Remember the old days when the whole neighbourhood gathered to stare at the first VCR on the block? Remember the VCR?
These days, personal electronics technology moves so fast that even the most sophisticated, tricked-out gadget sold this holiday season will look like the equivalent of an outmoded rotary-dial phone by next year.
CTV.ca looks at the electronics and gadgets that are being pushed into obscurity by smarter and snazzier devices. Here's our list of Dead Tech Walking:
1: Camcorders and compact cameras
Sales of camcorders and pocket cameras have been plummeting in recent years, as BlackBerrys and smartphones take their place. And why not, when cellphones can come with 12-megapixel cameras that take snaps almost as good as what a pocket camera can do?
As for camcorders, digital cameras began eating up that market years ago; now smartphones are going further. There are also now tiny video cameras that you can wear on your ear like a Bluetooth device. Some even double as a Bluetooth, and can connect to your smartphone.
True, the options and capabilities of the cameras in our phones are not as sophisticated as a digital SLR or camcorder. Their storage is also limited, as is their battery life. But you can't beat a camera that you can just slip into your pocket -- or use to call your friend. And with phones continuing to evolve, their ability to take pictures will only get better.
2: iPods and other portable music players
Just like cameras and camcorders, smartphones are taking over the MP3 music player business too. Even Apple has become a victim of its own success in a way, as sales of its iPhone and iPad are sucking away sales of its iPod music players. IPod sales peaked in the U.S. in 2008, one year after the iPhone emerged, and have been dropping ever since.
Some suggest that with their low price point compared to a smartphone, there is still a viable market for iPods. That's likely true, but with the music industry changing every month, we won't be surprised to see the iPod completely pushed out soon.
3: Discs of all kinds
Remember those AOL CDs that used to come in the mail? Remember CDs? These days, CDs aren't good for much except as shiny coasters or rear-view mirror decor. As the plummeting sales at HMV and other retailers attest, iTunes and pirated online music killed the CD years ago.
The DVD is likely not far behind. More and more movie lovers are ordering their movies from on-demand services like Netflix.
"Although video games and HD movies will keep discs on life support for a few years yet, an empty spot has already been made for them in the past, right next to audio cassettes and 8-track cartridges," technology expert Kris Abel tells CTV.ca.
4: GPS devices
If you haven't yet jumped on the GPS bandwagon but are finally ready to do so, don't bother. Smartphones are about to make the external GPS navigation device obsolete. Industry experts say smartphones have already stolen away a lot of the GPS market, especially since Google introduced Android, an operating system that extends Google Maps to phones. Nokia, too, began giving away its own navigation software, Ovi Maps, this year to its smartphone users.
Berg Insight, a Swedish research company that tracks the navigation industry, estimates that sales of personal navigation devices will likely peak in 2011, before beginning to decline. Industry leaders Garmin and TomTom are said to be fighting back, building in-dash navigators for automakers like Renault, Mazda and Fiat and improving real-time navigation. But once again, the evolving smartphone looks poised to steamroll over GPS devices, sending them to the scrapheap.
5: Answering Machines
"In an accelerating world of instant communication, answering machines and voicemail services now seem unacceptably slow and formal," says Abel.
These days -- for both personal and business communications -- most of us are choosing email, Facebook or Twitter to get our message across. Sure, there are plenty of incidents when a text message simply can't replace a phone call. But if it's a message we need to deliver fast, more of us are doing it through text. In fact, we seem to be forgetting about our answering machine altogether, says Abel.
"The moment you're listening to a voicemail from three months ago is the moment you realize you no longer need an answering machine."
6: eBook Readers
Forget about books becoming obsolete (and there's certainly an argument to be made for that: sales of e-books are already starting to outstrip hardcovers); the lifespan of e-readers may be short, too. That's because tablet computers are set to push e-readers into obscurity fast.
E-readers have only been around for about three years so far, but the problem is they are inherently limited: they have only the ability to download and read books. Tablets on the other hand offer Internet connectivity. That gives them the potential for unlimited interactivity. Sure, many consider tablets clunky and overpriced, and the selection at the moment is slim. But the tablet market appears poised to explode and that means prices will come down.
7: Proprietary charging cables
Isn't it annoying that every cellphone and gadget you've ever owned needs its own charger? "Thankfully, the industry has managed to get its act together," says Abel. "Today, most mobile devices use the common micro-USB connection to draw power, making it easy to borrow, replace, or find the right cable, even in an emergency."
The GSMA mobile phone industry association promised last year that its 17 phone operators and handset makers will standardize chargers by 2012 for most phones.
With any luck, charging cables themselves will become obsolete soon enough, with the full advent of wireless charging pads. Some charging pads are on the market now, but have been confined to recharging just smartphones. New devices are on the horizon that will allow almost any device to be charged wirelessly.
8: Fluorescent light bulbs
Incandescent light bulbs are already being pushed out by compact fluorescent bulbs, but even the future of CFLs is looking dim, with LED lights poised to take over. LEDs are likely already in your Christmas lights, your street lights, the flash in your camera, and perhaps your car's headlights.
"While LED light bulbs are still on the expensive side, their energy-saving benefits, not to mention how easily they can change colour, gives them quite a bright future in our households," says Abel.
9: External storage devices
Some speculate that "cloud computing" and remote storage services that allow users to back up data over the Internet, like Carbonite and Mozy, will soon take the place of computer hard drives, or even external storage devices like flash drives. But Abel isn't so sure.
"There certainly are advantages to storing your e-mail, photos, and documents online. You can access them from any device and their absence lessens the load on your personal computer, allowing it to perform faster and more efficiently," he says.
"But there's an undeniably human instinct to keep our most valued photos, songs, and notes in our homes, and so we'll always see a ‘drive' of some sort whether it's a flash drive, a digital locket, or even a memory card tucked away, just for safe keeping."
10: Watches, alarm clocks and wall calendars
While there's something lovely about the way a watch looks on the wrist, or a beautifully crafted clock looks on our walls and mantels, Abel believes these timepieces are headed for extinction.
"Chances are if you ask someone for the time, they'll glance at their cellphone instead of their wrist," says Abel. "Travellers who are too impatient to try to figure out or even trust a hotel's alarm clock, are now more likely to use their smartphones to wake themselves up with customized sounds."
Calendars too are growing dusty from misuse, as many of us mark our appointments in our cellphone or email calendars. Since there's now ways to sync up our calendars with all our devices and all our family members, the days of reminding ourselves to "pencil in" appointments onto paper calendars are numbered.
Now that we've looked at technologies about to go extinct, here's our list of…
Ten technologies that are already obsolete but just won't go away:
- Fax machines – Really, why are these still in every office in the country. Is there really anything that can't be scanned or emailed?
- Typewriters – If it weren't for triplicate forms, typewriters would have gone to the dust heap in the sky years ago.
- Telegrams – These became obsolete, oh, about 100 years ago, with the arrival of the telephone. But sentimentalists still love to send a telegram when sending best wishes to weddings. It's time to cut that out.
- Pagers – There are still those who swear by pagers. They're also the same people who swear by pocket protectors and Palm Pilots.
- Cheques – Yes, we still need cheques for handing in our rent, paying our kids' school fees and other sundries. But really, it's time to get 21st century, find some electronic payment method and do away with these things for good.
- Phone books – As an impromptu booster seat or a way to prop up your monitor, phone books are great. For looking up a phone number? Puhleeze. Who does that?
- Turntables – Admit it: listening to music on vinyl is just awful. But still, there are those who love to "keep it real" by listening to music old school. Give it up. Vinyl is dead.
- Film cameras – The death knell for film cameras was sounded more than a decade ago. Still, there are plenty of holdouts, like lomography lovers who just aren't ready to let film go quietly into the night.
- Land-line telephones – Yes, they still get better reception than most cellphones. But like it or not, the home phone's days are numbered. Get a cell.
- Maps – Finally, if we could just rid of these things, our glove compartments could go back to storing what they should: our collection of lambskin driving gloves.
