The other day some TV channel was airing 2006 James Bond
flick Casino Royale. Back then it was a valiant attempt by the James Bond
franchise to make 007 relevant to post-9/11 reality. I remember Daniel Craig
through his robust screen presence had resoundingly silenced many who had
doubted his panache to play 007.
But what struck me was that throughout the movie he was
using Sony Vaio laptop and a Sony Ericsson phone to get along with his business
of licence to kill and make the world a safer place. It was a clever attempt by
the Japanese electronics major to co-brand its products with the Bond flick.
If the producers were to make the same movie now (inclusive
of pact with Sony) then Craig's baggage probably would be much lighter. He
would be just carrying a Smartphone - probably the latest from Sony Xperia
stable, tucked in the breast pocket of his suit and use 4-G technology to keep in touch with his boss M.
In the field of mobile phone technology six years has brought about a generational change. Those days the only
Smartphone we heard of was BlackBerry and to possess that one probably had to
be a higher up in the corporate ladder (a director I guess) of some MNC. Apple
back then had only reached the iPod stage. The coolest thing then was to have a
camera phone with an FM radio - MotoRazr, Nokia 6630 and Sony Ericsson Walkman
were the top draws and the Gen-X was barely getting used to ear bud speakers
and 2-megapixel cameras on their phones. Now PCs and laptops are facing the
same fate as typewriters, when boxy desktops made their entry.
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Quite often the movie scriptwriters spin out stories in
which the contemporary technology often proves to be a game changer of
the plot. In mid-1990s I happened to see a movie Hear No Evil, starring Marlee
Matlin, who had earlier won an Oscar for the movie Children of Lesser God. The
movie is about a deaf woman who falls foul of a corrupt police officer looking
for a stolen coin, hidden in the woman's pager. That was the first time I
happened to see the 'beepy' matchbox like device and wondered what that hi-tech gadget was. It would often beep the wrong
time, putting the woman’s life in danger. It was in fact pager - a precursor to
the cell phone revolution.
If anybody from the current Smartphone generation happened to watch
the movie he/she too would be astonished, but for a different reason. The
device got reduced to a museum piece long back and they may wonder what that
crude instrument was!
Also Read: Bangalore Beat
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