Ockham's razor (also known as the principle of parsimony) is one that has always fascinated me in the sense that it addresses a problem that we find all over the place but choose to ignore. The simplicity of the principle of parsimony commands respect and today we'll be relating it to tech. Ockham's razor simply posits that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. When you have the same solution rebranded in different ways that yet does the same thing (which is common in technology), you're in violation of the above principle.
WPS, WIFI DIRECT AND MORE OF THE SAME
Have you ever heard of WIFI Direct? have you ever heard of WPS? frankly, a lot of people haven't and among those who have, most haven't used these features that are on our devices (and is something I believe drives up the prices of these devices 😒). Netizens today are bombarded with so many alternatives to making transfer of data or internet connectivity that it's so hard to choose which to use. Today we have staples like Bluetooth, infared (I doubt people still use this), WIFI, NFS (Near-Field Scanner), WIFI Direct, WPS and some other features I can't remember at the moment.
All the above basically do the same thing, admittedly some have unique use-cases (an example is NFS), however, the rest practically do the same thing and when you take out Bluetooth, the speed difference between the rest are marginal. Today we want to examine WPS and WIFI Direct which are the lesser-known features that we have available on our smartphones (Airdrop is the WIFI Direct of Iphones). WPS stands for Wi-Fi Protected Setup and is a feature that supposedly makes it easier to connect devices.
With WPS, two devices (wifi routers and other devices) with close proximity have to enable the feature on their devices simultaneously and the process of connecting these devices happens a lot faster (this sounds oddly familiar to what we get from WIFI doesn't it? 😏). Due to security concerns surrounding WPS, it has been somewhat deprecated. However, you may still find the WPS feature on WIFI routers and older devices. WIFI Direct is more or less the same as WPS in the sense that both devices turn it on and they connect to one another, it does what applications like Fileshare, Xender and other file transfer applications do.
FINALLY...
There have been growing concerns with the definition of innovation as it relates to the field of technology due to the fact we have several solutions that shouldn't be touted as innovative solutions but as a substitute and this is evident that many people don't know of it as well as the fact that those who know don't think to use it. It is widely publicised that the average human makes not less than 35,000 choices on a daily basis, when confronted with two many substitutes of the same utility, analysis paralysis sets in which led experts to believe that more choices don't exactly benefit the market, it just makes the customers more confused.