me by my cousin. This was the case with a lady who wanted to book a ticket for a train from Delhi to some destination(I don't remember the details of the ticket). She got in line early in the morning 60 days ahead of the journey (when the booking opens). She got the ticket in her hand at 8:03 am, which was a Wait-List ticket. She was shocked. She then filed a case in the court claiming widespread corruption in the railways, daring the Railways to provide details of how hundreds of tickets got issued within three minutes time of opening of the ticket sales. I haven't got any further information of what went on in the case, and I would request anyone who has been following the case to tell me the details of the proceedings. Anyways, coming back to the point, most people believe that while ticketing counters open at 8 am every morning, automated scripts run on the computers inside booking hundreds of tickets in seconds, which are later sold through black-marketing. I feel that the solution to this problem is very simple to implement if one has the willingness to stop it. The Railway administration should implement a check on tickets before they are issued, in a sense that a same host (reservation counter) can't book a next ticket say 30 seconds before the first one was issued. And also, to catch the culprits, they can study the data of booking made in the past to check for such fraud by using software that would be very easy to make.

There can be many more ticketing reforms. The ones that I suggest now are debatable and suggestions are welcome for more inputs or a discussion of the existing.

In order to be more unbiased towards travelling passengers, the Railways should set aside a larger portion for last day/week bookings. Most of the people who book their tickets 2 months ahead of travel are usually the people who travel for pleasure/holiday making. While there is another class of passengers that are more deserving than the previous are the ones who need to travel urgently because of business work or some serious personal work. But they suffer from the fact that they are usually not aware of such travels much in advance and come to know only a week in advance (a liberal estimate). The railways need to considerate to them also and set aside a portion of tickets for booking in the last week (say 20% of all the tickets). This is a bit different from Tatkal quota that caters to the last minute reservations and has very less quota. A better solution will be to increase the number of coaches in case of over booking of tickets on priority, i.e. if there is over booking of tickets so much that all RAC's can't be accommodated, then new coaches will be added to make room for more people. But this will require the railways to maintain extra coaches whose utility will be uncertain.

The next problem faced by railways is the menace created by huge rallies that amount to gathering people from large distances. These people not only don't buy tickets, they create nuisance for the bona fide passengers. The railways need to come down heavily on such activities and move over politics to work for the betterment of the nation.

Another suggestion that I believe might work is to create a new class of travelling between Sleeper Class and AC Sleeper Class. Such a class, though will be similar to Sleeper Class in terms of coaches (though arrangements can be made that they get better/new coaches), the facilities will be better than the Sleeper Class. This may include an attendant to keep off beggars and unscrupulous people to enter the cabin, and maybe even offer bedding to the travelling passengers. This can be priced between the Sleeper and AC coaches and I believe will be a success as there will not be the extra cost of AC but the comfort will be a lot more than the Sleeper Class, especially for the long distance travellers. We may call it Exclusive Sleeper Class (suggestions for better name welcome).