Back to square one

        First post of this blog was in December 2011. First few post of this blog contained links to interesting websites pertaining to Digital Image Processing (DIP). The blog was created to mimic an online bookmark facility. Next, the online bookmark was thrown open to the public. This move was in consonance with the tradition of science. The growth of science can be attributed to two reasons. Objective reporting backed by sufficient data and timely dissemination of knowledge (inference of the experiments) to the scientific community. Because of this, hypothesis were tested thoroughly and hypothesis which passed the test made into theory and others were summarily rejected. This feature improved the credibility of science and became a 'brand' per se.

         In early days of the blog, finding an interesting website and posting it on blog was highly exciting. Over a period of time excitement after an upload started dwindling. To regain the excitement, articles on latest topics were written and uploaded in the blog. Article titled 'Super Hi-vision' which was written on July 2012 was the first article in this blog. It attracted more visitors and created a sense of accomplishment in me. Writing an article required undivided attention and few hours of time. So, weekend were sacrificed for writing and uploading an article. As usual due to passage of time 'excitement' level started dwindling. In the year 2014 on wards I pushed myself to write thousand worded abstract articles.

           I stumbled upon the interrelationship between technology and society. The wide gap created between technology and society by the present pedagogy made me really sick. I felt it is my duty to propagate the idea of 'holistic approach' rather than 'parochial approach' followed by present educational system. Few Socio-Technical (ST) articles were written and uploaded. I regained the sense of 'high' after writing the article. But amount of effort and time required was very high. So, number of post per year was reduced to six from prevailing 12. Writing ST articles brought few problems. First, weekends were lost. Second, one cannot set hard deadline to get an idea. It has to emerge on its' own. Forcing ourselves will be counter productive and create a mental depression. This phenomenon is common among the artists and writers. Number of visitors to ST articles are relatively low. Writing ST articles under the blog titled 'A to Z Digital Image Processing'  does not augur well. Setting aside the above stated problems, If I continue to write then I will end up as a masochist (a person who likes to inflict himself or herself).

Thus it is decided to go back to the roots i.e. find interesting website and upload it in the blog. You may call it as U turn. I will call it as course correction. Yes. View differs.

U turn or Course correction ?  image courtesy: www.the-future-of-commerce.com

Being a technophile – Boon or Bane?

    As per the plan, in this post I should have discussed about telephone exchanges. Accordingly I started writing a paragraph on automatic switching system developed by Almon B. Strowger in 1889. Then I listed the merits of automatic switching system and tried to figure out demerits of Strowger system. I felt user would have lost the 'personal touch' and warmth they had in the manual exchange (in US call office). As Strowger's exchange is an automatic system people would have undergone a marked shift in their experience (user-to-manual operator to user-to-machine). Today we use advanced version of Strowger system and human-to-machine interaction (h2mi) is the norm. I wanted to dwell on the social impact of h2mi rather than discussing the evolution of exchanges. I will discuss the later in the upcoming post.

    Simple question arises in our mind how the h2mi flourished without 'personal touch' and warmth.  Human operators may offer a good service and at the same time they are prone to error and mood swings (happy, sad and angry). So, users should be accustomed to large variation in Quality of Service (from courteous to irresponsible reply). The h2mi offers a 'Stale' but consistent service. Over a period of time we become intolerant to unpredictability. We are subconsciously trained to enjoy 'consistency' and reap cost advantage (cost of automatic systems will come down over the years). We seldom learn to appreciate the unpredictability of divine nature.
 

 Importance of human-to-human interaction (h2hi)
    People spend lot of money and take effort to see a football match in a stadium. Likewise people go to auditorium to listen a live concert. We all know after the advent of videography and video broadcasting one can sit at their home and watch the match or listen the concert in their TV. The cost and effort involved in watching TV is very less. Why then people visit the stadium. The answer is fans are able to connect with the environment (fellow fans and players). The "football fever" is not possible to get in the TV. 

Figure 1. People prefer human-to-machine interaction than human-to-human interaction.   Image courtesy: Google images

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)

Need for socio-technical articles

    This post deals with the need and importance of thinking. It asserts that, to foster thinking and tool making, society was born. Human strength relies on thinking. Urban living and modern gadgets acts as a barrier for thinking. Writing and posting socio-technical documents are given as the solution for the aforesaid problems.

Consequence of thinking

Long long ago our ancestors lived in forest. Species genetically close to us like chimpanzee and gorilla still live in forest. Our hardware i.e. body is very close to animal. What differentiates us from them is our mind. We think that is why we are human beings. The cave men slowly learned to use tools like stone, fire etc. to their advantage. They started learning the art of herding. Those who near to the river started to work in fields and thus agriculture was born. Agriculture was the incubator for all civilization. It liberated the human being from hunger and danger. It helped them to spend time on thinking. To sustain agriculture they developed a complex system called society. It protected the old and created an environment for the young to learn a lot. Society nurtured craft, trade and art. In the 18th century steam engine was developed. This invention leads to the industrial era. After the advent of electronics, digital era was born. 

Post-agrarian era, people moved to towns and cities from villages. To have a comfortable life in city they were forced to work for long hours. They learned to live in small place and with scarce spare time. In olden days life was slow paced and had opportunity to ruminate (i.e. chew their thoughts) were plenty. This helped them do the necessary course correction. After industrialization life became fast paced. So, thinking became a luxury. 

Evolution of Video Streaming (I)

       Sixty years ago, families in USA used to watch television programs in 14” CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screens. Today, an Indian teenager waiting for a bus in a bus stop uses his 5” smartphone and access video through Internet. Digitized colour video signals are streamed to an individual. Earlier analogue B&W (Black and White) Television (TV) signals were broadcasted to all the viewers. In the span of six decades lot of changes have occurred. The video resolution has increased; use of digitized video signals (colour) became the norm; wide use of LED and LCD screens; wide range of screens (4” to 80”).  In the video distribution front, Internet is competing with traditional TV broadcasting stations. The way viewers consume the video content has changed too. The shift is from ‘fixed-time and family-centred’ to ‘any-time and individual-centred.’ Half a century ago if any one prophesied that “One day people will have telephone at their hands and using that telephone they will watch TV,”  he/she would be branded as lunatic. Today we use smart-phone to talk, run few apps (applications) as well as to watch videos from YouTube.

Earlier TV sets were connected to roof top Yagi-Uda antenna using flat ribbon cable. Unlike FM antenna (i.e. dipole antenna) Yagi-Uda antenna is a directional antenna. So, it has to be positioned towards the direction of TV signal broadcasting station. Channel changing has to be carried out by changing the position of the knob in the TV. Wired or wireless remote control was not available. Receiving two TV channels is a luxury.