[SamAdams76]

Well I saw this article posted as a reply on another thread a few days back and I thought it was worthy enough of an article to start a new thread with. So using Google, I found the original source which was some publication in India that I know nothing about. I know that India is where many of us get our tech support these days. They also have good cuisine. I like their spicy fish with curry with rice beer that looks like watered down milk but packs quite the punch. Those Indians sure have an exotic way of eating.

But I digress. I came here tonight to talk about technology and how the whole world is about to be disrupted. We are going to have 3-D printers making our shoes on demand and when we want to go someplace, we will be able to mix ourselves a strong cocktail and have some driverless car come pick us up and whisk us away. I'm going to need a strong cocktail or two before I put myself into a driverless car! But they say it is coming and less than 10 years away.

One of the companies I used to work for was Kodak and I remember very well when their business model evaporated pretty much overnight. Back in the 1970s, they invented this clunky thing called the digital camera and everybody laughed and Kodak put it on the shelf to collect dust. They could pay people to invent such "useless things" because they were literally printing money with their core film business. Everybody was taking pictures on film cameras and Kodak pretty much cornered the market on film. They also made a pretty good camera. They were perfectly verticalized! And if you bought a non-Kodak camera, chances were, you stuck Kodak film into it. Then you had to take the film to a place like CVS to get it developed. You'd seal the film into an envelope, write your name and address and would have to come back in like 5 days to get your developed pictures. Half the time, the pictures were crap. Sometimes you accidentally took pictures of your feet while adjusting something on the camera. But you had to pay for those pictures anyway. What a racket! And Kodak made money hand over fist.

You know the rest of the story. Other companies started selling digital cameras. They became cheaper and and had more and more memory. But still, they took mostly crappy pictures. Film cameras were so much more superior! But Moore's Law! Starting in the late 1990s, the cameras started really getting better and cheaper. But Kodak still laughed. Then BANG! We all woke up one morning and nobody was buying film cameras anymore or even film. I mean it was literally overnight. The entire camera industry as we knew it went the way of the vinyl LP record. Only a niche group of nerds and professional photographers were interested.

In my current job, I am involved somewhat with 3-D printers. My company sells and supports several models of them. Right now they are clunky and rather amateur, much like those first consumer digital cameras of the late 1990s. But I see the potential and each year's model is more than twice as good as the model before it. Before too long, we will have these in our homes. If we drop our comb under the sink and are too lazy to get down on our hands and knees to get it, then we can just hit a button and print a new one. If I misplace my spark plug wrench, why I can just download the appropriate file and print it out in my garage. The possibilities are endless. And as for high-end 3-D printers, the sky is the limit.

A lot of other technologies mentioned in this article have that same disruptive potential. I've been using Uber lately. It's so easy. I just tell the app where I want to go and five or ten minutes later, a Uber car is pulling up. The GPS in my phone already knows where I am and the driver coming to get me gets driving instructions based on my GPS location. The fee is already calculated and tipping is discouraged so it's a total hassle-free cashless transaction. I have not tried out Airbnb yet but as I travel a lot, that sounds intriguing. It just might beat staying at the Marriott Courtyard by some shopping mall in Scranton, PA.

I'm not sure if Bitcoin is going to become our main currency but other than that, most of what I read in this article seems plausible.

[Bon mots]

I use Uber all the time. It’s great and cheaper and higher quality than a cab.

I also use Turo - a sort of AirBNB for rental cars. I have a very small car, so need to rent a big one from time to time, so I get one from a private person via Turo.com.

My smartphone has replaced:
- My camera
- My maglight
- My GPS
- My guitar tuner
- My metronome
- My landline phone
- My phone book
- My note pad
- My mp3 player
- My Calculator

I also use it to check currency rates, weather, make calls, send text messages, skype messages, FB messages, Viber and read PDF books when I’m waiting for something.

[mythenjoseph]

Computer print outs never last (photos) the photographs I keep of my family are all kodack type quality and they go back 100 nplus years....some are silver flash type photography. the new pixel crap is just that....easy to let reality fade as liberals and rinos want it....in order to teach blank slates what they want.

[adorno]

We’re all going to be couch potatoes, with computers and robots doing everything for us.

IOW, the method for extinction of the human race is almost upon us.

Even Uber will be a thing of the past, since, our computer and robot overlords will do all of our errands, after they figure out what our needs are.

We’ll finally have 0% unemployment, since, nobody will need to be working, and only those working will be counted in the employment figures, but, since people will cease to look work, they will all not be counted.

I don’t think I’ll be around to enjoy “our” new future (unless somebody or some computer figures out how to stop aging), but those left behind will be happy with their Utopia.

[familyop]

And the much more interesting future is almost here. Imagine the wonderful opportunities for imports with defaults of the biggest governments and fuel at $20 per gallon.

;-)

[Ouderkirk]

Everyone assumes that Kodak was blind...I am not one of those.

Kodak went exactly where the board of directors wanted it to. Nobody...and I mean nobody is THAT stupid at the COE level. At some point, the board of Directors decided that they were going to end Kodak. They had a pile of businesses that were successful (i.e. chemistry) and a bunch of others that were doing OK, and some that were a mess.

The sold off some of their core businesses to focus on a failing business (imaging). They had a bunch of patents that they developed, they funded research on such things while they were flush with cash, but management had no understanding of what value they could be in the out years.

Yet they members of the Board knew. How? Because they were all members of the boards of other companies who could profit from the use of those patents without paying a hefty license fee to Kodak, and so Kodak’s fate was sealed.

Eastman Chemical, Geospatial to ITT, Blood Analyzers to J&J, and on and on. Until all that was left is what was Kodak of the 20th century, in the 21st century and doomed to bankruptcy. Exactly what they wanted and their IP would go for pennies. Eastman Kodak had huge liabilities in Kodak Park East and KP in general. There is all sorts of nastiness in the ground in KP-E and a huge tax burden for KP-West... Bankrupt there is nobody left to sue and the taxpayers get stuck with the cleanup.

[Organic Panic]

It’s always a pet peeve of mine when I hear “Moore’s Law.”

[umgud]

[RockyTx]

how hard is it to make a robot
that picks tomatoes?

[Angels27]

Is this from the Onion? Or is some Bill Gates technodicks pipe dream?

[stockpirate]

If I recall we should already have flying cars, the earth should be freezing now, no one dies, no more wars.

[Secret Agent Man]

See how JIT cars work when a natural disaster or emerency hits and everyone wants cars but as they claim only 5% of the people can actually get a car because 95% of car numbers are gone.

This isnt going to happen. Kost people want to own their car. They dont want to share with strngers. We have illegals here with diseases that can eff you up for life. Yeah will the elite give up personal cars?

Totally moronic. These predictions deny the reality of the human spirit and the human experience.

[Momaw Nadon]

Work: 70-80 percent of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years.

For the sake of argument, let's assume this will be true.

If most people don't have jobs, they will have no income from their labor.

How will people buy stuff with their primary source of income gone?

[bakeneko]

What a Beautiful World this will be,
What a Glorious Time to be Free..

I’ll believe it when I get my free stuff Spandex Jacket.

[The FIGHTIN Illini]

Ping for Later

[Mariner]

There will be a bunch of robot cars, but not all...by far.

People are not going to wholesale abandon that freedom and security and joy.

But taxi's with drivers, or buses or long haul trucks will be gone in 10 years, max.

Completely gone.

Same with tractors and most farm equipment...robots. Trains. Probably airplanes. Cargo ships.

And I don't believe we'll ever get rid of lawyers.

[Falconspeed]

Ho hum. Would be nice if this mythology was true. Pie in the sky stuff written by a high school student in a Third World country.

“Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean.” Goof ball.

“Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years.” Dream on, buddy.

No mention of three American technologies that should be used today in order to help families globally and clean the environment:

Plasma recyclers (even recycles nuclear waste)
Boron engines (cars can run for years on a trunk full of boron)
Integral Fast Reactors (God’s gift to humanity from Cal Tech.)

[thecodont]

“Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There will be companies who will build a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medicine, nearly for free. “

There was something on the news yesterday about AT&T creating some Internet-of-things health device company, down in Texas.

https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/att-foundry-for-connected-health-opens-at-texas-medical-centers-innovation-institute-2016-06-07

[trebb]

Kodak also jumped the PC shark in a big way and began to cater to all sorts of Leftist agendas.

My Dad worked there from the '50s to the late '80s and my Cousin worked there from the late '80s until 4 years ago. Lack of innovation and ability to do things wasn't the problem so much as not doing much because it might not be "nice" to the "special" people....

[DH]

It seems strange that when I read this article today it triggered a rant. Last night I lay awake thinking about technology and “progress” and how it has affected our jobs and lifestyles since the 50’s.

Is it better? The answer is no…it’s far worse.

Back in the 50’s men were the “breadwinners” and mom normally stayed home and raised the kids. Manners and morals were learned from both mom and dad and every male was expected to leave home after graduation from high school and start their paths into the world. Manners, morals, the work ethic, abiding the laws and rules of our country and institutions, and the goals of financial independence from the family along with a strong education from our public schools back then, made the generations up until the mid-60’s the greatest in American history.

My mind wandered back to the days when every town and city of any size had its own telephone company office, electric company office, utilities department, and a whole host of retail and department stores. In these stores worked local people. For instance: In a large department store you had local managers, their staff, clerks, sales people, inventory stockers and a whole host of other people from other local businesses providing logistical support along with services such as plumbing, carpentry etc. All of which had local people working for them and the chain of interaction between all local companies and the support of all of the people who worked for them.
Unemployment was not a problem. If you wanted work…there was work. It might not be what you like but the job was there.

All of this came to mind last night after I went through the misery of trying to terminate all of the utilities and auxiliary services to a house I own and sold yesterday. Note: I’ve not had the need to turn on nor terminate any local utilities in a very long time so what comes was a real “eye opener” to me and is the basis of this article. WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL OF THE LOCAL JOBS? Why is it impossible to simply walk into the utility office and have the service terminated? Where are they physically located? What happens if you don’t have a computer to correspond with them with? How can you possibly talk to someone who can’t speak understandable English? And (last but not least) how the hell do you even get to the correct department in the first place?

After this experience I got to thinking about the old days and how simple everything was and it dawned upon me the damage that technology has done to our society and local jobs and businesses. Going back to the local stores, the people who worked there and the “spoked wheel” of local interaction with all local companies and service companies, I suddenly realized that with each company that either “digitized”, centralized and moved their offices and service centers overseas KILLED local businesses along with the complete destruction of the “spoked wheel” of interaction and support among local people and businesses.

In the old days I could walk into the electric utility building, walk up to a counter and pay my bill or make changes to my services. It took about 5 minutes with no miserable experiences. Same with all of the other small offices and businesses it was necessary to visit to do business. Take the electric utility business for example: 1 manager, 1 secretary/bookkeeper, 1 general laborer, 1 clerk and the needed services performed by outside sources. That was 4 people who were employed at the electric service company used in the example. Of course larger cities had much larger figures. With the new-age technology in communications ALL OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO JOB. Worse yet, no personal service and support exists there any longer.

I lay there awake thinking about this and how we hear of Jobs, jobs, jobs, and how the government is going to bring them back. HOW? And what kind of jobs? Government? Minimum wage? “Make work” jobs? The fact is that the jobs have been digitized and sent overseas in both manufacturing and in general business activities.

Since the 60’s we have destroyed our own small towns, services on all levels, morality, the work ethic, and the jobs that used to support hard working families. Sure, technology has made many things easier for us but in many cases destroyed the fabric of our society. For example: Take TV for example. It used to be that in the old days everyone went to the movie theatre and everyone met and knew each other. It was a social bonding of each town and actually was the glue that held many in contact with their neighbors and friends. With the introduction of TV back then they stayed home and soon did not even know the neighbors down the street any longer.

Today it’s even worse for technology has totally decimated the social web we used to know. For example: cell phone users prefer to TEXT rather than speak on a telephone (a wondrous device that allows an individual to actually have TWO WAY vocal conversation with someone). Is something wrong here?
What this rant comes down to is that with each advancement of technology comes a decrease in both professionalism, personal service and attention, local jobs and the collapse of social interaction (real face to face).

Now, I’ve blown off steam and have to gird myself to try to call the electric company to terminate my services and hope I can speak to someone who has the mastery of the English language. I don’t think the bad experience I had yesterday will change today.

[bert]

Meanwhile in Kingsport, where much of the chemistry of Kodak film was at work, there was a realization in say 1992, that something was afoot.

The chemical works including Tennessee eastman, Carolina Eastman and Texas Eastman were spun off to stockholders as Eastman Chemical Co. Eastman no longer makes all the stuff it once did to support Rochester and is a thriving Chemicals company

In Rochester, the parking lot of the HQ office is showing weeds in the expansion joints and in Kingsport there is a spanking new glass clad office building. The Rochester mentality is gone and architectural splendor is on display

Some one was looking far ahead