we still have a landline and no cell phones. But a lot of our friends/relatives have gotten rid of theirs. And the comment about the watches is right. I don't know many kids my son (18) or daughter (11) ages who have them. They whip out their phone to check the time. 1. Landline phones:...these days only a handful of people are still moving into a new house and having the landline turned on. 2. Floppy disks 3. Wristwatches: ...No one wears a wristwatch anymore, unless he or she grew up with one. 4. VHS tape and VCRs 5. Beepers 6. Film cameras 7. Typewriters 8. The Walkman, Discman and MiniDisc player 9. Dial-up Internet accessu 10. DVDs: What's that, you say? How can DVDs be obsolete? Facts don't lie — DVD sales fell off the proverbial cliff in the first three months of 2009, with some retailers reporting a 40 percent drop from the same period a year earlier. Some of that could be attributed to the recession, but sales of video games, which cost two or three times as much, actually went up about 10 percent. The fact is that with broadband Internet, you don't need a disc to watch a movie any more. Netflix and Blockbuster have recognized that by rapidly ramping up their online-download service link
I don't use any of those in your list except for DVDs that I occasionally rent and floppy disks which I use almost daily for running a DOS-boot version Symantec Ghost and for loading [F6] drivers in fresh installs of Windows XP. To add to your list: 11. Toothbrushes with level bristles in a rectangular shape 12. 16 ounce sodas 13. Manners 14. Condoms 15. Elvis
I hate both mobile phones and watches Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Why film camera's ?
Typewriters still are needed, just for more rarely. If you need to neatly fill in information on a pre-existing piece of paper, good luck setting up a computer's printer for that! Wristwatches? ...I mean what the Hell "use" is there for navel rings, necklaces, earings, pendants, regular rings? Wristwatches still have a "jewelry" quality to them. What I find interesting about their decline is that, for me, it was because I always have a cell phone or blackberry or ipod or other electronic clock on me, each of which is functionally reminiscent of an old pocketwatch (in that it must be fishes out of a pocket to find out the time). For some reason, though, the "jewelry" element that was present in wristwatches and pocketwatches is no where to be seen with these new "gadgetwatches". It makes me wonder is that trend is coming.
No technology go extinct. You can order hand made axe on internet which is made using the same method 10 thousand years ago. You can find any steam engine parts, or pottery from agriculture revolution, or first PCs. Any kind of ancient technology you can ever imagine. And it's not that some collection, they are somehow actually in production. Brand new! You can watch Kevin Kelly's video "How Technology Evolves" on TED's website or on YouTube. Technology is like natural evolution: You don't loose or drop any invention. You either make it part of another system (like certain bacteries have evolved to become organs or blood cell) or you keep producing it just not to forget, in case you might need to use it. Or just for the pleasure of being able to do it. Technology is one of the core expressions of human beings and the appreciation of their intelligence. It is heritage, today and tomorrow. All at the same time... Do you think dinosaurs went extinct? Or Neanderthals? It is just a matter of time until the ultimate book-keepers and the masters of all technology crack the whole DNA. They won't only allow anything to go extinct, but they will also raise the dead and all 14 billion years of history. We are the kinds of Gods who look after our creation, as well as all other creations in this universe.
Not everything. Of course a technology is nothing but an organized collection of ideas, so the knowledge will never die so long as our written records survive. But the artifacts themselves become too cumbersome, too useless and too expensive to keep in good repair. The paradigm shift to the Industrial Era gave rise to technologies whose artifacts can no longer be built and repaired by anyone who takes the notion. Without the machine tools that built their parts, obsolescence becomes extinction. There are still a number of steam-powered automobiles in operating condition, but keeping them running is an arduous labor of love. The parts are no longer manufactured and must be crafted by hand. If the artifacts of a technology continue to exist only in museums or among the members of a collectors' club, somehow I don't think that counts as "surviving." The artifacts of later technologies are even more challenging. When the parts for the first PCs stop being manufactured (if that hasn't already happened) then I don't think anybody is going to be making microchips by hand. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! As for VHS videotapes, we already went through that. We have a huge library on Betamax. When we lived in Los Angeles it was easy to get equipment because the studios are there and Betamax is superior to VHS for professional use--or any other use for that matter, that was strictly a commercial victory, not a technical one. But the studios don't use tape any more so ours are probably orphans. Fortunately everything we taped now seems to be available on DVD.
