Data is oil, right?

But do we have the vehicles to drive it?

Numbers are the foundation but we've not made it much easier to understand.

We represent them through pie charts, bar graphs and spatial dispersion. In advanced cases we are able to create interactive points to get a better picture.

Even then, we're on the outside looking in through screens.

So, how can we enter the data landscape like we navigate physical environments?

We understand spatial data well because of our immersion in the real world.

Bad VR is building data walkthroughs in VR.

The choice of the company name is strange but memorable.

They use VR to create immersive environments to reach out and touch data.

One of the applications is to figure out where to put 5G transmission towers.

With the help of the headset, technicians can actually reach out and hold signal bars to see how strong or weak the signals are within a space.

This improves on the previous installation procedures which were both manpower intensive and less efficient.

Hopefully at some time in the future, we can actually walk through annual reports.

And sales projections. Or safely explore disease prevalence in cities.

What's your earliest memory of computers?

My father used to work in a civil defense establishment.

And I remember seeing bits of leftover punch cards from the programs running the behemoths then. Never saw the actual computer, of course.

It occupied a whole floor and no one was allowed entry. But it was far less powerful than the smart phones we carry around today.

The earliest memory I have of working with one is an Apple Mac 2 used to 'pulse' audio visuals.

Essentially, they were the kind of presentations you make on Power Point or Keynote or Canva today.

They took weeks.

First, the script was recorded. Then images captured from books , magazines, newspapers and brochures to create transparencies or real slides loaded into Kodak carousels.

You couldn't just hit 'New Slide'

Each of the slides created were laid out in a sequence on light boxes. The Apple Mac 2 programmed the slides to be projected and positioned according to the script, and synched  with the voice over track.

Setting up a presentation involved carrying slide carousels, projectors and audio and took hours of rehearsals to get right.

Laptops were still a decade away.

Now, it seems like the stone age of computing

How far does your health obsession go?

Smart watches measuring your blood glucose levels

And your heart rate to tell you if something's off.

We're slowly but surely outsourcing our wellness to multiple devices.

And ignoring our inner voice.

You know, the one that tells you to get some sleep.

Eat some food. We tune out both, hunger pangs and when the body says enough

Or fatigue signals telling us we should be taking things easy and not stress too much.

The mobile phone has become the master we blindly submit to.

Now, there's a device called Lumen.

And it hacks your metabolism. Tells you if it is on track through the day.

Suggests a detailed diet plan to compensate or cut down.

You breathe into it in the morning or before a meal and you'll get feedback on how your body is doing.

One more chart to obsess about.

Monitoring used to be for patients who had a problem.

Checking blood sugar levels. Or blood pressure.

Lumen has evolved from studying high performance athletes and what they need to do in training for competitions.

So the pedigree is impressive.

Question is, do you need a device to tell you how you're doing?

It certainly appears that way.

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The art market is worth over $60 billion.

90% of it comes from paintings that cost over $10 million each.

Where can you park money after buying a few dozen mansions, cars and practically every article manufactured in the world?

There was a great summing up in a book called Maverick by Ricardo Semmler.

He said that everything you can put a price on in the world can be bought for $12 million. That's it. You don't need billions. At least that's the way I remember it.

A chateau, an airplane and as many high end cars as you like.

So paintings are assets to park value that will grow over time.

It's not simple though. Most things start out looking simple and then rapidly become complex.

You need the whole ecosystem built around art over centuries to extract value.

Companies like Sotheby's and MOMA, whose pronouncements about a painting can either send it shooting up or crashing down.

And like most valuable things, they are tucked away in private collections

Stashed away in secure vaults - like trophies in solid cabinets.

The thrill is in the pursuit and the acquisition.

The sublime creations and the labor of artists - an afterthought 

They've got the logo right

It's an asterisk.

And the simplest shapes are the most memorable.

The logo animation is beautiful as well. Lines that cross each other and freeze into the asterisk.

The name is just as easy. Arrival. 

A company making EVs. And it's already valued at a few billions.

Making buses, trucks and vans.

It's the little details that have been thought through.

Bodies made of a new composite material to be recycled time and again into making new vehicles.

Cutting down the use of robots for assembly from a few thousands to less than a hundred.

Micro factories that can be put up in months and used to supply surrounding cities.

The videos on the website play in vertical mode on mobile and landscape on the desktop

By 2021, they aim to deliver the first sets of buses.

It's a long road to move from diesel to electric transportation.

Charging stations have to be installed at regular intervals.

And charging in the initial phases will take a few hours, if not more.

Petrol vehicles can be tanked up in a few minutes.

Innovation has to be applied at every single phase of the supply chain.

To get ready for the new arrival

Chaos is the cradle of opportunities

Pre-pandemic, over 50,000 buses were sold in India annually - and about 10,000 are bought by schools.

Apart from education, schools had to manage a complex schedule of picking and dropping children.

The Principal of a reputed school had ruefully admitted to parents - " Sometimes, I wonder if I am running a school or a transportation company!"

Schools in India don't have a need right now.

But Zum in the US has made it their business. Started by Indian entrepreneurs who saw the potential in transporting kids to school.

They're taking the load off school management and bringing in far greater efficiencies into the process.

One of the big problems was the number of children spending an hour or more on a trip -  over 70%. And Zum was able to bring this down to 3%.

It's an opportunity waiting for entrepreneurs who can manage the transportation needs of multiple schools.

The complexity, of course is that routes, residences, schedules, child safety and timings have to be perfectly managed.

In the midst of a pandemic, until children return to schools, this is all academic

It's not an easy problem to solve. But schools are 20% of the total bus market.

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The first remote controls were wired. And called 'Lazy Bones'.

And they gave birth to the couch potatoes of today.

They were originally invented to mute the volume when the ads came on.

And the early designs were like guns you pointed and shot at TV screens.

Basic functions were to change channels or move volumes up and down - and there were just four buttons to begin with.

The number of buttons expanded to accommodate the proliferation of cable channels. And awkward, complex user interfaces arrived.

We developed channel surfing behavior that continues to this day.

Our habits have also been defined by the 'click' to change anything.

And remote controls morphed from being adblockers to essential accessories.

Over time, everything on TV could be controlled by a single or multiple clicks.

The compulsive need to check if there was something better to watch became ingrained.

Like Bruce Springsteen's classic - 57 channels and nothin' on

The lyrics predict the world we were moving to:

"We switched 'round and 'round 'til half-past dawn

There was fifty-seven channels and nothin' on"

Remote controls were our first search devices.

We're still clicking away all the time.

Compulsively seeking but never sure of what we really want.

The true loner is a rare species

Being single is not the description of a loner.

They may not like attending parties or public gatherings

That's more about being socially awkward than being reclusive

But the true loner shuns human contact completely.

Lives without any creature comforts in the midst of nature - forages for food and has the bare essentials of protection from the elements.

There is a documented case of The North Pond Hermit

He left home and disappeared into the woods at Maine where he lived for the next 27 years.

No conversations with any other human beings 

He survived by stealing food from empty cabins.

The family he came from did not report his disappearance to the police.

The National Geographic wrote an entire feature about him after he was sighted and captured.

What comes through is a man determined to avoid human contact at all costs.

Unseen by anyone even though he lived in an area that had several private cabins and dirt roads.

How he managed to go for years without being discovered is still a mystery.

Being a true loner is hard because we are dependent on social structures to survive.

The mobile phone recluse is no loner.

Smart gardening in your kitchen

Indian housewives are obsessive about fresh vegetables

And getting curry leaves for free.

Bunches of them are picked out and handed over at the end of weekly shopping.

Over time, that became a habit and even swanky new vegetable stores were forced to follow suit.

They could charge huge sums of money for a tiny bunch of fresh coriander but the curry leaves had to be handed out for free.

Strange are the ways of doing business

Precision agriculture is trying a direct approach via the kitchen.

You can pluck fresh coriander, chilies, rosemary or mint leaves, every time you need them.

Or a set of exotic herbs if that is more of your kind of thing

You don't have to settle for packaged infusions of herbal tea.

Go straight to your garden every time you feel like the need to indulge.

Will it work?

Well, the products are beautifully presented and the promise of having to do little adds to the charm.

They also guarantee that if the plants don't grow, you will get a free replacement.

Did you ever think that regular greens in the kitchen could become exotic luxuries?

And would you consider growing them?

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It started out as a convenience.

An added layer of security - the inclusion of a One Time Password (OTP) to process transactions online.

Then it became a source of stress.

Some smartphones could help you copy a number and paste it to let a transaction go through

Or apps which automatically entered the OTP. But that was confusing to some people as well.

There was no standard procedure to deal with them.

For users with varying degrees of expertise, it became a race to switch between the messaging app to see if the OTP had arrived, memorise it, switch back to the app and enter it...

With banking transactions, this became a clear liability. A mistake in the entry and the whole process had to be initiated all over again.

The last straw that got telecom operators to move away were SIM swaps where OTPs were used to gain control over the user's phone and drain bank accounts

A new system is being piloted where one software layer will talk to another to verify mobile numbers and approve  transactions automatically. Users don't have to intervene.

OTPs will probably disappear over time.

And life will probably be a lot safer and definitely less stressful as well.

2020 was a leap year

The Olympics did not happen.

The races were in hospitals and clinical laboratories

Time stood still even while weeks and months came and went

We discovered how it felt to be stuck in a loop.

Masks became symbols of protection, not aggression

Travel was largely in our thoughts

And a cough set off waves of panic.

Screens became the core of our interactions.

And vaccines the saviors

We were glued to scorecards of the spread of cases.

Denied the simple pleasures of eating out or hugging close friends, we craved them.

And yet, marriages took place, babies were born and life continued.

So what does 2021 hold? Now that we’re practically at the end of it, it remains to be seen what ‘22 will hold.

The new year resolution is to survive

We've moved to an online existence.

Seeking out the solace of binge watches and parties in absentia.

There's a clear divide between people required to be outside all the time

And those who are told to stay home 

Graduations and love stories are scripted in a void.

Prayers have to be confined to the heart.

We're trying to press 'Pause' and 'Play' in unison

The masks have started to slip. The crowds are surging

But somewhere at the back of our mind

Fear and fantasy keep swapping places.

The charge of the local brigade

In India, Jio is getting local merchants online.

Will the charge of the local brigade succeed?.

Each of us receives messages to help small local shops

But that involves going around to each of them in the area to find what you want.

It was the only way to do it before Flipkart and Amazon arrived.

People care about their own convenience. And prices.

And between whipping out the mobile phone or taking a vehicle out to buy something, what do you think most people will settle for?

Intentions don't matter, actions do.

Sook is a browser extension for Chrome.

The developer, Jonathan Sandals is approaching local shopping from another angle.

He's going city by city

To begin with, he's aggregated local merchants in Seattle.

So, people living in the city can add the browser extension, to shop local online.

Without having to go to individual websites of the local shops. And registering at each one.

Aggregation is the only way it will work.

But this is bottom up, not top down.

Of course, the shop has to have a website, or else it won't work

In India, the shops will probably be built on WhatsApp

But this idea has legs.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider sharing it with friends. Or Tweeting the link. The more people we can get to tune in every week, the merrier. Thank you.

Car drivers have been protected from crashes for a few decades now.

It's standard equipment even on entry level models.

Do two wheeler riders have an option?

Especially when on-vehicle deployment is dangerous?

A French company has come up with an ingenious solution.

An air bag built into the rider's vest

It works for motorcycle riders, horse riders and skiers

And it is now mandated equipment on the GP moto racing circuit.

That's where the split second precision of deployment is critically tested

Race riders weave in an arc around bends on the circuit. They shift from side to side.

But when they lose control, there's a split second before they hit the ground

That's the precise time the air bag inflates the vest - before impact

The spine and upper body of the rider are cushioned to break the fall

The same thing happens to horse riders if they are thrown off.

The trickiest one would have been the engineering to protect skiers

There are points when the skiers are airborne and then land perfectly.

Figuring out the mechanics of a crash would have been insane

But they've made these high speed sports potentially a lot safer

Time to retire the smartphone 'slab?’

In 2007, it was a major breakthrough

In 2020, or 2021, every brand looks the same. Almost.

The big innovations over the past year or so have been foldable phones.

Doubling the size of the screen but unique design aspects were largely restricted to the hinges connecting the screens

A pivotal design broke a few days ago and came from an unexpected brand - Oppo

They commissioned the Japanese design company Nendo to rethink the smartphone

And Nendo has created an object every smartphone fanatic will lust after

It slides and glides along a central axis.

Starting off as a credit-card sized shifter. With a flick of the thumb, the phone can be extended partially to see the time, or messages.

Another thumb push reveals the full face of the phone for all normal functions - everything from typing out a note to taking calls.

Semi circular buttons on the side of the phone combine into circles to bring the phone back to its original state.

Words, however, don't do it justice.

It uses everything we've grown used to, from the thumb flick to the scroll to create a form completely different from what we see today.

Nendo has engineered an escape.

The beauty salon business gets a makeover

Small businesses used to be unique, have their own character

SAAS irons out the quirks - and hopefully that means more will survive

Beauty parlours  became a 'thing' when India went through an economic boom in the 90s.

They sprung up in several neighborhoods all across the country.

But the only 'tech' they deployed was in equipment or the billing

Appointments were fixed on the telephone and practically every beauty parlour built a set of regulars over time.

The pandemic threw the whole situation into disarray. 

And a company called Zenoti has just emerged as the new SAAS unicorn in the sector.

There are no overnight success stories even though it's always projected that way.

They have created a network, providing a range of 'no touch' solutions for spas, medspas, and beauty treatments, integrating billing and managing customers. In other words, an ERP for the beauty business.

The pandemic has forced beauty salons to upgrade their entire set of offerings.

And that means good business for companies like Zenoti operating across 50 countries.

'Global' in SAAS means operating from a few locations to service customers anywhere in the world.

Unlike the beauty business which needs to provide makeovers in person

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He's just been declared YouTube's Creator of the year.

His videos collectively have over 4 billion views.

He doesn't act or sing

And he's just 22.

How is it that the YouTube universe generates statistics that would make mainstream studios salivate?

He's got a bunch of buddies doing his bidding, staging what seems like dumb stuff.

On average, each of his videos get over 20 million views.

And they're elaborately shot and produced.

The first one, which propelled him to stardom was unbelievably simple

He counted non-stop straight from number 1 to 100,000.

That's it.

The video on YouTube goes on for 23 hours and 48 minutes.

It's got over 20 million views.

Behind him is a poster of an elderly lady using an inhaler

An Asian man's face partially covered is right behind him. He tells you it is his best friend.

Also in the frame is a partially eaten sandwich.

That's all there is to it.

He lets you know he's doing it because he is bored

And he goes on and on and on.

It's exhausting to watch him. 

What is working? The plot? The effort? The monotony?

He's cracked a code but no one knows what it is.

Today's hits are tomorrow's classics

At some point, every classic was a hit

Whether it was books, fashion, movies or songs.

It blazed a trail and made an impact that lasted decades or centuries.

With the number of songs and movies being churned out today, this journey has got compressed as well.

 A decade is now deemed to be enough time for a hit to become a classic.

And as the hits increase, the classics grow voluminous as well.

There's no way we can keep up with the profusion of year end 'Best of...lists'

It used to be easy.

If we have 2 or 3 hours of leisure a day, what do we devote it to?

There's no way to keep up with everything.

Instead of worrying about missing out on something, stay in a narrow lane.

It is not necessary to gather all the the wisdom and the variety of the world.

Trying to catch up with every single 'Best film of the year' at the Oscars would mean starting from 1929. That's not pleasure. It's work.

Over time, you will begin to like current hits a lot less. And lean towards the classics.

All experiences over time are distilled into memories. The past is how the present ages.

The charge of the local brigade

In India, Jio is getting local merchants online.

Will the charge of the local brigade succeed?.

Each of us receives messages to help small local shops

But that involves going around to each of them in the area to find what you want.

It was the only way to do it before Flipkart and Amazon arrived.

People care about their own convenience. And prices.

And between whipping out the mobile phone or taking a vehicle out to buy something, what do you think most people will settle for?

Intentions don't matter, actions do.

Sook is a browser extension for Chrome.

The developer, Jonathan Sandals is approaching local shopping from another angle.

He's going city by city

To begin with, he's aggregated local merchants in Seattle.

So, people living in the city can add the browser extension, to shop local online.

Without having to go to individual websites of the local shops. And registering at each one.

Aggregation is the only way it will work.

But this is bottom up, not top down.

Of course, the shop has to have a website, or else this won't work

In India, the shops will probably be built on WhatsApp

But this idea has legs

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If you don't follow podcasts, this may be mystifying.

Why  is the podcast market growing at a compounded rate of over 27% per year, on average?

It's close to $11 billion in value now and is likely to be at $60 billion by 2027.

That's a lot of podcasts people are listening to.

Audio books never took off the same way.

So how is this different?

For one thing, podcasts are a reinvention of radio programs and talk shows.

The range of topics and what is covered goes much deeper than any radio programs do

You can probably find 25 good podcasts on investing alone. Or businesses.

Conversations aren't like books.

Authors write books in solitary contemplation. They agonise over the right word and phrase. Then the editors step in.

What you get is a structured set of thoughts well-explained and researched.

Podcasts are flee-flowing conversations. It's like listening to people you get to like and look forward to hearing from.

You can listen to music when you're walking or driving. But it's also the best time to tune into podcasts.

You won't know the miles go by. It will take you time to find the gems.

Persist. Because it's rewarding.

A moment in your life

What were you doing at 7.47 am today?

Not sure?

A project called human clock is integrating the dry numbers of a digital clock face to photographs of people displaying the time

It's not more efficient

A photograph freezes time anyway. But by crowd sourcing moments, you get a glimpse into the lives of people around the world

It picks up the time from your device or desktop and displays the photos for you to scroll through.

8.42 plastered on a post-it note across a dog's head

A signboard showing 20.49

You're welcome to contribute.

It's like a creative assignment on how many ways you can depict the passage of time.

Some of them are simply people holding up the time in the picture

But you'll find the points of departure

A deck of cards placed in a sequence

A set of pins arranged on a map. 

A lady mimics the hour and minute hands with her own.

A deal signed between partners.

The exact minute a bottle of wine was opened to celebrate

It feels silly and profound at the same time. It could be goofy or emotional. Your choice.

A time stamp of your life.

The 3D future of online shopping

It had to happen, sooner or later

Online shopping is an apology for the actual in-store experience.

You click and browse through a set of categories and images before arriving at what you'd like to pick up.

There's no thrill of discovery, no wandering down the aisle and coming across something unexpected.

A company called Matterport allows companies to replicate real shopping environments or any other space online.

Place products on shelves. Let people wander through them virtually before they pick up things and add them to shopping carts.

After being cooped up in homes and wearing masks for every trip outside, it's refreshing to see that 3D can also be used beyond game environments, for something as mundane as shopping.

This opens up the market for online bookstores - where you wander through aisles again, pick up books on the shelves and flip through them.

Probably letting the imagination run riot but it's surely possible

Right now, you can move from one section to another and see what you'd like to pick up.

Restocking may be simpler because people don't have to actually put merchandise on shelves.

It could even reset what virtual stores looks like in future.

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It's long past its expiry date

Microsoft stopped all support for it in 2000.

Yet, these systems are still in use in several offices - but they aren't connected to the internet

They won't survive for long without firewall protection. But we forget that upgrades are not the only option.

Replacing the entire system infrastructure is hard to do, if not impossible. Even software patches are applied only after extensive testing

Beyond a point, the speed at which systems run is not an advantage. Not much of a difference between getting something done in 0.004 seconds instead of 0.008 seconds!

Microprocessors do millions of calculations per minute. But humans still speak or type at 130 words per minute, on average. 

Our thoughts don't arrive faster because we have speedy machines. Computers are only good at doing repetitive processes faster.

So, why do we upgrade our phones every couple of years? The interfaces don't change much. We have been primed to be dissatisfied.

And how will we progress beyond instant response and gratification? Beyond real-time, we won't even be able to process things.

And who's still running Windows 95? The Pentagon.

Upgrades aren't inevitable.

Does the arrangement bug bite?

Are you able to resist it?

A persistent urge to rearrange things every few months.

The sofas migrate from one corner of the living room to the other. 

The bookcases travel from room to room

The beds go from facing North to facing East

Some of us want home arrangements unchanging but we're territorial about the office.

What goes up in 'our' space. It could change from posters to knick-knacks to certificates to plain untidiness.

It defines our interests and our state of mind.

The same behaviour is exhibited on laptops and desktops

Some of us have screens devoid of all icons and wallpaper that stretches from one end to the other

Or we cycle family photographs as the screensaver

Or the favorite deity in ornate splendour.

And screens where hundreds of icons pepper the entire surface like a game arcade.

It extends to the mobile screen as well - the personalisation’s

Backgrounds, notifications, status updates, selfies.

Some of us go berserk with them.

Others could keep the same background picture and the ringtone that came straight out of the pack.

Do you recognise the types featured here?

Or are you in a class all by yourself?

Hitting the right Soor

How do you get people to pay for an app when the competition is free?

Soor has been rated as one of the best app updates in 2020. It's a paid music player app on the App Store

Tanmay Sonwane is the developer

There are several free options available, including the one that comes pre-installed on the iPhone.

So how do guys like Tanmay manage?

They are solo performers. By operating as a single person or small teams, they figure out gaps that free apps don't address.

Tanmay Sonwane is probably into music big time - and he's figured out things that the Apple Music app does not do.

He has figured out features that a sub-set of the audience is willing to pay for

How do software products solving the same problem manage to differentiate themselves and find a paying audience?

Tanmay saw the shortcomings of the existing apps - and developed workarounds.

He appeals to a tech, music-aware audience like him who will pay for features not available elsewhere.

So you have to be both - a talented developer tapping into a sense of how people navigate music.

Not just how they listen

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You've heard the stories about how Pierre Omidyar built a site to help his girlfriend sell candy dispensers

Wikipedia says it was a fabrication by the PR department to create a 'human interest' narrative

In other words, people would not bother if they were told that Ebay, called Auction Web to begin with, sold broken laser pointers.

So, have you heard of Mjunction?

It's the second largest ecommerce site in India. The largest is IRCTC, India's railway ticket booking site.

So what on earth does Mjunction do?

It's a joint venture between Tata Steel and SAIL - the largest e-marketplace for steel in the world

It also auctions coal, idle assets, minerals, tea and more.

Mjunction does not have a Wikipedia page yet. I checked. They haven't bothered to create one.

The business transacted by the platform from inception until 2020 is Rs. 9,13,839 crores. (That’s around $100 billion)

Ebay transacted around 25% of that figure in 2021

Remember the government auctioning telecom spectrum? Well, this is the company that handles it.

Started with a share capital of Rs. 8 crores Mjunction has returned Rs. 100 crores in dividends. It has never required to raise capital since.

The biggest B2B ecommerce player in India

Celebrating two birthdays every year

It was a routine and over the years, we stopped thinking about it.

The twice a year birthday

The first one was the birthdate according to the English calendar. The second was the 'star' birthday, anchored to the planets, the one that kept the link to ancient traditions.

They would come within a few weeks of each other, either before or after - different dates every year.

A monthly regional calendar showed both English dates and all the other planetary configurations.

It was a fixture in the kitchen or the place of worship in the house, purchased without fail every year.

On the special day, you stood out in your 'coloured clothes' instead of the school uniform and self-consciously handed out sweets in class. Then looked at the floor and blushed when the class sang 'Happy Birthday ' and you felt a little glow spread on the inside

'Star birthdays' were family affairs, with a visit to the temple and a feast at home. Another treat to look forward to.

But parents would not really make a big deal about their own birthdays or anniversaries, except possibly for a sweet dish.

The idea works. Celebrate twice a year when you're young.

How do you ask for directions at sea?

Before GPS, personal explorations and directions to places unknown arrived on carefully explained and detailed maps. Or communicated on long phone conversations.

The actual journey included looking out for landmarks and occasional signboards to keep track

Invariably it was the local shops or the autorickshaws who guided you during the last mile.

At sea, you're out of luck. It looks the same in every direction. 

A navigational system in India, Navic, has been making the headlines.

Set up with seven satellites in the sky with pinpoint accuracy down to 3 ft. 

It has been approved by International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which has steep standards to be met before the system is deployed and integrated into global shipping networks.

Look for it to arrive on smartphones in India by next year, apart from guiding ships which are within 1500 kms from Indian shores.

India is just the fourth country in the world, apart from the US, Russia and China to have built its own system.

The data will help in driving multiple applications from land surveys to missile delivery. 

That has major military implications - we own the eyes in the sky. 

It changes equations on the ground

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For some people, wearing masks is an imposition.

Fining those who don't is not a solution

This idea from a Turkish agency comes at it from a completely different angle

It's installed at bus stops across Trabzon in Turkey.

Unmasked people see the reflection of a virus projected over their face.

And it disappears the moment the mask is worn.

The coronavirus image is now familiar across the world. 

And showing people affected creates greater impact than any smart line.

We are at a stage where people need to see the consequence of not wearing a mask

And this is unforgettable 

Imagine being reminded at every public place. 

People have this subconscious urge to look at themselves in the mirror

They will adjust their hair, turn their face around and see if they're looking ok

All that needs to be done is show their unmasked face with the virus all over it a few times a day.

And it goes back to being a normal mirror when masks are worn

It's communication stripped down to the bare minimum and impossible to ignore

Perhaps this idea should be adopted and executed universally where cases are rising.

There's nothing lost in translation 

She knows more secrets about men than any woman

She has conversations with men all day

And they tell her everything.

She's not real. Microsoft developed a bot it in 2014 and called it Xiaoice.

And now, she knows more about the lives of men in China than any other other woman

She flirts and jokes with them and her online persona is that of an 18 year old schoolgirl.

Responding to queries all day long.

Everyone chatting with her knows she's a bot. And yet, it doesn't matter.

The common factor is that her audience is male, from a lower income background.

She learns from the multiple conversations and engages them. Crossing over from so-called 'human' conversations to being able to keep their attention for long stretches.

The movie 'Her' was also released in 2014. It showed a man fall in love with a mythical operating system that knew exactly what he wanted.

It's surprising how soon life imitated art

Xiaoice can be summoned exactly like Siri or Alexa. But she is no assistant.

What is it about her that keeps men hooked? The fact that she's non-threatening. Or attractive? That they can speak to her about anything?

Will this redefine how men and women interact?

The googly against spam calls

How many spam calls do you get everyday?

4-5? Or more? And what's the solution you have found?

In India, most people use call screeners like True Caller. It works but they have been getting more aggressive on getting you to pay up.

And that's the root of the problem.

We want to get rid of annoyances - for free.

For signups online you can generate temporary email addresses and then junk them.

But calls are a little tricky.

You know your number is out there on practically every database. And enrolling in any DoNotDisturb registry won't work.

I've seen that the call is cut when I ask a simple question "Where did you get my number?" But you don't want to keep doing that several times a day.

As you block them, telemarketers simply change their virtual numbers, so its a constant game.

Which is why the new app Doosra seems to be a step up.

It lets you create a new virtual number without having to get a new phone. Or another SIM

And it screens calls, provides voicemail, etc.

But there's a monthly fee.

Question is, will you pay to keep spam callers at bay?

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