All-in-one Alamelu - My dream device

This post is partly inspired by Chennai Living and his rant about different devices having their own proprietary charges and connectors, eventually leading to a tangle of mile-long cable that cannot be reasonably handled by any grown man (as women everywhere can attest!).

I've given a lot of thought to this as well. But I've always wanted to go one step ahead and eliminate the need for multiple palmtop devices, and integrate all their functionality into one manageable device. These days, when I go to a party or an outing, I prefer wearing cargo pants. Not because it provides more breathing space for my boys than a pair of jeans, but because it has more number of pockets. So apart from my wallet, keys and ever-present cell phone, I can also comfortably carry my video iPod, digital camera, and if necessary, the connector for the former and the charger for the latter. On long drives, I also walk out with my FM transmitter which enables me to play my iPod through my car radio system. Obviously, once I get down to my garage, I inevitably realize that I've forgotten some gadget. And it usually takes a couple of trips up and down the flight of stairs, before I am all packed for my evening and good to go. Ofcourse, I do need to wear a strong belt to keep my cargo pants in place, what with the half ton of silicon jingling in various pockets.

So let me describe here my dream gadget and what all it needs to integrate. For want of a better name, let me call it all-in-one Alamelu, or simply Alamelu for short:

#1 Alamelu will predominantly be a cell phone, with excellent voice clarity and small and easy to handle.

#2 Alamelu should also work as an organizer, preferably something like a Palm without all of its hardware problems. Needless to say it will need to have a slide-in qwerty keyboard. (For palm lovers who snicker at me, you just need to try calling my room-mate. The background noise is like a rock concert, if he happens to be standing in the vicinity of a computer or other source of EM or radio waves. Its pathetic!)

#3 Alamelu should have an integrated digi cam. Not the useless 1 mepapix cams that come with cell phones, but I need one with all the features and look and feel of my Canon SD400 (Digital Elph).

#4 Alamelu should have a built-in mp3 player. Ideally, I would like to have my video iPod integrated, with a high clarity screen to watch videos, easy to navigate menus and a 30 GB hard disk that can also be used like a flash drive.

Okay, now that we have a basic Alamelu that takes care of most problems, let's see how we could make our lives even more comfortable.

#5 I don't want to carry my wallet with all the credit cards, ATM cards, drivers' license and miscellaneous forms of ID, auto insurance, health insurance, preferred customer cards for various grocery stores and zero cash. I want alamelu to handle all this for me. Ideally, when someone wants to issue a card or some form of Id for me, they'll just give me a code that I program onto alamelu. So if I want to pay for something, they just scan Alamelu after I click on the button that let's me decide which card I would like to use. At grocery stores, I would just scan alamelu to put in my preferred customer card number and they'll stop torturing me to sign up for replcement cards. At my doctors' office or when I get pulled over by a cop (both of which seem to happen with an alarming frequency, more than I wish to care for!), I could simply flash out Alamelu, click on the button and the appropriate ID gets displayed on the screen. I should also be able to scan various coupons and use them when appropriate (they get applied automatically). If you are the sentimental type and like to carry pictures of various family members (Arumugam uncle, Ambika aunty etc.), you can scan these pictures into Alamelu as well. As you can see, I'll have no more use for my wallet anymore.

Ahh... now things are getting very very cosy. Let me see if I can make this even better.

#6 Next step would be to integrate all my keys and key cards into Alamelu. Ofcourse, this would require a change of locks in my house, car etc. But this would be a small price to pay for the convenience, for the confidence that goes with knowing that you'll never forget any key ever again. All you need to do is program Alamelu with the appropriate key code, and voila, you have a master key that opens everything. To make this secure, we can borrow the RSA Secure ID scheme that has a constantly changing code, which you combine with a 4-digit pin code that you remember. This way, you can protect yourself if you lose Alamelu. At the very least, it will atleast buy you some time while the thief tries various pin codes from 0-9999.

Excellent. Now I have my dream device. There's only one last thing left.

#7 The connector should be USB based, so I don't have to carry a cable around. It also goes without saying that Alamelu will require only one charger.

Following are some optional features that would make Alamelu even more beautiful!

#8 The scanner should have an integrated optical reader that I can use to scan books/papers and store them as text that I can read it at my leisure.

#9 A dictaphone with a great software that converts my speech to text accurately (an example), which I can later download onto Word on my laptop.

#10 Some great video games ofcourse. Would be nice if it would connect to your TV and replace all those xboxes and playstations.

Alright. Party! party! I have everything I need in the device. The high-level requirements are complete. Now, if only some genius comes with a design to actually implement the damned thing, the world would be abetter place to live in, without all the devices, connectors/cables, chargers, associated warranties etc. Any takers?

Needless to say, such a device has probably been already envisioned, a market survey done, and then the idea thrown aside as being financially unsound, since this will rob the electronic giants from making money off of their various products (in adiditon to running lock makers out of business). But it still feels good to dream about this. Of a day when I can wear any pair of jeans I want without worrying about the room and pockets to store all my gadgets, never having to worry about forgetting/misplacing my keys, having the world at my finger tips... You can already smell the flowers and feel the warm sunshine on your skin, can't you?

PS: I know some of you smart-asses are going to say "Hey, what of I lose Alamelu? I'll lose everything, and it'll be a long hard road to replacing everything!". To all you people, my reply is "harrummpppphhhh". If you cannot take care of one device, you don't deserve my Alamelu!

PPS: If any of you can think of adding more functionality to Alamelu, leave a comment. It will be added after appropriate scrutiny from ADAB (Alamelu Design and Acceptance Board).

(Updated with comments from readers about what features they would like to see in Alamelu)


#1 Remote car un/lock. (Funkaboy)
#2 Electric razor - Not anything fancy. Should be suited for quick trims of 5'o clock shadows (Funkaboy)
#3 A built-in projector - Since the screen is too small to support all the functionality we are integrating into Alamelu, we should have the option of projecting the contents on a bigger screen (Funkaboy)
#4 Since we have so much riding on all the data we pile on alamelu, this data should be automatically and wirelessly backed up regularly on remote servers. These back ups themselves should be backed up periodically ofcourse. (Dinesh)
#5 A built-in GPRS locator (can be tracked through a web-site maybe?), add a garage door opener capability (or any other remote openers for that matter) as well as instant data deactivation through a web-site (if it gets lost) (Anonymous)
#6 iPhisher feature (Hit the club, see a chick, scared to ask her #? Fear no more. Flash alamelu at her fone and get the vital stats via iPhisher :)) (~ET~)
#7 Masalaboard integrated ;)))) Must auto download new videos everyday, sort them based on size and store them on ur digi iPod! (~ET~)
#8 Lie detector :)) Think a girl's playin games wit u? Slap that alamelu shit on her wrist and get your game back on :P (~ET~)