Why is it so that we "Shut Down" our PC, "Switch Off" our cell phones and "Turn Off" our TV Sets? Why do we have three different words for one single process!?

I am not a tech-geek, but any other person who has plenty of time to think about random things.

Take a simpler example. You have TV Set, it has got its own speakers. You have your PC, it has its own speakers. There is your mobile having its own speaker. Then you have your music system again having its own speaker! Won't it be much better and economical to have a single speaker set for all these instruments?

And its not limited to speakers. I am looking around myself, and I find there is so much wastage of technology, be it different displays for TV and PC or separate DVD players for TV, PC and music system or unique chargers for mobile, camera and iPod or, the most irritating one, different remotes for every product!

Why can't we synchronize all of them to act like a unit and not uniquely?

Hardware Synchronization


 






We have got a mobile phone, right? Nowadays it has inbuilt camera. But still it can't take place of a digital camera. Why can't we have all the features like optical zoom, panorma in a mobile camera? Apple provided music player in its iPhone, but why it's not at par with iPod? Why do we need a kindle when we can read on a mobile phone?

Won't it be nice if we have a mobile phone which can actually replace digicams, iPods, kindles and if possible, notebook too. And then this mobile can also act as the remote control for our TV, music system, DVD Players, ACs, fan, tubelights or any electric equipment. It may further act as our credit card, identity card, door keys and car key. Then you have further features like mobileTV, GPS navigation, gaming, the limit is endless. (Of course, keeping things simple while compressing everything in one small device would be a herculean task !)

This mobile phone would be completely synchronized with electronic equipment at your home and office. You play music in your mobile phone and it would be automatically played from the speaker set present in the house. Every electronic devices would have bluetooth or bluetooth-like technology which would provide wireless connection between them. Talking about devices, they won't be like computers, televisions, playstations, but functional based- a speaker system for audio output, and a display for video output and a player which can read data from CDs, pen drives, blu-rays, memory card and also act as your set top box and MoDeM. Thats it! What else do we need? Just these three products. Regarding input devices like keyboard, we can use our mobile or can have mini touch pad.

Whatever I am talking about is no science fiction. Read carefully and you will find there is no mention of any new technology but only proper use of existing ones.

Data Synchronization




[caption id="" align="alignright" width="259" caption=" One data centre connecting every electronic device"][/caption]

After hardware, lets talk about its soul- the data. How nice it would be if we get the same interface ie the bookmarks, shortcuts, settings, wallpaper and data while using any PC  in or out of the world  Today you have your favorite song stored on your mobile, your iPod, your CD and on your hard drive. And then thousands and lakhs of people have that song stored. Won't it be better if we store only a list of our favorite songs and play it via internet without actually downloading the song?

Another example- You click a photograph from your digicam. Now using a data cable, you transfer it to your PC, attach it on an email and then sends it to your uncle-aunt in New York. Won't it be better if they can directly access those photos from digicam's memory via internet (of course, there would be password protection for your 'special' photos)

What I basically want, instead of our hard disks, the data should be stored via internet at one single data centre. All we need to do is to just log in from any computer or mobile, like we on facebook, and access our photos, videos, music and other files. Instead of CDs, pendrive or atttaching file, we would just give the web-address of the file to the concerned person. (This system of data storage could be somewhat similar the The tree of souls and voices as shown in the movie Avatar).

Synchronizing Communication


Taking a step ahead, we can also synchronize the way data travels ie communication. Again I am looking around myself. I have got a DTH connection for TV, GSM connection for mobile, a traditional telephone line, a telephone based-broadband connection, a wireless landline phone and a FM radio. Then there are other technologies for communication like cable TV, IPTV, dial up internet, wifi internet, mobile internet, CDMA, 2G, 3G. And then within these technologies, we have SMS, MMS, emails, bluetooth, infrared and so many other things!

Again, i guess, broadly speaking we need only two modes of communication- one for short distances like bluetooth and other for long distance like 3G mobile or wifi broadband. The short distance communication would be used to synchronize our electronic devices at home, substituting the wires. And the long distance communication would be used for voice chat, text messages, television, radio, sharing photos, videos and other data.

Issues


I understand there are certain doubts about the viability of such synchronized system. And that's why I am not saying to introduce it all at once. But the electronics giants must take steps towards it. In fact, I am sure they must be taking it (like we have chrome OS based on storage of data via internet, TV on mobile etc.)

Some prime-facia issues can be-

Cost. Such technologies with so much of features would be really costly. But my point is the cost of synchronization would be nullified by the money we save by having lesser equipments (wont having single video disdplay for tv and computer save cost?)

Bundling up. Products would be bundled up with features that we don't require. Simple solution- customization of products as per customer needs.

Privacy. With our data  stored somewhere else, privacy issues may creep in. But tell me, where is it more  safe to keep valuables at home or in banks? With so much of data, obviously these data centers would have better security options than your pc.

Complicated. "So much" in everything would affect the simplicity and make things complicated to use. This a partly correct, but then any new thing appears complicated at first and then we get used to it (example is in front of you- Your PC!)

Likewise, I believe other issues can also be dealt with.

And as I have written above, these are nothing innovative. Having a camera in your mobile is also a part of synchronization. What I am saying is to take this synchronization to the next level, where mobile and cameras won't be different. Infact, daily we are having launches of products/technologies in this regard. iPad was one such launch (though I believe, it failed in its task of bridging laptop and mobile). Google cloud-based Operating system may revolutionize the computing world in this regard. Infact facebook is also doing the same thing by providing everything on our wall and also by storing our photos and other infos.

I again repeat: I am not a tech-geek, but any other person who has plenty of time to think about random things. So pardon my lack of knowledge or any mis-appropriation of fact.

Thanks for reading it. One more thing, I would like to clarify is- I am not saying all these changes should happen, but this synchronization (or you can say management) of technology is what I believe would be the future.

Eagerly awaiting your comments and suggestions.!