Seven Gadgets Not to be seen by 2020

[ngc7293]

http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/717/7-gadgets-that-wont-be-around-in-2020

A friend sent me the above link. As far as I can tell it is only a couple days old.

It basically says that everything will be replaced by smartphones and tablets and people will only hang on to older things like VCRs because they like old gadgets.

I agree that in 8 years some of the 7 things will be gone, but most will still be here.

For those who don't want to read the link here is the list.
1. Stand alone GPS - I figure as long as there are basic cars there will be a need for a stand along GPS.
2. E-Reader - I read that the basic reader will last for months on a charge, but the article says why would you want something that does only one thing when you can get something (touchpad) that does many things.
3. Feature Phones - I am guessing this is referring to cellphones that are not Smart phones. As long as the service does not exist in all areas and the phone is expensive along with the service, people will still have basic phones. There is also the phone that you can put minutes on and I doubt they would be smart phones.
4. Low end Digicams They referred to the Smart phones with their built in cameras. I got a digicam with 12MP with zoom for $100. Smart phones to my knowledge don't have zoom.
5. DVD and BlueRay is supposed to be replaced by Streaming Media. They mentioned Netflix. People still like to go to a local store like Blockbuster to pick out their movies. This could all change in 8 years.
6.CD-Rs and DVD-Rs - The claim is that people will want to use the Cloud (servers), Backup Drives or USB drives to save their media. I see those areas as temporary places. I know DVD-R has a density problem (you can only save so much to it ), with TB drives now you would think someone would come up with a solution.
7. Video Game Consoles - These things always change. Changes will come, but they won't disappear. There are too many people online and there is a huge video game market for it.

Thoughts?

 

[YellowSubmarine]

1. Stand alone GPS navigators – the “stand alone” thing is a red herring. A GPS navigator is a portable computer with a GPS receiver, so a “smartphone” (which a misnomer) with a GPS receiver is the same thing. It's not going away but hopefully it's getting integrated in an open general purpose pocket computer. Some of them will still be created to be used mainly for GPS navigation, to be integrated in cars and bikes, and so the notion of a GPS navigation device will still be here for a long time.
2. E-reader – same thing. Also note that e-ink/e-paper displays are wonderful and I certainly hope they aren't going away any time soon. Unless we manage to make e-ink/e-paper displays with high refresh rate that can be used on a general purpose computer, there might still be two classes of devices for the foreseeable future.
3. Feature phones – I don't know what a feature phone is, but again I think it's a pointless observation. My old “feature” phone ran arbitrary software applications, in fact more arbitrary than that iPhone walled garden devolution we're seeing now, so I fail to see where the distinction is.
4. Low-end digital cameras – what?
5. DVD players – never had one.
6. Recordable CDs and DVDs – already gone for me in the sense that I don't use them. But you can still buy 5.25" and even 8" floppy drives, so “gone” is relative. And what about recordable Blurays? You know, sometimes things don't go away, they just get improved.
7. Video game consoles – they have been going away since I was 5. Good luck this time. I sincerely don't like locked up devices, so the prediction of them “going away” is a good thing, but again see 1, 2 and 4.

tl;dr - completely pointless predictions.

 

[Squiggy]

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5. DVD and BlueRay is supposed to be replaced by Streaming Media. They mentioned Netflix. People still like to go to a local store like Blockbuster to pick out their movies.

Not really...that's why they're pretty much all failing.

 

[sojourner]

dvd/blueray won't be totally replaced. Fans like to own their favorite movies and not be subject to the whim of an online company as to whether it is available for viewing at any given time.

dvd-r and blueray-r are already being replaced - by usb memory sticks.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

USB memory sticks are not that useful for gigabytes and gigabytes of read-only archives. I'm currently using hard drives as they are cheaper than Blurays and DVDs but if Blurays get cheaper I might use them instead. Still, right now hard drives beat optical media on all counts now – cheaper, faster, take up less space, truly read-write (useful even when you don't need it), don't need a special device, you can connect multiple over USB or (e)SATA, you can connect them to your laptop, TV or phone, you don't need archaic burning software or packet writing hacks.

I'm a bit nostalgic about DVD-RAM. For some reason I find it much more attractive technology, and I wish there was a cheap huge capacity analogue that was popular. I still have a few DVD-RAM disks around here, never found much use of them, and now they are totally replaced by flash drives. I'm still fascinated like a kid by the patterns on their writing side. Still useful for decoration purposes I guess...

One reason I like DVD-RAM was that as a kid I was fascinated by 3.5" floppies because I mostly used 5.25", but that fascination wore off as I began to use them more often. With DVD-RAM disks... Well, I never got to use them ever, so they are still new to me – especially the enclosed versions which look like science fiction props.

 

[MacLeod]

DVD/Blu-ray will still be around long after 2020, Not everywhere will have superfast broadband by the end of the decade. some areas are still only at 2mb/s at most. Others at upto 8mb/s. Releastically for streaming you are talking a minium of 20 mb/s espically if you have more than 1 computer trying to stream.

 

[Owain Taggart]

2. E-Reader - I read that the basic reader will last for months on a charge, but the article says why would you want something that does only one thing when you can get something (touchpad) that does many things.

Easy. Because it does that one thing really well. Anything else is just a distraction. Reading on E-Ink is far easier on the eyes than reading on a colour LCD screen, plus there just isn't much that demands colour when reading. Colour E-Ink is still a ways off anyway. I like my E-Reader, and I don't necessarily have a need for a tablet that can do everything as I'm at my computer all the time.

The one thing I keep seeing everywhere is how mobile devices will take over without taking into account the different needs people have. We just got my Mom a netbook. It's her first computer and it's perfect for her. However when I posted asking for recommendations on another board, people kept referring me to the iPad, blah blah blah netbooks are dead! This is just a simple email and internet machine, and that would have been overkill, considering I would have had to get her a keyboard as an accessory to get her comfortable with it, adding on to the already high price. It strikes me as a rather expensive and indirect way to get something simple done such as email when she could have a more direct way using a self-contained system for more than half the price of a tablet. The netbook is perfect for her.

Anyhow, I think the article in question is too narrow-minded. What it says about consoles is confusing. Are they talking about the original Playstation? Cause the PS3 is already more of a set-top box than a console; the very thing they feel consoles will evolve into.

 

[Chaos Descending]

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5. DVD and BlueRay is supposed to be replaced by Streaming Media. They mentioned Netflix. People still like to go to a local store like Blockbuster to pick out their movies.

Not really...that's why they're pretty much all failing.

Nnnnnyyeahhhh... you're right, but you're wrong about why you're right.

Sure Blockbuster is failing, but it's not because people don't want physical disks.

I point to Red Box, for example.

 

[ALF]

Fans like to own their favorite movies and not be subject to the whim of an online company as to whether it is available for viewing at any given time.

Although I agree, I think companies love the idea of being able to control the ownership of media and the video game market will soon be under the direct control of all the publishers. Take Diablo III for example... you won't be able to play it without an internet connection. I can see piracy becoming impossible with restrictions like this. The future of retro gaming is already dying; you can't play any original Xbox live games as Micro$oft chucked those old servers recently (moves like this make retro gaming in the future impossible unless you can crack out a private server, no easy task). Streaming in the future makes sense because there's no easy solution to keeping streaming data on your hard drive or DVR. Those who create the machines will likely be told, "don't include any functionality to record steaming data!!"

I think the golden age of media control has been pushed away from the consumer and now the suppliers of media will have direct control of all of it.

 

[Mr. B]

I think CD-Rs are the only thing on that list that will actually be 'gone' by 2020. Other optical media will probably be around for a very long time.

The other gadgets may fall out of favor in places like the US and Japan but they will still be around and probably maintain some popularity in the rest of the world, especially feature phones.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Apparently the list is based on the assumption that poor people, also, won't exist by 2020. To begin with:

1. Stand alone GPS - I figure as long as there are basic cars there will be a need for a stand along GPS.

Basic and also used cars.

2. E-Reader - I read that the basic reader will last for months on a charge, but the article says why would you want something that does only one thing when you can get something (touchpad) that does many things.

Perhaps because you don't have $400 to blow on a touchpad that replicates the functionality of an actual laptop?

3. Feature Phones - I am guessing this is referring to cellphones that are not Smart phones. As long as the service does not exist in all areas and the phone is expensive along with the service, people will still have basic phones. There is also the phone that you can put minutes on and I doubt they would be smart phones.

Indeed, prepaid phones aren't going anywhere. There's also the fact that not everyone who wants to own a cell phone has any interest in owning a SMART phone. The appeal is far from universal.

4. Low end Digicams They referred to the Smart phones with their built in cameras. I got a digicam with 12MP with zoom for $100. Smart phones to my knowledge don't have zoom.

Smartphone cameras also suck ass and are really irritating to use. Anyway, they've been predicting that camera phones would replace REAL cameras for a decade already. But since even the LOW END cameras produce better pictures than the phones, that's not gonna happen any time soon.

5. DVD and BlueRay is supposed to be replaced by Streaming Media.

I believe it.

People still like to go to a local store like Blockbuster to pick out their movies.

Really? That's news to me.

6.CD-Rs and DVD-Rs - The claim is that people will want to use the Cloud (servers), Backup Drives or USB drives to save their media.

Agree, but not for that reason. I think CD/DVD is a dead format just waiting for something to come along and replace it. I figure that some day Apple will have an epiphany and develop an iPod with a USB input so you can plug in flash drives or memory cards and add media to the pod without using a computer.

This would give people the ability to buy media online OR from a retailer and then "shelve" it on the actual iPod where they can watch/listen whenever they want. TV manufacturers will respond by supporting iPod-to-screen functionality, allowing the pod to act as a DVD/CD player. Sooner or later, somebody would get the idea to allow iPods to run their content on a TV/Stereo wirelessly so all you have to do is put your iPod down, browse to a device and then watch a movie being transmitted from the pod to the TV with nothing in between.

On that day, DVD will have written its epitaph: "Oh no, a scratch. Better throw it out."

7. Video Game Consoles - These things always change. Changes will come, but they won't disappear. There are too many people online and there is a huge video game market for it.

Agreed. Playstation 4 and the X-BOX whatever will be out by then.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

I don't get the price/poor argument. It's not like the devices won't get better (meaning cheaper), many stand alone GPS devices are actually usable as multipurpose gadgets, it won't be a long time until dumb phones are just smartphones with features disabled (because it would be cheaper), and tablets are likely to get in the same price spectrum as e-book readers. With all this in mind I fail to see how the existence of poor people will stop the more expensive devices from disappearing?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I don't get the price/poor argument. It's not like the devices won't get better (meaning cheaper), many stand alone GPS devices are actually usable as multipurpose gadgets, it won't be a long time until dumb phones are just smartphones with features disabled (because it would be cheaper), and tablets are likely to get in the same price spectrum as e-book readers. With all this in mind I fail to see how the existence of poor people will stop the more expensive devices from disappearing?

Sauce for the goose: standalone GPS devices will ALSO get cheaper, enough that you could buy one from Radio Shack for $15 and stick it on a used car you only paid $1200 for. Same again for tablets and readers: by the time you can buy a tablet for $200, the price of an e-reader will have similarly reduced to where you can buy a relatively good one for $50 and still have some basic tablet-like features. And the smartphone thing is just plain wrong: most smartphones are actually fairly expensive to manufacture in the first place and selling them with their features disabled isn't marketable; nobody's going to pat $150 for a prepaid phone that doesn't actually do anything, not while a legitimately STANDARD phone is available down the street for $39.95.

It really boils down to this: there will ALWAYS be a market for low-end products, and there will always be a distinction between the two. The form of the low-end market may change over time, but the low end and high end products rarely overlap. Where there are consumers who are thrifty or cash-strapped, there will exist a market for a "lesser" product that trades functionality for affordability and you will not be able to satisfy that market just by re branding yesterday's high-end products.

This is the reason why the iPod shuffle still exists, why the X-BOX 360 and the PS3 are both sold in various versions with various hard drive sizes and features. It is why after all these years you can STILL buy a TV that isn't HD ready, and why HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray isn't going to replace DVD any time soon. Not everyone who shops for a steak is going home with a fillet mignion.

 

[MacLeod]

^You'd be very hard pressed to buy a brand new TV in the UK that isn't HD ready.

TV manufactuers already support USB devices so you can watch from them. As for doing it from an Ipod, don't think it'll happen

As for streaming, some people actually prefer to own a film/TV series rather than pay a monthly subscription charge. Plus it comes back to all areas having high-speed internet. Whilst cities and other large population centres have that rural areas tend to have slower connections. So they are at a disadvantge. You also need a landline for streaming, not everyone has a landline. So what are they supposed to do?

 

[YellowSubmarine]

That's my point – it's getting easier and cheaper to make a TV that's “HD-ready” than one that is not. Same with smartphones, and as I mentioned my last dumb phone was dumb only because of the software, not the hardware – as the CPU and memory of dumb phones is growing you can always use them as smart phones as well. Stand alone GPS devices are already not stand alone GPS devices.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Streaming can't take over completely, not yet. It's not good enough for HD purposes - I have an AppleTV, but it maxes out at 720p, and Blu-Rays go up to 1080p. So if I want anything HD that isn't Law & Order: SVU (which I buy from iTunes because let's be frank, expecting Universal to release any L&O on Blu-Ray is not terribly realistic), it's physical media or nothing.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

1. Stand alone GPS - I figure as long as there are basic cars there will be a need for a stand along GPS.

They're also forgetting about people on bikes, ATV's, and on foot who use GPS for offroad stuff.

2. E-Reader - I read that the basic reader will last for months on a charge, but the article says why would you want something that does only one thing when you can get something (touchpad) that does many things.

My reader doesn't last anywhere near that long, but it's also a clumsy first-generation reader I got for free (so I'm going to get my full use out of it first!). That said, I agree with the other person who mentioned that the e-ink display is FAR easier to read than a standard backlit tablet, so I think the E-Reader will continue until substantial improvements are made on tablets.

3. Feature Phones - I am guessing this is referring to cellphones that are not Smart phones. As long as the service does not exist in all areas and the phone is expensive along with the service, people will still have basic phones. There is also the phone that you can put minutes on and I doubt they would be smart phones.

I don't think prepaid phones will last, or they'll change greatly because of the security risks they pose.

Eventually, though, I think non-smart-phones will phase out.

4. Low end Digicams They referred to the Smart phones with their built in cameras. I got a digicam with 12MP with zoom for $100. Smart phones to my knowledge don't have zoom.

I think cell phone cameras would have to improve tremendously before they replaced real cameras. And I think serious artists (i.e. the kind of people who may even have their own darkroom) will continue to use analogue cameras, as they do now.

5. DVD and BlueRay is supposed to be replaced by Streaming Media. They mentioned Netflix. People still like to go to a local store like Blockbuster to pick out their movies. This could all change in 8 years.

Streaming...hmm...that's possible, though I think people may still want a way to have what they want when they want it even when their Internet connection goes down.

6.CD-Rs and DVD-Rs - The claim is that people will want to use the Cloud (servers), Backup Drives or USB drives to save their media. I see those areas as temporary places. I know DVD-R has a density problem (you can only save so much to it ), with TB drives now you would think someone would come up with a solution.

I'm not sure the cloud would work for all uses, especially not highly confidential or classified ones.

7. Video Game Consoles - These things always change. Changes will come, but they won't disappear. There are too many people online and there is a huge video game market for it.

I think eventually they will phase out, though special controllers and such to plug into a gaming computer wouldn't.

 

[Sheep]

With regards to physical media disappearing, I'm surprised no one's mentioned the biggest barrier to that happening: U.S. ISPs are essentially monopolies who can apply completely unreasonable bandwidth caps and charge whatever they want for lower levels of service. Want higher caps or (gasp!) unlimited bandwidth? You're going to pay through the nose for it. If I'm not mistaken, while internet speeds have very obviously increased over the past decade or two, prices have gotten more expensive in the U.S.

As long as that's the case, I don't see the cloud being a viable solution for video streaming any time soon.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I will agree about *computers* having physical media disappearing. There are more Macs without removable drives (the MacBook Air was the first, and now the Mac Mini), and they're pushing the App Store for all software sales. I can get behind this 100%. If they start making iMacs with no drive, my next one will be such a machine.

You want to talk backups? You can get a cheap hard drive with *2 terabytes* of storage for about a hundred bucks. Use THAT as a backup. Apple includes the software as part of OS X!

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^You'd be very hard pressed to buy a brand new TV in the UK that isn't HD ready.

HD-ready and HDTV are not the same thing. One is a standard TV that can accept HD formatted media (but cannot necessarily DISPLAY it that way) while the the other is an HDTV that can accept and display low-def formatted media. I have, for example, seen several products on the market that are capable of converting a standard CRT set "HD-ready."

TV manufactuers already support USB devices so you can watch from them. As for doing it from an Ipod, don't think it'll happen

If not an iPod, then something similar. CDs have already become a secondary medium for alot of people, and DVDs are getting that way too. They persist only for lack of a better option.

You also need a landline for streaming, not everyone has a landline.

I don't have a landline (or cable). I just finished watching DS9 via netflix on a Clear Network 4G router.