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Technologies I thought my son would never use

• superkuh 6y ago
  His #1 can not and will not ever happen. The radio spectrum is a shared resource. The total information capacity of the usable spectrum, say from 100 KHz to 100 GHz, is massive but most of it has terrible propagation and all of it can only be used once at a time. Massive MIMO helps in dense city cores with lots of independent paths reflecting everywhere but it's still just one spectrum in practice. Whereas with physical transmission lines, be they cables, fiber optics, or whatever, each run can re-use the entire spectrum.
  • Retric 6y ago
    Directional antenna completely break those bandwidth limitations. It’s not currently practical for hand held devices to make significant use of it, but ultimately everything is point to point.
  • gumby 6y ago
    Beam forming, phased array antennas, sophisticated coding (CDMA) and "time slots" (TDMA) will provide a lot more availability than purely looking at bandwidth available. I still agree wired/optical is best for most fixed installations both LAN and WAN, but people are getting more out of wireless than I would have predicted. And the "last mile" capacity of today's technology far exceeds what people seem to want even looking forward a decade...which paradoxically suggests that wireless might be adequate in the interim for some use cases.
    • yarcob 6y ago
      None of these technologies allow you to exceed the available bandwidth. They just make use of the shared bandwidth more efficient. It's still a shared medium. Where I live, a lot of people have 3G internet because mobile data is pretty cheap and the companies advertise it as an alternative to cable. And now they all have really crappy internet. In the evening when everyone watches youtube you get a fraction of the advertised bandwidth. With fibre, every customer gets the full spectrum. And since the frequency of light is a lot higher than radio frequency, you also get a lot more bandwidth. At radio frequency we're already hitting the physical bandwidth limits; with optical transmission there's still a lot of bandwidth left. Thinking that radio frequency transmissions are an alternative to cable / fibre is pretty short sighted thinking. Data usage is going to grow, more devices are going to use data, and wireless transmission is going to seriously limit us.
      • michaelmrose 6y ago
        You are dead on. We are still transitioning from HD to 4k with 8k coming eventually. The difference in HD to 8k is 17x the bandwidth.
        • ksec 6y ago
          >The difference in HD to 8k is 17x the bandwidth. The pixel is 17x, not bandwidth. Even Compressed RAW size dont scale linearly with pixel count. I dont have any experience with 8K, but compressing / encoding 4K with HEVC or AV1 tends to easier with fixed VMAF score than a comparatively low pixel count of 2K / 1080P. I would imagine the same if not better for 8K. And that is discounting the use of much better video codec like VVC which brings another 40 to 50% reduction in bitrate.
          • michaelmrose 6y ago
            Good point.
        • AlexandrB 6y ago
          Unless you're displaying on movie theatre sized screens, 8K seems like a waste of space/bandwidth. Even 4K is generally overkill for the typical living room. I think we're hitting the point with video resolution that music CDs hit with audio, where improvements in fidelity are largely outside the range of human perception. It's one of the reasons the music DVDs and SACDs never really caught on.
          • elzbardico 6y ago
            Not sure about that. With large screens 55" at home and over I can see a difference between FHD and 4K, enough to know I am having network problems when the streaming service starts to downscale the resolution in a 4k video.
            • leetcrew 6y ago
              that could be the bitrate more than the resolution. streams are highly compressed. would be interesting to see whether you prefer 1080p bluray over a 4k netflix stream (I suspect yes).
    • paul_f 6y ago
      You can add in quadrature amplitude modulation. Reusing bandwidth is a a fascinating field. It's not as simple as 1 bit per Hz
      • jkelleyrtp 6y ago
        Current laser com systems are getting multiple bits per photon - it seems that the communications field will keep pushing the limits until there is simply no business case, and then push some more. Really, the only limit is Shannon's limit, but that's only concerned with data rate. The modulation schemes that sit on top of the raw data is where all the capacity magic happens.
        • XorNot 6y ago
          I assume you're referring to something like this: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170203102740.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170203102740.h... but this isn't a scalable transmission system since it's based on single photon detection, and single-photon detection is not a high bandwidth communications ability because you have to discriminate the photons. It's a far cry from "current laser communications". AFAIK the fastest IP network speed at the moment if 44.2 Terabits/sec for a single light source (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200522095504.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200522095504.h...).
          • jkelleyrtp 6y ago
            I'm talking about the laser communication satellites that NASA et al have launched into orbit, which are supposedly around 3-4 bits per photon. These are hitting upwards of 10Gbit speeds (not quite 44.2 Terabits) but still impressive nonetheless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_communication_in_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_communication_in_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_PAyload_for_Lasercomm_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_PAyload_for_Lasercomm_...
        • henrikeh 6y ago
          > the only limit is Shannon's limit, but that's only concerned with data rate. But that limit, the capacity, is also the maximum possible limit of information transfer on the channel. Modulation schemes don't increase it or change it, they just push the achievable information rate of the system closer to the capacity.
    • tdeck 6y ago
      This comment betrays a lack of understanding of some of these multiplexing technologies. They minimize wasted bandwidth due to signal collisions and interference, but they don't increase the overall bandwidth available. Let's take TDMA as an example. TDMA means that instead of using the available bandwidth continuously, each participant only gets to use that bandwidth for a fraction of the available time. Saying that TDMA helps us increase the available bandwidth is like saying queueing up at the restroom will "provide a lot more availability than purely looking at the number of stalls". CDMA is more complicated but it's still a similar story. Look at this diagram of a CDMA signal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Generation_of_CDMA.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Generation_of_CDMA.svg Notice how the "data" actually being transmitted is only a couple of bits, but the CDMA signal includes many more transitions. CDMA is essentially using N bits of transmission bandwidth to send a signal bit of data signal, the benefit being that if multiple signals interfere it's possible to extract one of them using some complicated math. It's like if 10 people were sharing a phone line, and instead of taking turns talking they all spoke at the same time, but repeated themselves 10 times so you could pick up enough snippets from one speaker to understand what they were saying if you concentrate hard enough.
      • Sanzig 6y ago
        TDMA/CDMA don't bypass information theory, though. Shannon always wins in the end. You can improve the situation with spatial beamforming, polarization isolation, mmWave bands, etc, but there eventually comes a point where the added complexity doesn't win over just hiring a few guys with a backhoe to run fibre down the street.
        • tdeck 6y ago
          Not sure why this is responding to my comment, but I was basically making that same point.
          • Sanzig 6y ago
            Oops, I meant to respond to the grandparent post. Sorry!
  • kylec 6y ago
    Well wireless won't ever replace wired for every use case, I don't see why we can't get to a point where 90% of households are provided internet service via cellular technologies, either to a MiFi-like device or with cellular built into the computer. If my iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch have cellular built in, why not my Mac too?
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • michaelmrose 6y ago
      The radio is the most trivial part possible in fact computers with cellular radios have been a thing for a very long time. The little micro cell tower alternative arrangement exists to support devices that expect to communicate with a cell tower where cell service is poor. You normally actually plug them into your wired router so they are actually for areas where relying on wireless would be the worst possible experience. Fiber is able to provide Gbps to for example all homes in a square mile where they each get Gbps and can indeed fairly heavily use it. Cellular internet isn't actually wireless you run fiber to the towers and then everyone in that square mile. Urban areas where 80% of people live have a high density so for example in New York City that 1 sq mile contains 27000 people.
    • eloisant 6y ago
      Wireless makes sense in the country side, because it's expensive to pull optical fiber for just a few houses. In cities however, where most of the population is: - Bringing optical fiber is cost effective because of the population density - Wireless gets clogged very quickly (also because of the population density). Additionally 5G is even worse than 4G at going through walls.
    • dmingod666 6y ago
      Does energy cost come into play here? Quality of Service is definitely one of the metrics ISPs track, wired is a more reliable way to guarantee service than wired in a fixed setting, upto the house.
    • themulticaster 6y ago
  • rusk 6y ago
    I think you’re imagining some centralised MMDS type architecture but with cellular architecture this is a reality in many places. Even in modern settings if you have WiFi you need never even be aware that there is a wire there feeding it. Indeed to many of my younger contemporaries it can take a moment to explain the difference ...
    • superkuh 6y ago
      I understand there's a horizon for cells (vhf and up isn't going to be reflecting off the ionosphere) but a whole lot of people can exist within a single cell. My argument is about the informational capacity per cell.
      • rusk 6y ago
        Well cells are getting smaller all the time and currently there is enough capacity available in an optimally configured network to provide all the services one could possibly need. Of course you’ve got physical cable tying it all together but the “experience” is wireless.
  • ghaff 6y ago
    Intel was so pushing WiMAX at one point. I really irritated someone there when a wrote something critiquing their efforts. We are seeing wireless technologies (including satellite) starting to handle some use cases where it's hard to wire. But I do expect denser areas to remain mostly wired.
  • nemothekid 6y ago
    I'm surprised his #1 is still TBD. To me, ethernet lines have become more important in the last 5 years as competitive gaming/esports has completely taken off. Latency is a far more prevalent in gamers minds today, I'd argue moreso than bandwidth and the first networking related advice a gamer receives to make sure you are on ethernet.
    • majewsky 6y ago
      I see frustrated WiFi users all the time, but I've never seen a frustrated Ethernet user. If I had a dime for every WiFi user in a video call who's "breaking up", I had a whole bunch of dimes.
      • themulticaster 6y ago
        Exactly. I have a suspicion that a large part of people complaining about "Internet issues" are faced with WiFi issues. Apparently many struggle with the concept of separate links that make up a connection (LAN vs WAN). But the reverse mix-up also happens: Hotels, restaurants and the similar businesses like to boast their "included free WiFi" when they really mean complimentary Internet access, provided with an AP.
        • RobertKerans 6y ago
          I'd take that as a given for 99% of cases. As fibre takes over from piggybacking off copper, IME actual internet issues seem to be pretty rare: [UK and] I haven't noticed that kind of service issue for a few years now, whereas used to be relatively common. Happy to keep the pretence up though -- what else is a as neutral and widely understood as "internet issues"? Whoops, seems as if my connection has dropped out! Yes, I was very interested in that discussion over sales targets that's been going on for the past half an hour, please email me a summary! Bloody internet, always dropping out!
        • moftz 6y ago
          I always laugh when I see Comcast commercials for "fastest in-home Wifi". An 802.11ac router isn't going to help anything when you can only get 10/10 bandwidth on a good day.
  • elil17 6y ago
    As someone working on 5G, I disagree strongly. 5G supports up to 1 million devices per square kilometer (the most dense city, Manila, in the world has about 50k people per square kilometer). My understanding is that you can have about 100k devices per square kilometer before speeds drop below ideal (20 gigabit). So even if everyone in downtown Manila wanted stream seven movies at once they could all do it. As other commenters have said, that’s because of clever techniques like beamforming and OFDMA. But cities aren’t really the area where 5G home internet provides an advantage. Sure, the protocols more efficient than WiFi - the tower allocated bandwidth and time blocks to coordinate transmissions instead of having everyone’s router blast away on the same hardcoded WiFi channels. But it still achieves those high speeds and great connectivity through having a bunch of small cell towers - hardly much different than wired internet. The real advantage is suburbs, small towns, and rural areas. You solve the last mile problem for cables, eliminate outages, and you do it all with a couple large cell towers. Yeah, people (or more likely businesses) with high throughput needs will still use wired connections. But it will be because the electricity costs of transmitting from a 5G tower are high enough that there’s always a base cost per GB, not because there isn’t enough bandwidth to go around.
    • smt88 6y ago
      > eliminate outages Why do you expect 5G to eliminate outages when we can't eliminate them with existing LTE towers, with home wifi, or even with direct ethernet connections to modems? As of now, my least reliable network is always my cellular network. > you can have about 100k devices per square kilometer before speeds drop below ideal (20 gigabit) When, though? We're far, far from this at the moment. What is going to fix it and when?
  • rahimiali 6y ago
    A lot of confusion in the replies below. Here is an illustration of this point: Suppose you’ve saturated your communication bandwidth between two points, sending bits through the entire 500 Thz spectrum. If you have a wired connection, you can lay another set of cables between these points and send more bits. With wireless, there is nothing more you can do. No amount of beam forming helps you.
  • brigade 6y ago
    Each cable node shares ~1GHz of bandwidth among all the separate runs to individual houses. Relative to that, 5G has similar local bandwidth, given the low propagation of mmwave. It's not going to completely replace hardwired internet in suburbs/cities, but it might just kill last-mile fiber rollout short of new construction.
  • spookthesunset 6y ago
    Yup. I’ve always questioned people who think wireless can replace a wire at scale. It just can’t. That being said I can browse most sites and do 90% of my internet just fine either on my phone or tethered to my phone using my data plan. So maybe I’m wrong!
  • syoc 6y ago
    Not trying to prove you wrong, just asking. Can a service like starlink not deal, in some hypothetical configuration, replace cabled internet?
    • henrikeh 6y ago
      Can it exist and provide a usable service to some? Yes, probably. Can it replace cabled internet, period? Can it replace terrestrial cellular? Unlikely: Mobile internet is constrained by the capacity and coverage of the cell. "Capacity" being the practical sort of what the maximum achievable information rate is, given the available receivers and transmitters. Satellite links are a bit complicated, but essentially the Shannon-Hartley theorem holds and you either have to increase bandwidth or increase signal-to-noise ratio to provide better data rates within a cell. Bigger cell, more users, less capacity per user, worse data rate per user. I don't know what the cell sizes Starlink will use are, but I've read numbers around 200 km^2. My hometown of 10000 homes is 21 km^2. If they were to provide 100 Mb/s just to my hometown, they would need a 1 Tb/s capacity in a much smaller cell. Of course, not everybody will use 100 Mb/s all the time, but it illustrates the problem. This is why SpaceX is mainly focusing on low-density areas in places where the infrastructure is less-developed/monopolized. The capacity / coverage problems works much better to their advantage.
• theklub 6y ago
  Most of these assumptions seem crazy to me and this just feels like blog spam more than truth.
  • gumby 6y ago
    Crazy? A lot of them came true.
    • drloser 6y ago
      Less than 50%. His predictions would have been more accurate if he had flipped a coin.
      • hellisothers 6y ago
        Not sure why this is getting downvoted, he got like 2 out of 15 “right” considering he changed the definition of #2 so he could mark it “right”.
        • jayd16 6y ago
          Because the parent implied fair odds when that's not the case.
      • aqme28 6y ago
        That's not how predictions work though. He didn't come up with them by flipping coins.
    • Aengeuad 6y ago
      It's easy to predict things correctly when you control what your son will use, e.g., 'my son won't use a landline', well yes, you cancelled your home landline before your son was born. The original prediction was that most people and most businesses would stop using landlines but he concedes his son might still use a landline in an office some day and yet still considers the original prediction to be correct. The same is true for phone numbers, dedicated cameras, mechanical harddrives, arguably prime time tv but I can't really blame him here. Theatres are considered TBD but it took a pandemic that also shut near everything else down for much of the world, many businesses are in for a rough shake up. The crazier predictions are ones that didn't come to fruition line no more floating window managers or mice and people no longer building desktop pcs, or ones the author still thinks are going to happen like no more wired internet connections.
• benja123 6y ago
  The older I get the more I realize how incredibly hard it is to predict anything about the future, especially when it comes to technology. Growing up in the 90s I thought virtual reality was just around the corner - only now 30 years later are we starting to see virtual reality. 5 years ago it seemed like 100% self driving cars were just around the corner. You can argue we are much closer than we were, but it still seems like we are pretty far away. 10 years ago, the web was dead and apps were the future... today hardly anyone believes apps are the future. I imagine that travel to Mars, and a moon colony seemed like it was just around the corner in 1970 and yet here we are 50 years later and neither one of those came to fruition. The reality is tech is incredibly fast moving, which makes it hard to predict, but still not as fast as we think it is.
  • WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    The one thing that is consistent about tech is that prices come down. A 3d printer in 2012 was $2000... a 3d printer that can be that printer is about $300 today. A decent drone was about $3000 back there... $400 can you get you a decent drone today.
    • benja123 6y ago
      This is true. Another thing that drove the prices down is the fact that the countries where we outsourced manufacturing have built up their own industry and know how. They are now selling the same products for half the price directly to the consumer.
    • tartoran 6y ago
      And $20 can get you an amazingly fun kiddie drone. Got for my son a HS drone and was amazed at what you can get for 20. Yes, prices’ drop is a big one on technology evolution
    • Aachen 6y ago
      DRAM would like to have a word with you. And I can't say laptops have improved much for a decade now (you'll see an increase in quality per euro still, but it's very marginal and not a single component made leaps), I was rather disappointed when getting a new one after my 2011 model. Back in the good old days, three years would go by and I'd love the speed of a new one, or of ssds, or the gigabit ethernet, or the 802.11n. Smartphones too. 2011->2017 changed big time - in hardware at least. But now it doesn't really matter if you get a 250 or a 1000 euro phone. You'll get a better camera and some gimmicks like oled (objectively better, I went from oled to lcd and it bothered me for weeks, but honestly I'll use a phone for years, I'm used to it now, and don't miss it at all anymore) or usb-c. Can't do much more without reducing battery life or other aspects. And sometimes they do -- make a worse phone with better specs I mean. People don't mind because it's all the same anyway, the tech is stagnating there. As a rule, you're right, but the exceptions and limitations are also everywhere.
• gumby 6y ago
  > His Computers Will All Boot Super Fast Seems pretty true for the non-Windows uses cases at least, in my experience (iOS, Android, Linux, macOS).
  • cloudking 6y ago
    ChromeOS is probably the fastest (Linux based)
    • thomastjeffery 6y ago
      Chromebooks were already that fast at the time he made the prediction, mostly because they were designed to use coreboot instead of the usual bloated uefi/bios. The only reason wee don't see coreboot everywhere is that motherboard manufacturers refuse to adopt or even allow it.
    • jeffbee 6y ago
      Yeah, ChromeOS downloads and applies updates unobtrusively and raises a notification to reboot, which takes a few seconds. macOS takes half an hour to update even if you have an M1 and their fancy SSD. Android takes about the same time and their handsets will get scalding hot during the process. ChromeOS is also the fastest of the non-mobile operating systems to wake from sleep. It is up and running and on wifi before I can raise the lid to its normal position.
  • rusk 6y ago
    Android in my experience takes aaaaages. By far the biggest boot slouch in modern times.
    • papaf 6y ago
      That might be hardware related. Android-x86 in a Qemu VM boots in under 3 seconds.
      • rusk 6y ago
        Maybe that’s the case in theory but in practice I have never had a fast booting android device and some of them have been pretty good. Pretty much any other OS is fine. I guess in a virtualised environment you don’t have the same challenges regarding integrating a disparate hardware stack ...
• tzfld 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure optical media will be around for a long time although not as mainstream as was. It's cost is still unbeatable. You can get a 25gb brd for less than a $ while a memory card with the same capacity is much more expensive. Shelf life is also better for optical discs, they are great for create and forget backups.
  • dehrmann 6y ago
    A digitized a bunch of home movies, and one of the formats I settled on was DVDs. The latest Xbox and Playstation still play them, so I expect to be able to find readers for the next 20 years. It's a lousy format, though. For files intended to be played on a computer, I used webm/vp9/opus. It seemed like browser-supported, royalty-free formats that play on everything not Apple would last a while.
• takinola 6y ago
  I am shocked at how many of his predictions came true. This guy needs to start a hedge fund.
  • paxys 6y ago
    Eh, most of these were already true when he predicted them (in 2012).
• morelikeborelax 6y ago
  Mechanical storage will probably change first time he builds a desktop to play games on. AAA games will require more and more space and I doubt SSD space will catch up for the budget of kids/teenagers within the next 5 years. Or when he starts using a computer at school, other family or friends.
  • ghaff 6y ago
    And even though I have an SSD in my laptop, I have a bunch of USB HDDs in my office for things like backup and ripped video. I expect my SDD mix to increase over time but I expect to keep using HDDs for non-performance critical work for the foreseeable future.
  • Ekaros 6y ago
    I have circa 1,5TB of SSD storage on my desktop. And I find it sufficient for my gaming needs. Fast Internet helps though. Solid state isn't too expensive now, if waiting for downloading is okay. You can get 480GB disks for around 50€. That is what, less than price of new title? And likely can at least one to three of them at one time.
  • paxys 6y ago
    I just bought a 2TB NVMe SSD for like $160. I doubt I will ever use a mechanical drive again for anything other than NAS setup.
• timvdalen 6y ago
  >He Won’t Use 3D Glasses, Because 3D Will Be Glasses-Free I got to play around with a 3D-glasses-free display[1] for the first time yesterday, and I've got to say, it felt pretty magical. [1]: https://www.dimenco.eu/ https://www.dimenco.eu/
  • mhb 6y ago
    It looks interesting but their web site can use a little magic. Would be nice if it explained their technology.
• chubot 6y ago
  Taleb talks about the Lindy effect and some of the surprises in this article can be explained it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect The rough heuristic is: the longer a technology has been around, the longer it will last into the future. That is, it's NOT the case that every piece of technology lasts roughly the same amount of time, and then is replaced. For example, a chair vs. an iPhone. Which one will be used further into the future? Almost certainly a chair. ---- Land lines have been around a lot longer than fax machines (both in the article), so they will likely outlive fax machines. Will HTML or JavaScript last longer? Probably HTML, since it came first. What about ASCII or HTML? Probably ASCII. These have a "dependency stack" issue, but it applies regardless. And I think that is part of the phenomenon -- low level technologies that are widely adopted take longer to go away. Plumbing, electrical (AC vs DC), land lines, TCP/IP, BIOS, etc. I can't find a link now, but there was a recent Kevin Kelly article about finding farming tools from a catalog in the 1800's still in use. I think he said that almost EVERY one was still in use, or able to be purchased, which is a nice illustration of the point. It takes a long time for old tech to die, and arguably it never does.
  • d_silin 6y ago
    It is an interesting observation to compare longevity times for current widely-used IT tech: Smartphones (since first iPhone) - 14 years. Laptops (since first Apple Powerbook) - 30 years. PCs (since first IBM PC) - 40 years. C programming language will be 50 years old next year. SQL will turn 50 in 2024
    • frosted-flakes 6y ago
      The iPhone was definitely not the first smart phone.
      • Zak 6y ago
        Nor was the Powerbook the first laptop nor the IBM PC the first PC. Those are all, however arguably responsible for popularizing the technologies in something resembling their current form.
• gambiting 6y ago
  "On the bright side, you can replace almost any remote with a smartphone app, depending on your TV, cable box or streaming box. You can also use voice assistants such as Alexa or Google Assistant to control your home theater. " I fail to see how this is the bright side. Both of those ways are worse at interacting with literally anything, especially compared to a dedicated remote for a TV. I'd try a foot controlled pedal for my TV before I'd be ok with using voice controls.
  • kelnos 6y ago
    I have two remotes: one for my TV, and one for my AV receiver. I realized I generally only need four buttons: the power button on each, and volume up and down on the AV receiver remote. Arguably that could be compressed to three; I very rarely want the AV receiver on and TV off, or vice versa (unfortunately neither remote supports programming it for the other device, so I can't use the "system on/off" functionality). So for my regular use, I wouldn't mind voice control for this, though voice assistants have trouble hearing you when there's extraneous loud noise, so volume control (especially when a really loud scene comes up and I want to lower it) would be difficult. I don't like the idea of a smartphone app, because there's the hassle of unlocking my phone and finding/switching to the right app. The author also mentions using gestures, which also seems very error-prone. So I guess a dedicated remote control is the way to go, though I wouldn't mind having a single bare-bones power+volume remote, so I could toss the full-featured remotes into a drawer and only pull them out when (rarely) necessary.
  • pantalaimon 6y ago
    I remember when someone brought an Amazon Echo Dot to a party to play music. It ended with a bunch of drunk guys desperately shouting what music to play next, with Alexa getting it right maybe half of the time.
  • adeelk93 6y ago
    “Alexa, watch Daredevil” is much easier than turning the TV on, opening Netflix, and searching for the show. The remote can then be for just pause/play or volume.
• 123pie123 6y ago
  Anyone from the UK who remembers the TV program "Tomorrows World", is wise to predicting the future! They kind of predicted a few things right-ish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vix6TMnj9vY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vix6TMnj9vY Although I think the technology that exists now is much better than what I thought it would be like as a kid. Except for flying cars, I still want one
• CorrectHorseBat 6y ago
  >14. He’ll Never Use a Fax Machine This one being in the list surprised me. I was born more than 20 years earlier and I don't think I've ever seen a fax machine in action, let alone used one.
  • ghaff 6y ago
    Doctor's office or lab in the US. Although this is slowly changing. And I did have to fax something a few months ago, albeit using an online fax service.
  • cptskippy 6y ago
    That's because dedicated fax machines mostly died out in the late 90s when multi-function machines and software modems arrived. I was working at Office Max at the time and the transition happened fast. We went from having more than eight dedicated fax machine models down to one or two. The first multi-function machines looked like fax machines and could function without a PC but we're so much better when connected to a PC. Cheap software modems allowed people to send and receive faxes without owning a dedicated machine. I remember eMachines bundled software with their PCs to make them effectively behave like a fax machine. Later they pushed the eFax internet based fax software. It's crazy that many business transactions still require Fax but the machines don't really exist. We needed to send/receive faxes to purchase a home last year as PDF/email was unacceptable. I was able to create a virtual Fax Server using Twilio in a couple hours and deal with these silly requirements. Sadly Twilio is shutting down their Fax service later this year and the suggested alternative is vastly more expensive.
    • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      I had the same thing with a refi. They said they needed to send me a fax, have me sign it and send it back. I asked them what millennium they thought it was. They looked at me for a second, then said "We can send it as an email attachment". So I suspect that they don't require fax. Fax is their normal way of operating, but it's not a legal requirement or something. It's just their default, and they'd rather not have to deal with changing it for you. But who's paying who? Oh, I'm paying them? Then they can forget making me jump through their obsolete technology hoops. No, they can figure out a way to send me the documents that I'm already set up to handle.
• zeckalpha 6y ago
  My 11mo will never replace a lightbulb.
  • mhb 6y ago
    Get a taller ladder.
• m463 6y ago
  "His Computers Will All Boot Super Fast" Booting has disappeared. Sleep (and hibernate) has made booting and boot times a non-issue. I would be surprised if people boot phones, laptops and many desktops more frequently than once a month. Even rebooting for updates probably happens without anyone present.
  • NathanielK 6y ago
    Anecdata, after a non-techy family member's phone stopped being updated, it had an uptime of over 2 years by the time it was replaced. If more people had the option of long-term support releases and live kernel patching with computers, I would expect similar results with laptops.
• cptskippy 6y ago
  Idk, this and the original article are just clickbait. Most of the predictions on that list were outright silly. Anyone who thought 3DTV was anything more than a fad is delusional, a better prediction would have been that his son would never have to experience 3DTV. Wireless will never replace wires and the same goes for desktop PCs, sure their market share will reduce but their demise is greatly over exaggerated. Most of his predictions were based in fantasy desire. I would argue that while his son will probably never use an actual dedicated Fax Machine, he will probably have to figure out how to send a fax at least once. Lawyers just can't seem to get away from those damn things.
  • tzs 6y ago
    > Most of the predictions on that list were outright silly. Anyone who thought 3DTV was anything more than a fad is delusional, a better prediction would have been that his son would never have to experience 3DTV. That seems a bit harsh, considering that the 3D versions of major blockbuster movies do well in theaters. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that quite a few people would want to be able to get the 3D versions of those movies for home viewing. A 3D TV is not much different from a 2D TV. Doesn't it mainly just need a higher refresh rate, and for some 3D technologies a higher vertical resolution? The higher end TVs from most manufacturers already often have twice the refresh rate of mid end TVs, and higher resolution (e.g., there are 8K TVs out now, even though most programming is 4K or less). I'd have expected TV makers to continue offering 3D, but only on their high end models. It wouldn't really cost them much, and it would get those people that watch 3D movies in theaters and want the same version at home to buy a higher end TV than they would otherwise need.
    • cptskippy 6y ago
      > the 3D versions of major blockbuster movies do well in theaters. Did well, past tense. 3D movies peaked in 2010 and box office sales declined annually. By 2019 they were less than 50% of their 2010 peak. TV makers stopped making 3D TVs after 2016. You're right that 3D TVs were just high refresh rate TVs but they have to sync with shutter glasses so you can't easily do 3D without TV support. The latest HDMI spec supports variable refresh rate so in theory you could now make a player capable of handling the shutter sync. It was a fad just like in the 50s and 80s. It lasted longer this time but yeah 3D is dead.
• tomc1985 6y ago
  I really hate this sort of breathless futurism (and futurists) that dismiss perfectly good tech because it seems outdated. I am glad author is pretty much wrong on most counts!
  • nine_k 6y ago
    He listed quite a bunch of tech that has no reason to die (like mice), and often has a good reason to live (like wired ethernet or windowed desktop environments). Some of the technologies hi lists are indeed are on its way out from home experience, like HDDs and landline phones, but it does not mean they do not have niches where they are doing to linger for at least a decade.
• cphoover 6y ago
  I'm curious about the raspberry pi pc build kit for kids. I think that's a great way to get kids introduced to technology and hardware, do they make dedicated kits for young kids?
• chiefalchemist 6y ago
  Most - not all - of these feel obvious. Land lines? Fax machines? They were already niche in 2012. IDK, these weren't (bold) predictions, as much as already established market trends push out 10 years and then deciding how dead they'd be or not. Side note: In the late 80's, I worked for AT&T in the consumer marketing dept. I remember there was a manager who repeatedly said, "Someday our phone numbers will follow us no matter where we live." Now, he was _not_ predicting the mobile phone, only that if you moved you wouldn't have to change numbers. But that, even then, he was viewed as a mad man. I wonder that he'd say today.
  • nerdponx 6y ago
    None of them feel obvious. I never would have made these predictions in 2010, 2015, or 2019, and I wouldn't feel comfortable making any of them out until 2030 at minimum (and only for fax machines and spinning drives on consumer PCs).
    • sellyme 6y ago
      I was born in 1996 and have never used a fax machine. Unless you live in Japan, you are being extremely conservative with not being comfortable predicting that until 2030.
    • chiefalchemist 6y ago
      Let's run them down one by one from the top. 1 - Effectively, ubiquitous wifi - The obvious direction of technology + market. Something Comcast / Xfinity was offering and expanding. 2 - Mobile devices with better cameras - Both were handheld with similar and overlapping technologies. The obvious direction of technology + market 3 - Landlines - The obvious direction of technology + market. I haven't had one since early 00's, and that was strictly as a back up for business purposes. 4 - Instant on - Who wouldn't want that? TVs do it. The obvious direction of technology + market. 5 - Non-UI UX - The obvious direction of technology + market, ask Siri or Alexa. 6 - SSD / Cloud - HDs are the fax machine of storage. The obvious direction of technology + market 7 - Movie theaters - The obvious direction of technology + market. 8 - Mouse? - See above about voice, and of course there's touch. The obvious direction of technology + market 9 - 3D glasses - Been hyped for the longest. The obvious direction of technology + market. 10 - No remote - Remember the infomercials, "the clapper"? Also, back to voice, or mobile device (see cameras). The obvious direction of technology + market. 11 - No desktops - He was midtaken. 12 - No phone dialing - Most comms aren't via phone number, and if they are no one dials. Ever since mobile devices - even flip phones - fewer and fewer were dialing. Again, the obvious direction of technology + market. 13 - Won't watch prime time - I owned a TIVO (DVR) in the late 90's and the promise of 500 channels is as old as cable TV. The obvious direction of technology + market. 14 - No fax machine - Never really a consumer product. Why would a 9 y/o need one in 2021? The obvious direction of technology + market 15 - No optical media - See SSD / cloud. The obvious direction of technology + market.
• jimbob45 6y ago
  I'm fairly sure theaters won't be going anywhere. You can't have the ability to watch a 20 foot by 20 foot projection of a movie at home, no matter how cheap the technology gets unless you have a massive backyard and a projector or a huge room in your house you weren't using anyway.
  • somethingwitty1 6y ago
    It isn't just about the giant screen for everyone. For many in my circle, the only reason they still go to the theatre is because you can see things when they release. If they had an option for same day streaming (as covid has provided in some cases), they will drop the theatre completely. The quality of TVs and sound systems at home can provide a better visual/audio experience than many theatres.
  • fomine3 6y ago
    Bigger screen isn't attracting for me. Just sit near TV or use HMD is fine. Additionally, I won't see other people's head or blink smartphone. The only reason go to theater for me is great sound especially bass. Huge bass is really impossible at home but not all content requires such bass.
• hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  I hope hope hope that the death of theaters never happens. > In my original article, I said that a confluence of factors would kill movie theatres: the improving quality of home theaters, the eventual death of the 90-day theatrical window and the cost and hassle of the movie-going experience. I mean, I appreciate being able to just have a nice quiet evening watching Netflix, but if anything after the pandemic I yearn to see a movie in the theater. This type of commentary rarely mentions the social aspect of going to the movie theater, watching with friends or a date, etc. It always goes with the "going to a movie theater is not efficient" take, which makes me think that people's brains just must be wired differently. I consider myself an introvert but I'm so excited about being able to have normal in-person interactions soon.
  • Spooky23 6y ago
    I love movie theaters, but I think they’ll die because they are mostly anchored to malls, and our development patterns make standalone theaters difficult. Online ordering and increasing poverty makes the mall a declining asset where the movies are one of the last big drivers of demand.
    • kortilla 6y ago
      Poverty in the US isn’t increasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
    • mcphage 6y ago
      > because they are mostly anchored to malls, and our development patterns make standalone theaters difficult Interesting—what part of the country do you live in? Where I am in the North-East, movie theaters attached to malls is more of a minority. Not non-existent, but not at all a majority.
  • darkwater 6y ago
    I don't think movie theatres will ever go away, especially after the pandemic they got for sure 10 extra years anyway. The social aspect is so important, it also means doing something else (like eating at a restaurant), there will always be people preferring them.
• vmception 6y ago
  Most of these are debatable and even some of the bets would need arbitration to determine if this was a prediction market (never sending a fax - wrong - vs never using a fax machine - right), but nice time capsule and fun list
• darkwater 6y ago
  When my first daughter was born, 6 years ago I thought "she will never need a driving license, even if we live in the countryside". Now, I'm not that sure.
  • awillen 6y ago
    This is the one I always go with in terms of things my kids won't do, but I'm a couple of years away from having them, so I'm pretty confident. You'll probably be pretty close in any case... a decade is a lot of time.
  • ironmagma 6y ago
    I think it will be decades before self driving cars replace humans entirely. The transition from 0 to “some” is happening at snail’s pace, and even once the cities are conquered, there is the enormously long tail of edge cases like countryside driving that will not be ready for a very long time, if ever. Even a 2020 Roomba can’t vacuum your entire house.
  • sellyme 6y ago
    Depends which country's side, I guess.
• fma 6y ago
  I think a lot of these predictions depend on your use case. Point and shoot...I have DSLR. I didn't have one 15 years ago. It's not for every day use, of course but I use it frequently. I can do so much more with it and the quality is so much better. Mouse...my parents/in-laws haven't used one in years since their main computer is a tablet Home phone? I installed one (VoIP) a few years ago. If I need to reach anyone at home I just have 1 number to call and I don't need to worry about phones having no battery, on silent etc...Also my kids (oldest is 4) and may need to reach me when they are older and for sure they aren't getting their own cellphone for a long time.
• Zak 6y ago
  I disagree with a couple of his verdicts. 1. Mechanical hard drives. These have become a bit more niche, but if you deal with larger files like that movie library the author ought to rip from those fragile optical disks he still has lying around, spinning rust is the far more cost-effective option for storing files you don't use all the time. 2. Phone numbers. His original prediction is that people wouldn't use them, not that people wouldn't remember them and dial them manually. A number of popular messenger services including Signal use phone numbers as identifiers, and I wish they didn't. 3. The fax machine. This absolutely, 100% deserved to be dead a decade ago. Perhaps most faxes aren't actually sent using physical machines anymore, but a lot of businesses and some government institutions treat fax as more secure than purely digital file transfers. My vote in the 2020 US election involved a fax. I'm disappointed in the tech community for not producing a solution that achieved near-universal buy-in from more conservative institutions in the past two decades. 4. Optical disks. I haven't used one in years, and I suspect a lot of other people here are in the same position. There's not that much content I want to watch more than once, so the issue of streaming non-ownership isn't a big problem for me. The author has kids, and kids definitely do that, but there are both legal and less legal ways to obtain permanent copies of content by purely digital means. Note to content sellers: I'm happy to pay for content; don't make it so difficult for me to do so that I seek alternatives.
  • forgotmypw17 6y ago
    With regards to optical disks, the number of movies available digitally is still much smaller than those available on media.
    • Zak 6y ago
      Is that true if you include piracy?
      • ghaff 6y ago
        Probably depending upon how hard you want to look and how many compromises you're willing to accept in terms of quality.
• paxys 6y ago
  > His Computers Will All Boot Super Fast I'd argue that this is correct in spirit. Not because operating systems boot really fast, but because they have been designed to not need to boot at all. The only time I need to cold boot my computer or phone is after an update (which is maybe every 2-3 months?) > He Won’t Go to the Movies This is not TBD but straight up wrong. Pandemic notwithstanding, there is no end to movie theaters in sight.
• k__ 6y ago
  I guess, most of it is true for poorer folks where children only get a smartphone or tablet instead of a PC.
• analog31 6y ago
  Well, I'm a bit behind the times. I thought my son would never use a viola da gamba.
• brailsafe 6y ago
  The movie theatre prediction seems a bit bizarre, but I suppose if you don't do it yourself, you'd have little reason to think it would continue. If anything they'll probably be a resurgence in demand after they open back up.
• drdeadringer 6y ago
  I’m willing to be called Scrooge, Luddite, &c here, and here I go: > 2. No Dedicated Cameras and Camcorders I’m almost 40. I (finally) own a smart-phone. I also own a good digital camera. I tested smartphone cameras for “a leading tech company in Mountain View” for several years. I’m fully aware of the saying, “The best camera you have is the one you have with you”. One day I saw a coworker pointing to my digital camera and saying “That type of camera is obsolete”. I didn’t feel good about that, and I have no regrets owning it and still using it with no issues for quality or availability. When I go out for pictures, I bring my camera; when I don’t, I accept I have to accept smartphone quality. > 7. He Won’t Go to the Movies I love movies (and television). I watch at home and out. I go out to the movies for the experience and to get out of the living space. No regrets. I'm an introvert. > 8. He Won’t Use a Mouse I cannot stand using a trackpad or the “mouse button” [there are more crude words for it, think the red thing on ThinkPads]. It is a mouse for me for life because it’s actually useable. > 10. He Won’t Use a Remote Control Does a bluetooth mouse count as “remote control” for my computer dedicated for watching movies and television 6 feet away? > 14. He’ll Never Use a Fax Machine If only some businesses or government I need to deal with was the same.
• mrfusion 6y ago
  Decent article but as a certified life coach I think he should have waited one more year to reach a round ten years to write this.
• mrfusion 6y ago
  I always wondered what makes some businesses so inflexible that they still require faxes. It’s getting rarer these days but I’ll still hit it once a year.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• WillDaSilva 6y ago
  I find it interesting that the author is only considering optical media, and streaming media from a third party. If the only concern is about owning a copy of the content, then why not ditch the optical disks and go fully digital? If you set up your own cloud storage for them, you'll even get the benefit of being able to stream your media anywhere you have an internet connection. Plus with good data storage practices (e.g. protection from bitrot, off-site backups, etc.) your media will be safer when digitized than it could ever be when stored on optical disks.
• tzs 6y ago
  One place I still see point-and-shoot stand alone cameras is in construction/contracting. When I've had companies come and bid on things like roof repair, for example, the person that comes to access the job and prepare an estimate will use one. During the job I see the workers using them to document what they are doing. I know they have modern smart phones, because I see them use them. My guess is that they use the stand alone camera because of the better interface. Smart phones can be a pain to operate while wearing heavy work gloves, or to operate one handed. Just this afternoon I wanted to take some photos of the gutters on my front roof to see if they needed cleaning. That section of roof is only about 7.5 ft above the deck, so it is easy to just reach up to where the camera has a view of inside the gutters. Except on about half the shots, some part of my hand would hit some on-screen control and do something to mess up the shot, such as changing the mode from photo to video. It would have been easier if I had used my old Sony DSC-P93 [1]. [1] https://www.dpreview.com/products/sony/compacts/sony_dscp93 https://www.dpreview.com/products/sony/compacts/sony_dscp93
  • Syonyk 6y ago
    There's also the "rugged camera" aspect. Some of the ruggedized point and shoots are designed to be used in the wet (most are rated for limited underwater use), to withstand drops from "chest high or a bit higher" onto hard surfaces without breaking, and generally tolerate levels of abuse that a smartphone, even with a case, usually won't put up with. I'll let my toddler run around taking pictures with a rugged point and shoot without worrying about anything beyond "Where on earth will they hide it when they're done?" I usually get something resembling a low FPS video of the house, mostly blurry, but they enjoy it! There's also the aspect that, for construction documentation, everything is on the camera card. You don't have to pay attention to who has which photos, but, oh, their phone won't run the uploader app right, or their home ISP is slow, or... whatever. You use the camera, you take pictures, they're there. And I'm still inclined to use a camera for documenting a number of my projects around the property. I don't have to worry about it getting beat up, I can use it in gloves, etc. Plus, the lens is better.
  • e3bc54b2 6y ago
    Maybe those guys use them because they can or that they haven't caught up with the trend. In my country, everyone uses a smartphone (practically speaking). Delivery, repair, inspection people, all use their smartphones to take photos and upload to destination via an app. Apart from being convenient, this has a side effect that the organization can push device cost onto individual contractors and lay people. I'm fully certain western countries will catch up with this trend just to save a buck.
• CapitalistCartr 6y ago
  I'm an industrial electrician. Changing well-embedded standards and technology is extremely difficult, except over the course of decades to century+. Locomotives use 64 volts for control voltage. Eight 8-volt batteries. (Drive voltage is 500-750, usually 600.) Why? Because they settled on it when locos were first electrified, long before 12 volts was a standard (or other, now common voltages). Many steam engines had 32 volts; 64 was an easy doubling to handle higher power start loads. They will continue to be 64 volt until the end of time.
• RHSeeger 6y ago
  > That being said, VoIP landline phones are still a part of many peoples’ lives. Cable and fiber optic providers continue to offer these services and many people, including my mom, still have them. I work from home and I still use a land line phone. I bought the best quality speakphone I could find and I don't regret it a minute. Cell phones just don't have the same voice quality, especially for speakerphone, as a land line. And I avoid doing voice over the computer because my computer is busy and I don't want to sound like a robot because it can't handle the workload.
• porknubbins 6y ago
  This list seems to have been written by a journalist type extrapolating from very visible consumer trends and completely uninformed by actual engineering or physical realities. I’m no expert but from what little I know about how complicated wireless standards are and the ever increasing bandwidth demands I can predict continued wired communication. And the mouse and keyboard vs touch thing should be pretty obvious for anyone who has done office work.
• deleted 6y ago
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• impalallama 6y ago
  > “by the time my son enters grade school,” remote controls would be replaced by either smartphone apps or gesture / voice commands." I do not and hope I never will live in this man's future
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    My TV’s, garage, and ceiling fans can and are controlled via Apple TV remote app and Home app. If the remote doesn’t happen to be near us, we don’t see a need to reach for it. My toddlers even know how to use it, so I can see them using apps most of the time instead of dedicated remotes.
• mdoms 6y ago
  I don't agree about cameras. Take a look at your favourite youtubers - for the most part anyone who is even half way serious about making videos has moved past the limitations of phone cameras.
  • tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    The market has bifurcated, I switched to using my phone because it was good enough.
• antihero 6y ago
  > 7. He Won’t Go to the Movies The reasoning behind this, that everyone is going to have a place big enough for a great home cinema setup is laughably privileged and off the mark. Such a huge amount of people live in absolutely tiny places with neigbours that mean the audio and video could never be a decent home cinema.
  • schwartzworld 6y ago
    Hard disagree from me. Large TVs have gotten so cheap and movies are so expensive. We found one of our TVs on the curb for free, and it’s miles ahead of what we watched tv on when I was a kid. Who can afford to go to the movies on the regular but not afford a tv? And I know, cheap TVs aren’t what you meant by “decent home cinema” but for many people a 60-75” tv with a midrange soundbar (or decent headphones) is plenty. Both those things can be had secondhand. Obviously below a certain income level it’s still not doable, but I can’t imagine being so poor I couldn’t afford a secondhand tv but still willing to drop $15 on admission then pay $8 for a popcorn.
    • perryizgr8 6y ago
      I think this prediction is laughable. There are many people around the world who absolutely cannot afford a high quality picture and sound system at home, but can easily pay the occasional price of a movie ticket. Example in India. The average ticket price in a high-end movie theater is ₹239 ($3.18), most tickets are priced way below that [1]. The cheapest 4k 55" TVs I can find on amazon.in cost around ₹35,000 ($466)[2]. And these units will have the absolute crappiest screens and even worse sound. Anything smaller and you won't have a screen big enough to replace the theater-going experience. I think your perception is distorted by the extreme high price of movie tickets where you live ($15 would be insane here). However TV prices are comparable. So obviously the TV looks more attractive to you. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/319496/movie-ticket-price-theater-type-india/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/319496/movie-ticket-pric... [2] https://www.amazon.in/AmazonBasics-127cm-inch-Ultra-Smart/dp/B087JYBBSR/ https://www.amazon.in/AmazonBasics-127cm-inch-Ultra-Smart/dp...
    • donatj 6y ago
• brundolf 6y ago
  The 3D TV phase was so odd. It really seemed like an inevitability: there was a technological breakthrough, it was genuinely much better than what came before (the red and blue stuff), it was relatively inexpensive, and on paper it seemed like a strict improvement on the status quo (flat TV). But... somehow, I never actually found myself wanting it that badly at home. And I guess everyone else agreed because one day it just vanished. So few technologies follow a trajectory like that. Usually you either get a success or a failure, where successes only end once they're replaced by something new and strictly better. But this was truly a fad; it was kind of successful for a minute, and then everybody lost interest.
  • taneq 6y ago
    I'm still salty about that. I love 3D movies, even with the fuzziness and the glasses (I wear glasses anyway so, I mean, what's the big deal?) but nobody else can be bothered, and now you can't buy them any more. I really hope my current TV doesn't die.
    • thiht 6y ago
      Do you mind sharing what you love about 3D movies? Even ignoring the glasses and the fuzziness (and the headaches and the blurry vision in my case) I can't find one positive thing about it.
      • taneq 6y ago
        I enjoy the extra sense of immersion and the added depth, and I feel like I get a better understanding of what's going on. I get a sense of 'being there' that I've never really had with 2D movies.
  • dandanua 6y ago
    It's because of the lack of 3D content for TV. Occasional 3D movies, that you'd better watch in a cinema, is not a very big incentive. For games there are VR helmets.
    • 6y ago
• b0tzzzzzzman 6y ago
  Really got click bait vibes from this.. Wish I had not clicked and red it.. Maybe we could just sum alot of the assumptions to.. Smart phones will replace X predictions. Seems like where it all originated.
• peanutz454 6y ago
  I am interested in the kids raspberry pi setup.
  • whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    It's a Kano Computer Kit.
• Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  1 "No More Wired Home Internet " aww isn't cute when subs don't have a clue about internet / telecoms technology. Would have expected better from a supposed tech mag. FTC or FTH is still l going to beat wireless connections - "you cane change the laws a physics" as Scotty used to say.
• movedx 6y ago
  > 4. His Computers Will All Boot Super Fast Well of course this isn't the case. I've banged on about this a lot, but we've given up on optimising our software and have just opted for making the hardware faster instead. This is the result. /shrug
  • perryizgr8 6y ago
    We have gone in the opposite direction because now my TV takes a minute to boot. Earlier that used to be a 3-4 second process. For this reason, we just leave the TV on throughout the day. Massive wastage of electricity, so I'm trying to not fall into this habit.
    • movedx 6y ago
      Yeah ours is the same. I can Siri to turn on our AppleTV and a few minutes later we get to watch something. I mean it's only a few minutes but the question, "WTH is this thing doing?" is very valid.
• perryizgr8 6y ago
  > In 2012, I predicted that point-and-shoot cameras and camcorders were so dead that my son would never use them. Point and shoot digital cameras are interestingly bad compared to cellphones nowadays. The camera will generally have better glass, better sensor, beefier battery, more space to house the components, but will get beaten by a 7mm thick phone in most circumstances. Amazing how much can be done just by crunching numbers harder and faster. On the contrary, DSLRs and mirrorless cameras have held their own against camera phones. The hardware advantage is too vast to be bridged by software right now. Or maybe the camera manufacturers are starting to use some software tricks themselves in their newest stuff.
• twic 6y ago
  Calling the camera prediction as right seems dubious. Smartphones have replaced low-end cameras, absolutely, but have not and will not replaced high-end cameras. At age nine, it's no surprise that his child has not used a high-end camera. It would be more of a surprise if he makes it through adulthood without ever using one once.
• ElectricMind 6y ago
  I could not read more than 10 sec after clicking the link. I mean for God's sake how many ads on single page? I suggest move content to static site for better readability.
• truthwhisperer 6y ago
  So stop making useless predictions then
• Teknoman117 6y ago
  I had to use a fax machine a few years ago because the university I was attending (UC Merced) would only accept some documentation in person, or by fax (waiving the annoying-to-opt-out student medical insurance). Why you couldn't submit it through the student web portal is beyond me. It was a bit of a hilarious experience plugging a VoIP box into a ~2010 Brother MFC printer/scanner. It might be the only time I've ever sent a fax in my entire life (and I'm 28).
• heletoto 6y ago
  The longevity of these technologies amuses me. I'd say that some of the technologies listed are in demand right now, and I don't see signs of it changing soon. Slowly but surely, new technologies will replace them both faster and have more extended longevity.
• jefurii 6y ago
  I love this little eggcorn from the article: "abject lesson".
• luord 6y ago
  Well, as an avid movie watcher who absolutely loves the theater experience, I truly do hope they never go away, and that my hypothetical children get to experience them too.
• anta40 6y ago
  "Even nine years ago, it was easy to see that, outside of high-quality DSLR and mirrorless cameras, standalone cameras were over." Hmm hard to disagree with that. For pros and experienced enthusiasts, sure nothing beats camera system with bigger image sensors. But for casual folks who just want to take image quickly (and publish them to social media), smartphone is way more practical. And cheaper.
• dekhn 6y ago
  tech my child uses I didn't expect: robloxfpsunlocker and an autoclicker.