dinosaur

technology of yore - ultimate in cool

i happen to pick up a copy of this month's stuff magazine (the local version of the international gadget magazine) and was in awe by the advances of technology. blinding speed, is how i describe the progress of technology these days. the explosion or convergence, whatchamaycallit, in audio, video, voice and data are phenomenal.

i couldn't understand more than 80% of the terminology/jargon/tech talk in the mag, tho' i enjoy reading it very much. and to think that i am supposed to be tech/IT savvy. absolutely horrendous explosion of information and entertainment gadgets. i could spill out some terms to you off hand - ipod-on-video, PS3, wiresless digicam, gigaphone, K-Jam, digital music servers... the list goes on.

several questions spring to my mind immediately:

1) just how fast can malaysians adopt technology? we can't even adopt ipod as speedily or as pervasively as s'pore, furchristsake.

2) will you wait for something for months to arrive at our shore, only to know that it is already outdated by the time they have it on sale in low yatt plaza or imbi plaza?

3) what about the quality of service and repair of these gadgets? malaysian suppliers are notorious for "sell first, service later" mentality

i am not a technology follower, as you can judge by the handphone i use and the hi-fi system i listen to. i want my phone to be just, err, a phone and nothing else. if i need to take photos, i can use my digicam, thank you very much. and furchristsake, who would pay RM100K on a two-channel audio system in today's age and time? i certainly belong to those technology dinosaur category. no wonder i can't impress young chicks these days :-)

also, i have no interest in HT/AV (home theatre/audio video) until they sort out whether 7.1 channel is better than 5.1 channel and the endless and tiring format wars. even those who are supposed to regulate the standards are in total disagreement among themselves. what's the point?

at the end of the day, i still go back to what i am familiar with. two-channel hifi playing on compact discs or maybe SACD at a later time. of course, turntable playing LPs (long-playing/ records) is still the ultimate in cool. all this technology is not necessary a boon. it makes people like me wanting more to go back to embrace the technology of old.

but then again, i am a dinosaur so take my views with a pinch of garam.