Technology gone mad

I can’t help feeling that we are being led by the nose when it comes to technology. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not against technology but there does seem to be a spate of nose pulling, especially among consumer devices.

Once upon a time there was the novelty of mobile phones, house brick size maybe but we were overawed by the sudden freedom and kudos they gave us when they worked. And then, as they got smaller, they got more sophisticated and grew screens that took up much of the front panel. Instead of being able to make just a phone call, we could send printed messages. Then we could send emails via an internet connection while on the back lurked the single eye of a camera. Then they developed radios and games and became so complex that making a simple phone call was a challenge to man and machine.

They were no longer just phones. They were all sorts of other things that most people hadn’t dreamt about until they were thrust together in sometimes an uneasy alliance. The simple act of being able to make and receive phone calls had been subjugated to this all-thinking, all-doing device that then became not only expensive but carried features that many people did not want and did not know how to use. But they had no choice. It was all or nothing.

Now take home entertainment. Once we had AM radio till FM radio took us a huge leap forward in terms of quality. Now we have digital radio which, from the point of view of the consumer, is not streets ahead as was FM over AM. I would match a well set up FM receiver and amplifier against a digital any day of the week and for less money.

In the beginning we had VCRs, the height of technology that could trundle a tape past a couple of heads inside a mystery box of convoluted mechanics and advanced electronics. The machine gave superb colour pictures and stereo sound long before we had to show it all in a special media room on a screen the size of one of the Opera House sails.

Yes, its limitations were the length of the tape and compared with the quality of a digital television picture it was rather like looking at the world the morning after the night before. But the quality was good enough for most people. Now there is the PVR, which will take over from the VCR at the end of the year when the analog television service switches over to pure digital.

Then there is sound. From the 78 rpm record through the long-playing stereo vinyl to the CD and Blu-Ray have been great strides forward. The difference between the vinyl record and a CD is dramatic - no distortion and a silent background. But the difference between CDs and Blu-Ray and DVDs is far less marked, sound wise, which I think is proved by the relatively little program material available for the format.

Yet whatever you have, from a waxed cylinder to a Blu-Ray, you will need at least a 5 to 1 amplifier with at least four speakers and a subwoofer that will peel the paint off the walls and shake the neighbours’ arthritic bones when in full boom. However, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Consumer resistance to this regular and all-too-frequent update pattern of all things electronic is showing up. Some of the latest phones and tablets are not selling nearly as well as had been expected so maybe manufacturers will get the message that we don’t really need annual minimum changes to a device. And don’t even mention what this habit might be doing to resources and the environment.

There seems to be a growing number of people that would like a good amplifier feeding good speakers without the need to test the house foundations with a boom box. They would like a mobile phone that just makes and receives phone calls and is cheap, small and reliable. Many seem to be weary of being forced to buy devices that have features they will never use.

And finally, perhaps the height of technology out of control are the smart toilets in Tokyo that can be operated by a smartphone to perform flushing and musical themes and have heated seats. This surely is convenience gone mad.