In high tech, as it is in life, change is the name of the game. Apple disposes of, drops, discards technology which was all the rage just a few years ago (bye, bye, PPC). Are there other technologies which are obsolete and need to be discarded? Sure. The world would be a better place if Microsoft closed the doors and gave the money back to shareholders.
Let me play Devil’s advocate for a moment and skewer Mike Elgan’s 10 obsolete technologies to kill in 2010 (hint: not a Mac or an iPhone on the list).
10 Technologies To Kill (or not)
First on the list are fax machines. They’re quaint technology left over from the 1900s, which is also the 20th century.
When someone says “fax it to me,” I always feel like I’m being punk’d. A fax machine is nothing more than a printer, scanner and an obsolete analog mode that work together to waste time, money, paper and electricity.
Quaint? Yes. Necessary? Yes.
The document almost always begins and ends in digital format. But during this epic journey, the document is digital four times, paper twice and sound once.
I’m not big on faxing, but I don’t know of a company that does not use a fax machine. If it’s used so much then it must be that the alternatives are not much of an improvement.
As electrical outlets, dashboard lighter ports are dangerous, unreliable, underpowered, inconvenient, unsightly and expensive. They require that you purchase a special plug and/or adapters, which add clutter to your car. All cars should have standard household electrical outlets, with the converter built in. Or USB ports that can charge gadgets. Or both. Almost nobody smokes in their cars. Almost everybody carries phones and gadgets that need power in the cars. Sheesh. How obsolete can you get?
I’m in favor of something better. What is it? About 25-percent of American’s smoke and I suspect a large percentage of them smoke in their cars.
That’s why saying “www” as part of an address, printing it on business cards or typing it into your browser address box is always unnecessary. We stopped using “http://” years ago, and it’s time to stop using “www” as well.
I’m in agreement here, but there are some differences between sites with www. and without.
Speaking of business cards, why do we still carry around 19th-century “calling cards”? When someone gives you a business card, they’re giving you a tedious data entry job, one that most people never complete. There are several alternatives to business cards, all superior.
Mike is full of crap. What’s better, and more ubiquitous, than a typical business card? Mike assumes everyone is into electronics. Remember, most people can’t change the time on their DVD player.
We’re now two revolutions away from the heyday of driving to Blockbuster, standing in line, renting a video and driving home. Movies are nothing more than digital files. You can download them, or get them on disk by mail. Driving? Standing in line? For an electronic file? Come on!
Broadband penetration in the US is somewhere around 65-percent (depending on who you ask and who’s counting). What are the other 35-percent of the population supposed to do if and when Blockbuster closes down?
Just about every component to a home entertainment system comes with its own overly-complex remote control. The TV’s got one. So does the TiVo. The Blu-ray player has its own remote… Each one has to be programmed, refreshed with toxic batteries and kept track of (they tend to disappear). Hardly anyone takes the time to properly manage, consolidate or program their remotes. Enough! It’s time to replace remote controls with mobile phone apps. Mobile phones make superior remote controls because they have better user interfaces, rechargeable batteries and we tend not to lose them.
Talk about an elitist, egalitarian, smug, and holier-than-thou attitude. Come on, Mike. I don’t like remotes, either, but cell phones that can control our electronic devices are a miniscule part of the market. Oh, and there’s a middleman in there somewhere, since my iPhone cannot directly control my DVR.
The number of people in the US who have ditched their home landline phones in favor of cell phones doubled between 2006 and 2009, according to a recently released federal report. Now, one-quarter of US households have no landline.
Please. I have both. As do many people. Local phone companies often require a landline to give you DSL. So, Mike, you’re saying to ditch the landline used by 75-percent of the US population? Yeah, that’s smart.
Music CDs work fine. It’s just that they have no significant advantages over downloadable media, such as MP3 files. CDs are environmentally unfriendly, fragile and inconvenient to carry around. We should move to an all-digital, file-based library, which can be searched, backed up and carried everywhere.
It’s called an iPod, Mike. Have you heard of it? CDs still make up a much larger percentage of music sales. Maybe there are some people who can’t afford an iPod. Mike is about to lose it now.
Sirius XM programming is great stuff. But you don’t need rockets and orbiting satellites to deliver noise to radios. Sirius XM itself demonstrated this by offering its content on the Internet, and via an iPhone app.
Hmmmm. My DSL connection doesn’t work in my car. Oh, and I use an iPhone. With AT&T, so I can’t listen to a stream of music very long.
There are some cases in which satellite has an advantage. For example, when you’re driving outside a mobile broadband coverage area and are listening to timely content, such as news. But most of us rarely venture into the wilds, and most Sirius XM content isn’t all that timely. Besides, you can’t listen if you travel outside North America, or into covered parking. Or near buildings. Or in tunnels that don’t have costly repeaters.
It’s hard to believe that people get paid for writing such drivel. When you’re driving almost anywhere, and most American’s drive everywhere, satellite radio rocks.
If you’re going to pay a costly subscription for something, pay for a mobile broadband data subscription, which can bring you the whole Internet, not just sound files. Sirius XM should keep the programming and the content, but drop the satellite delivery and the subscription price, and continue to serve their audience via the Internet.
This is one of those instances where the logic is totally plausible, and totally wrong. Remember, about 35-percent of US households do not have broadband internet access. I doubt if Sirius XM would sound the same on dial up.
Many Web sites offer some form of registration, which typically ask you to add your personal contact information and specify a username and password.
Why do some sites require me to enter my e-mail address or my password twice? They’re going to verify all this anyway. Why do I have to enter city, state and ZIP code, when the ZIP code already knows the city and state, and vice versa. Bad, redundant and obsolete technologies make life needlessly complex, expensive, irritating and ugly. Let’s get rid of them.
Old habits are hard to break. At first thought, I’d like to see a single, universal login ID and password system. But, is that really a good thing? That’s one login and password for everything I have. Everything. One theft and everything is open to the thief. I don’t think so. The zip code idea? That’s a good one. However, credit card companies approve payments based on a number of items, including city and state and zip code and phone number.
Mike, you missed one. Grocery stores should deliver food to me because I said so.
Technology changes, but not overnight. We are left with a present that includes vestiges of the past, those pieces of yesteryear that won’t die until something really, really, better comes along.