techradar.com— An awful lot has changed over the last 10 years, but what technology of today will become redundant over the next decade? Here are eight common technologies from the landline phone to public wi-fi
Sep 30, 2009View in Crawl 4
>> Everybody types faster than they can write. Mouse might go in favour of a flat, desktop touchscreen, but keyboard is here to stay.But you can talk faster than you can type. We are already seeing that on smartphones it is easier and faster to speak search phrases.>> Landlines are important when you have kids - you're not paying for a cell plan for each child.You can use a VoIP service for that, and they will work out the bugs in ten years.>> Wimax will probably only be in big cities in 10 years - public wifi will probably live on in suburbia for a good time yet.Why -- if the radius of coverage includes those suburbs?>> Optical discs will take longer than 10 years to kill too. Not on the Internet time table. Studios are already preparing to dump optical.>> Every motion-controlled game on Wii is inferior to it's analog-stick-and-button counterpart in terms of response-time and usability. I don't expect this to change.Inferior in what sense? Most people I know who are not hardcore gamers (e.g., the majority) prefer the Wii over any Xbox or PS3 game.>> Blogging, likewise, will not be replaced by chatting apps, just like irc and newsgroups didn't replace email - different functions.You're using newsgroups as a way to defend against emerging tech?
I have to respectfully disagree on wireline telephone. That is one of those things that is no longer state of the art, it seems anachronistic in a lot of ways, but it still manages to do what it does so much better and so much more reliably than anything else, that it is not going away like the real techies wish it would.
You can add additional displays with something like Matrox's TripleHeadToGo solution. Sure, it's not suitable for high performance applications today, but with USB 3 and later it will improve. 7.1 sound can be added via USB as well, plus I'm sure it'll make it's way into laptops eventually anyway. I've had laptops with RAID, although it just doesn't increase performance that much (no really, look at the benchmarks). As SSDs get cheaper I'm sure we'll see it more and more. Network based storage makes sense in a lot of cases too.Obviously some form of desktop PCs will be with us for the foreseeable future, but it does seem likely they'll become a niche product, and morph into things like HTPCs and other related items.
Land lines are still far better than cell phones for a family. They are still cheaper than having a cell phone for every member of the family. Lets say one has one or two young children and wants to hire a babysitter. Does the babysitter need to bring a cell phone with so she/he still has a phone? If the young couple take their cell phone with them it would mean the babysitter would not have a phone. Even when the children are old enough to stay home alone they still need a phone so unless one gets a phone for everyone and everyone is responsible enough to keep and maintain that phone than a land line is needed. Spending well over a $100 a month for cell phones for everyone is common and there are still a lot of families that can not afford that much. I have a land line and have unlimited long distance calling but since my grandchildren have cell phones with no land line and have limited number of minutes, I need to call them after 9 p.m. or weekends. It really makes my unlimited long distance calling almost useless in this case. I have seen land line phone that have worked for more than 2 or 3 decades. One is lucky it a cell phone works for 2 or 3 years. There are times when I do not want to receive a phone call. When I call someone with a cell phone and they do not answer, I often wonder why. Is it because they are in trouble or have used caller id and do not want to talk to me? I still feel better if I call a land line with an answering machine so that I can get a call back even if it is to my answering machine.
Like I want to sit at my desk at work saying, "File 450 30 did not load correctly. Please resend the file...." and what other junk while the people in the two dozen cubicles around me are doing the same thing. What if I am relaying confidential information? I can often type faster than I can speak and more importantly, I can do so more clearly. I also do not want my wife making fun of me when I am attempting to write a novel in the next room.Also, I'm tired of people saying we won't have media anymore because of broadband. Maybe it will come to that but I hope not. I want my master disk with the professional packaging. I'm not knocking those that prefer the instant downloading but I hate to see the music and movie industries go this direction. Also a dollar per song download costs more than a used copy of a CD. Three dollars an episode cost more for a season of a show than one new blu-ray..
Honestly, these arguements have been laid against microsoft for 15 years now, but has microsoft fallen yet? I never said they will never fail, but how many times have the linux zealots claim microsoft can't possibly survive the next 5-10 years? Microsoft has disversified, they are agile, and they have their heels pretty well dug into the broad consumer base. It's like an article I was reading today about the "Windows compatible" stickers being pointless but won't stop because microsoft loves branding. And it's true, I work at a REAL computer repair store where people don't know anything about their computer, but they know it runs windows. They can't tell me what program they use to type letters, they call their computer "the hard drive", they don't understand the difference between a deleted icon and a uninstalled program, but the one thing they can tell me is that they have windows. Of course, thats what they tell me when I ask what version of office they have, but the point is that microsoft has the term "windows" dug into the minds of 80 year olds and children. They've done their branding well.Also, as fancy as Ubuntu is, a technologically forward Google OS may be, I have yet to see any of these emerging OSes do as good a job of catering to the lowest common denominator. I've had friends load Ubuntu on a family memebers system and later replace it with windows because they were tired of being daily tech support for it. Or someones 9 year old wanted to load some kind of Kidsmart game or something, and what do you know, no linux support.Microsoft has always had REAL competition, I'm not saying they haven't, but the competition has always catered to geeks, not people that really, honestly think computers run on MAGIC. Not only do they think their computer runs on magic, but they don't want to know any different and will NOT buy anything you tell them to if it seems like they may have to learn something about that MAGIC.Again, I'm not saying MS is infallable or invincible. Look at their mobile OS, it sucks and I don't think its very competitive. The PS3 is competing pretty well with the Xbox360. But Windows has been on computers from the beginning of everyday morons using computers, some people it's STILL all they know. And these new fancy OSes that you claim will crush MS, well, they don't do anything for those everyday morons. So until they compete with MS on MS's home turf, or until a siginificant portion decides to take an active role in their technological affairs, MS is going to be pretty strong.But you honestly think the days of Microsoft windows are numbered? I would say that you are very deluded about the actual market out there and need to realize not everyone is a geek. They want products they've seen on TV, they might want free software, but they are not willing to put any work into it. They want something that works without them having to learn a single tiny fact about it. Most of my customers don't know what the control panel is, don't know what right clicking does, and can barely install software from a CD, much less have to find software on the internet.I could go on, but it's not worth it. You've got your fancy fiddly-bits and your emerging thing-a-ma-jig, and I'm just as excited as you, but the other 90% of the population could not possibly care less. Unless they have a geek friend that they can pester into setting it all up for them and dealing with them calling about it 4 times a day.
jbrandonbbOct 1, 2009
>> Everybody types faster than they can write. Mouse might go in favour of a flat, desktop touchscreen, but keyboard is here to stay.But you can talk faster than you can type. We are already seeing that on smartphones it is easier and faster to speak search phrases.>> Landlines are important when you have kids - you're not paying for a cell plan for each child.You can use a VoIP service for that, and they will work out the bugs in ten years.>> Wimax will probably only be in big cities in 10 years - public wifi will probably live on in suburbia for a good time yet.Why -- if the radius of coverage includes those suburbs?>> Optical discs will take longer than 10 years to kill too. Not on the Internet time table. Studios are already preparing to dump optical.>> Every motion-controlled game on Wii is inferior to it's analog-stick-and-button counterpart in terms of response-time and usability. I don't expect this to change.Inferior in what sense? Most people I know who are not hardcore gamers (e.g., the majority) prefer the Wii over any Xbox or PS3 game.>> Blogging, likewise, will not be replaced by chatting apps, just like irc and newsgroups didn't replace email - different functions.You're using newsgroups as a way to defend against emerging tech?
gkiltzOct 1, 2009
I have to respectfully disagree on wireline telephone. That is one of those things that is no longer state of the art, it seems anachronistic in a lot of ways, but it still manages to do what it does so much better and so much more reliably than anything else, that it is not going away like the real techies wish it would.
ethergnatOct 1, 2009
You can add additional displays with something like Matrox's TripleHeadToGo solution. Sure, it's not suitable for high performance applications today, but with USB 3 and later it will improve. 7.1 sound can be added via USB as well, plus I'm sure it'll make it's way into laptops eventually anyway. I've had laptops with RAID, although it just doesn't increase performance that much (no really, look at the benchmarks). As SSDs get cheaper I'm sure we'll see it more and more. Network based storage makes sense in a lot of cases too.Obviously some form of desktop PCs will be with us for the foreseeable future, but it does seem likely they'll become a niche product, and morph into things like HTPCs and other related items.
rickthebrickOct 1, 2009
Land lines are still far better than cell phones for a family. They are still cheaper than having a cell phone for every member of the family. Lets say one has one or two young children and wants to hire a babysitter. Does the babysitter need to bring a cell phone with so she/he still has a phone? If the young couple take their cell phone with them it would mean the babysitter would not have a phone. Even when the children are old enough to stay home alone they still need a phone so unless one gets a phone for everyone and everyone is responsible enough to keep and maintain that phone than a land line is needed. Spending well over a $100 a month for cell phones for everyone is common and there are still a lot of families that can not afford that much. I have a land line and have unlimited long distance calling but since my grandchildren have cell phones with no land line and have limited number of minutes, I need to call them after 9 p.m. or weekends. It really makes my unlimited long distance calling almost useless in this case. I have seen land line phone that have worked for more than 2 or 3 decades. One is lucky it a cell phone works for 2 or 3 years. There are times when I do not want to receive a phone call. When I call someone with a cell phone and they do not answer, I often wonder why. Is it because they are in trouble or have used caller id and do not want to talk to me? I still feel better if I call a land line with an answering machine so that I can get a call back even if it is to my answering machine.
remeloxOct 1, 2009
Like I want to sit at my desk at work saying, "File 450 30 did not load correctly. Please resend the file...." and what other junk while the people in the two dozen cubicles around me are doing the same thing. What if I am relaying confidential information? I can often type faster than I can speak and more importantly, I can do so more clearly. I also do not want my wife making fun of me when I am attempting to write a novel in the next room.Also, I'm tired of people saying we won't have media anymore because of broadband. Maybe it will come to that but I hope not. I want my master disk with the professional packaging. I'm not knocking those that prefer the instant downloading but I hate to see the music and movie industries go this direction. Also a dollar per song download costs more than a used copy of a CD. Three dollars an episode cost more for a season of a show than one new blu-ray..
haysoosOct 5, 2009
Honestly, these arguements have been laid against microsoft for 15 years now, but has microsoft fallen yet? I never said they will never fail, but how many times have the linux zealots claim microsoft can't possibly survive the next 5-10 years? Microsoft has disversified, they are agile, and they have their heels pretty well dug into the broad consumer base. It's like an article I was reading today about the "Windows compatible" stickers being pointless but won't stop because microsoft loves branding. And it's true, I work at a REAL computer repair store where people don't know anything about their computer, but they know it runs windows. They can't tell me what program they use to type letters, they call their computer "the hard drive", they don't understand the difference between a deleted icon and a uninstalled program, but the one thing they can tell me is that they have windows. Of course, thats what they tell me when I ask what version of office they have, but the point is that microsoft has the term "windows" dug into the minds of 80 year olds and children. They've done their branding well.Also, as fancy as Ubuntu is, a technologically forward Google OS may be, I have yet to see any of these emerging OSes do as good a job of catering to the lowest common denominator. I've had friends load Ubuntu on a family memebers system and later replace it with windows because they were tired of being daily tech support for it. Or someones 9 year old wanted to load some kind of Kidsmart game or something, and what do you know, no linux support.Microsoft has always had REAL competition, I'm not saying they haven't, but the competition has always catered to geeks, not people that really, honestly think computers run on MAGIC. Not only do they think their computer runs on magic, but they don't want to know any different and will NOT buy anything you tell them to if it seems like they may have to learn something about that MAGIC.Again, I'm not saying MS is infallable or invincible. Look at their mobile OS, it sucks and I don't think its very competitive. The PS3 is competing pretty well with the Xbox360. But Windows has been on computers from the beginning of everyday morons using computers, some people it's STILL all they know. And these new fancy OSes that you claim will crush MS, well, they don't do anything for those everyday morons. So until they compete with MS on MS's home turf, or until a siginificant portion decides to take an active role in their technological affairs, MS is going to be pretty strong.But you honestly think the days of Microsoft windows are numbered? I would say that you are very deluded about the actual market out there and need to realize not everyone is a geek. They want products they've seen on TV, they might want free software, but they are not willing to put any work into it. They want something that works without them having to learn a single tiny fact about it. Most of my customers don't know what the control panel is, don't know what right clicking does, and can barely install software from a CD, much less have to find software on the internet.I could go on, but it's not worth it. You've got your fancy fiddly-bits and your emerging thing-a-ma-jig, and I'm just as excited as you, but the other 90% of the population could not possibly care less. Unless they have a geek friend that they can pester into setting it all up for them and dealing with them calling about it 4 times a day.