Posted on 10/19/2011 5:14:47 PM PDT by Jotmo
Which Tech Gadgets Will Be Phased Out This Decade?
Hindsight may always be 20-20, but you don’t need particularly great foresight to know many of the gadgets on today’s market won’t be around in 2020 given how quickly the tech industry keeps changing. In the first half of the 2000s, retailers were buzzing about the prospects of MP3 players and netbooks, but by the end of the decade, those products had largely been replaced by smartphones and tablets.
As tempting as it may be to imagine otherwise, some of the gadgets you may rely on most right now will likely suffer the same fate and be killed off or made obsolete by the end of this decade. Sure, you may still be able to find these products for sale in certain niche stores, but they will no longer be produced for a mass-market audience.
“You can still find and buy VCRs and there are people still using mainframes from 1992, so it’s not like this stuff disappears forever,” says Stephen Baker, an industry analyst at the NPD Group. Baker notes that the main reason retailers continue to market and sell outdated products is to cater to shoppers who buy them for nostalgia’s sake, but for all intents and purposes the market has left these products in the dust. So which popular products today will join the likes of VCRs, cassette players and transistor radios in the next few years? MainStreet asked five tech analysts to offer their thoughts on the gadgets that will largely be phased out by the end of this decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at shopping.yahoo.com ...
LOL!
bigheadfred’s on it.
*nod* / Agree.
I’ve done my part; I’ve spent into the FireWire (ALL my portable hard-drives are FW, and I managed to get a sound-system with FW enabled). {And I’m *NOT* wealthy.}
I would snap up a FW TV, if a) I could find one, and b) I could afford it... I’d love to plug that into my SoundBlaster Audigy.
A Networked attached device or a media file server.
I disagree with 75% on the list. Camera, mp3 players, and e-readers in particular. DVD players and recordable cds and dvd’s also.
Most people I know and I deal with a lot of people don’t want everything to on instant viewing. At least 25% of the people I work with have no computer and do not plan to get one.
If it helps. I am a farmboy in Idaho, sipping from your provenance, talking to someone a world away. But yet not that, quite. Just talking to a FRiend.
It;s just the PHD (push here, dummy) cameras that will disappear. In turn, the DSLR will get cheaper, and along with better cameras in phones, will fill in the gap the PHD cameras left. There’s already a phone with dual lenses to shoot 3D pictures. I wouldn’t be surprised to see, in a couple of years, phones with 1 or even 1.5cm lenses, and maybe even small telescoping lens stacks like the smaller PHD cameras.
It;s just the PHD (push here, dummy) cameras that will disappear. In turn, the DSLR will get cheaper, and along with better cameras in phones, will fill in the gap the PHD cameras left. There’s already a phone with dual lenses to shoot 3D pictures. I wouldn’t be surprised to see, in a couple of years, phones with 1 or even 1.5cm lenses, and maybe even small telescoping lens stacks like the smaller PHD cameras.
I tried laptops for several years and just built a brand new desktop system. I will probably always keep one around.
No the cheaper cameras won’t disappear, they’ll just become freepies that are given out with magazine subscriptions. And phone cameras suck. I’ve yet to see one take a better picture than a regular cheap digital camera.
And they may come as a surprise to many here, but many of us don’t want all the crap they foist on us on our phones.
"Have to disagree on the comma, killer; it is way over used and getting more so every day. The semicolon is almost already dead."
On (6) Robot tanks. Same as the uav’s replacing the pilots, once the Navy and Air Force pilots as commanders get aged.
I hate laptops and will always keep one around.
That is keep a desktop around.
My e-reader (Kindle) is awesome. The battery lasts at least a month. And I can synch where I am on my desktop home computer, my work computer, my son’s Android. So no matter what I have access to, I can read it. The best thing, though, I can sit outside and read a book; can’t do that with a tablet.
Love my LED entrance lights. Just like daylight on the walkway. Have to change the CFLs too often to make them cost effective, not to mention the mercury/proper disposal requirements.
We keep one laptop around. Nice to have on trips & such. The Android just doesn’t cut it for any real use. They are nice for quick access, looking something up, having access to email. But, if I have more work to do, I need the laptop if I am traveling, or my desktop at home.
I have at least two, both are Post.
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