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Gizmodo: 15 current technologies your newborn son won't use

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Lol, the horror! But seriously, you'll make that time and convenience up very quickly when you actually go to use it. Navigating menus, searching for shows, remembering what channel number ESPN is (and searching for it when you can't), it's all a fucking hassle using a TV remote.
Remotes will just incorporate more features. You can already see this with the Harmony One. You laugh at the idea that one keypress is preferable to two, but that is what will keep remotes on couches, guaranteed. Things like "needing to mute your TV when you get a phone call, but oops your phone is also the TV remote" don't even enter into it. The simple act of needing to put your phone/tablet whatever into TV remote mode every time you want to control the TV makes it a undesirable interface.

What you're essentially saying is that we have cars that start when you push a button, but the guy who invents a way to start cars by putting a key in them and turning the key is the future.
 

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Nope. not at all. As someone who does a lot of inside sales (and is on the phone constantly) doing business exclusively by cellphone...just doesn't work very well- if for no other reason that reliably conferencing and monitoring hundreds of individual cellphone lines is basically an impossibility. And ever try to use a cellphone, or cell data in an emergency situation or extremely high density event? exactly.

POTS lines (via copper) will probably be extinct, but a lot of businesses are installing VOIP hardware in it's place.

Will your newborn use a landline for social use? probably not. Will they run into them the first time they end up taking a job? almost certainly.

I was going to say this as well. If we include VOIP as part of "Landlines" I see no way this will go by the wayside. Traditional copper lines are already going the way of the dodo as well as traditional PBX. VOIP will be the way of the future, but it's still a landline to an extent.

PS: A lot of this also depends on the definitions of certain things. I mean SSDs are still HDDs in some eyes. I think we will still use a remote, but it might look totally different. Stuff like this.
 

noah111

Still Alive
I don't agree with these:

Wired Home Internet
Dedicated Cameras and Camcorders
Windowed Operating Systems
Landline Phones
Movie Theaters
The Mouse
Remote Controls
Desktops
Phone Numbers
Primetime Television
Optical Discs
You really think people will be using those things in 20 years?
 

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
Using a smartphone as a remote also requires you to go through a screen wake or unlocking step to get to the controls otherwise battery drainage becomes an issue.
 

C.Dark.DN

Banned
"Next channel"? Do people still straight-up channel surf? Even so, swipe left to right to channel up, problem solved. Point taken though. Physical buttons have their advantages.
Paying for a smartphone just to use your TV is ridiculous in the next 10-15 years.

As far as gesture and voice commands, not everyone can or will want to do that.

There has to be some kind of remote that comes with TV's for quite a while. A touch control remote might be fun or whatever, but that's not going to be included in the box. That will be optional with your smartphone.
 
I think the big problem for the point and shoot and camera industry in general isn't that smartphone cameras are becoming good, it's that they are becoming good enough. I

oh sure. They're good enough to replace the standard $100 or $150 point and shoot cameras people use for spur of the moment events and facebook photos.

But even an 8mp cam that does 720p video simply isn't good enough to capture anything at any kind of distance with anything resembling passable quality.

I bought my canon because cellphones are useless at capturing anything that isn't 5 feet in front of me, and there's going to consistently be a market for people who need cameras with good lenses and zooms for important events- graduations, weddings, seeing the stage at large events, etc.

You really think people will be using those things in 20 years?

Wired internet? definitely. On the business side, business frequently demands dedicated access and guaranteed speeds, and backs it up with contracts that incur significant financial penalties to the ISP if those guarantees aren't met. This is *impossible* over 4G networks for many, many reasons. Don't look for this to change.

On the consumer front- i'm using 4G internet as my primary now. It "works", but two issues consistently crop up- latency is high as hell, and weather and environmental issues can slow it to a crawl, or provide competely different usability experiences less than a block apart. Again, unless ISPs manage to completely rewrite the laws of physics, a wired connection is going to be superior for the forseeable future.
 
Remotes will just incorporate more features. You can already see this with the Harmony One. You laugh at the idea that one keypress is preferable to two, but that is what will keep remotes on couches, guaranteed. Things like "needing to mute your TV when you get a phone call, but oops your phone is also the TV remote" don't even enter into it. The simple act of needing to put your phone/tablet whatever into TV remote mode every time you want to control the TV makes it a undesirable interface.

What you're essentially saying is that we have cars that start when you push a button, but the guy who invents a way to start cars by putting a key in them and turning the key is the future.

No thanks. I want simpler remotes with only the most absolute basic functions on them. All advanced features can be handled on-screen with a directional pad or some other navigation tool.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
That wasn't the standard of the article; it was technologies that his newborn won't remember (or barely remember) using.

Ah, I see the OP changed "my" to "your" for whatever reason.

Way to go!
 

noah111

Still Alive
That wasn't the standard of the article; it was technologies that his newborn won't remember (or barely remember) using.
Right, meaning when that newborn is older (i.e. twenties) those things would be phased out almost completely and thus the guy won't remember using them as a kid.
 
oh sure. They're good enough to replace the standard $100 or $150 point and shoot cameras people use for spur of the moment events and facebook photos.

But even an 8mp cam that does 720p video simply isn't good enough to capture anything at any kind of distance with anything resembling passable quality.

I bought my canon because cellphones are useless at capturing anything that isn't 5 feet in front of me, and there's going to consistently be a market for people who need cameras with good lenses and zooms for important events- graduations, weddings, seeing the stage at large events, etc.



Wired internet? definitely. On the business side, business frequently demands dedicated access and guaranteed speeds, and backs it up with contracts that incur significant financial penalties to the ISP if those guarantees aren't met. This is *impossible* over 4G networks for many, many reasons. Don't look for this to change.

On the consumer front- i'm using 4G internet as my primary now. It "works", but two issues consistently crop up- latency is high as hell, and weather and environmental issues can slow it to a crawl, or provide competely different usability experiences less than a block apart. Again, unless ISPs manage to completely rewrite the laws of physics, a wired connection is going to be superior for the forseeable future.

Thats the point though. Think about it this way, 10-15 years ago most people's cell phones didn't even have cameras, now they are good enough to be making a big chunk of the entry level p&s market obsolete, so how much more advanced will they be in another 10-15 years? There will always be a market for enthusiasts and professionals but the market for everyone else could continue to shrink more and more.
 

Tizoc

Member
Some of the stuff on that list scare me =(
...and holy shit we haven't used a landline phone in maybe over 5 years in my house o_O
 
I don't think that we will use current 3D-technique that is displayed on a screen.
If ever, it will be some sort of 3D holographics. Nowadays 3D (with or without glasses) in movies and at home is completely unnecessary and stupid.
 

Gandie

Member
I'm going to have to disagree. 90% of TV remotes are horribly thought-out pieces of over-designed shit. Too many of the buttons are the same shape, they often have no real logical placement or clustering, and there's twice as many buttons as there should be.

http://i.imgur.com/KOzpJ.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/NWYDu.jpg

Honestly, a minimal control with an area for multi-touch gestures could come in real handy in this area.

Or you just improve the design.
fernseher_loewe_connect_40_led200dr_bild_1296809900.jpg


Bad design can easily fuck up a multi-touch solution, by the way.
 
I hope land lines don't go away. Not because I'm a luddite, but because cell phones are fine for a quick chat but they're not good for longer calls since the sound quality is low and they're not as comfortable as a handset.

Also, two fun facts about landlines, specifically the old-school, phone line-only phones:

1.) They stay on during power outages. Cell phone service usually does not, because ...

2.) During an emergency, everyone tries to make cell phone calls at the same time and jams the system up so much no one can make a call out or receive a call in. Landlines do not usually have this problem.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
I have a hard time believing my son won't ever use a mouse, unless he never plays PC games...and no son of mine won't play PC games.
 
Or you just improve the design.
fernseher_loewe_connect_40_led200dr_bild_1296809900.jpg


Bad design can easily fuck up a multi-touch solution, by the way.

Nice. That's pretty much exactly how I'd design a remote.

It's functional. Everything is spaced, shaped, and clustered logically to easily be access with your thumb without looking.
 
\You laugh at the idea that one keypress is preferable to two, but that is what will keep remotes on couches, guaranteed. Things like "needing to mute your TV when you get a phone call, but oops your phone is also the TV remote" don't even enter into it. The simple act of needing to put your phone/tablet whatever into TV remote mode every time you want to control the TV makes it a undesirable interface.
See, I have the opposite problem. Someone calls me while I'm watching TV I have to search for where I left the stupid remote and hunt for the mute button on it.
What you're essentially saying is that we have cars that start when you push a button, but the guy who invents a way to start cars by putting a key in them and turning the key is the future.
Yeah, that's a fair analogy. Look, I can make a reductive one too!

It's like having a regular car, but also having a separate car that can only turn left, and if you want to drive any speed other than 15 mph you have to fiddle with a confusing array of buttons.

Paying for a smartphone just to use your TV is ridiculous in the next 10-15 years.

As far as gesture and voice commands, not everyone can or will want to do that.

There has to be some kind of remote that comes with TV's for quite a while. A touch control remote might be fun or whatever, but that's not going to be included in the box. That will be optional with your smartphone.
Well, yeah, but no one's talking about whether they will continue to manufacture TV remotes. The question is whether 20 years from now our kids will consider us dinosaurs for having used them.
 

C.Dark.DN

Banned
Well, yeah, but no one's talking about whether they will continue to manufacture TV remotes. The question is whether 20 years from now our kids will consider us dinosaurs for having used them.
No, the article is about technologies newborns wont remember using or will never use.

A kid in 20 years not remembering, using, or still seeing remotes is not going to happen. His opinion of them is irreverent.
 

alphaNoid

Banned
I disagree 100% with dedicated cameras. Firstly smartphone cameras SUCK outside of a quick shot of something on the fly. My FB wall is cluttered with friends kids and shit and all of their photos are from a smart phone. All of the photos are blurred, noisey and look like SHIT! Its like some kind of circle of life or something. We all grew up and our parents took photos of us with shitty cheap cameras, and here we are in 2012 and parents are so fucking cheap they use some shit ass camera phone camera to document their kids childhood.. what.the.fuck?

Buy a fucking $200 point and shoot and the quality jumped 100x. Buy a DSLR, learn the trade and you can have professional looking photos of your kids one and only childhood.

I don't get parents or people who rely 100% on a camera phone. I think they're narrow-minded and will regret it in the future when all they have left are shit quality photos of their loved ones.

Dedicated cameras/camcorders will be around for decades to come.
 

Suairyu

Banned
People who suggest the touch screen is going to replace the mouse have never spent more than five seconds considering the reality. Working a 9 to 5 job at a desk, you don't want to be lifting your arm up all day to get shit done. The mouse requires the smallest movement of the wrist or forearm and can be fully supported by an arm or wrist rest.

But then I can say that about nearly every entry on that list.

Smartphone replacing regular cameras? For nights out at clubs, maybe, but nobody would trust their smartphone battery life on a long trip or whatever.

Landline phones? I dunno, is the US that wire free? And businesses? Businesses are still using fax machines instead of email. They're not going to get rid of wired telephones. No would anyone who understands business want them to. Mobile phones crap out, land telephones (typically) do not.

Suggesting movie theatres will die is are ludicrous as suggesting concerts or regular theatres will die. Certainly I think they will be somewhat marginalised, but gone? Never.

And I still laugh at the suggestion that optical media will be gone anytime soon. You see it on this forum all the time, as well. It's typically people in affluent areas with access to very above-average internet speeds that suggest it. If they took five seconds to do the smallest amount of research about internet infrastructures globally, they'd realise "the death of optical media" is more than ten years away.
 

Appleman

Member
I disagree 100% with dedicated cameras. Firstly smartphone cameras SUCK outside of a quick shot of something on the fly. My FB wall is cluttered with friends kids and shit and all of their photos are from a smart phone. All of the photos are blurred, noisey and look like SHIT! Its like some kind of circle of life or something. We all grew up and our parents took photos of us with shitty cheap cameras, and here we are in 2012 and parents are so fucking cheap they use some shit ass camera phone camera to document their kids childhood.. what.the.fuck?

Buy a fucking $200 point and shoot and the quality jumped 100x. Buy a DSLR, learn the trade and you can have professional looking photos of your kids one and only childhood.

I don't get parents or people who rely 100% on a camera phone. I think they're narrow-minded and will regret it in the future when all they have left are shit quality photos of their loved ones.

Dedicated cameras/camcorders will be around for decades to come.

High-quality smartphone cameras (iPhone 4S, etc) will only become cheaper and more prevalent over the next couple of years, and the quality of the shots EASILY rivals low to midrange point and shoots, with the 1080p video being more than sufficient for tasks that would normally be accomplished with a "camcorder"
 

Suairyu

Banned
High-quality smartphone cameras (iPhone 4S, etc) will only become cheaper and more prevalent over the next couple of years, and the quality of the shots EASILY rivals low to midrange point and shoots, with the 1080p video being more than sufficient for tasks that would normally be accomplished with a "camcorder"
Physics says you're wrong. Even the cheap point and shoots have larger lenses and sensors compared to an iPhone.
 
High-quality smartphone cameras (iPhone 4S, etc) will only become cheaper and more prevalent over the next couple of years, and the quality of the shots EASILY rivals low to midrange point and shoots, with the 1080p video being more than sufficient for tasks that would normally be accomplished with a "camcorder"

and I'll say it again:

"How's that zoom on the Iphone 4s?"

exactly. Smartphones are perfectly fine for anything directly in front of you, but to get anything that's more than 5 feet away in any kind of quality requires an optical zoom. Optical Zooms are chunky, mechanical, and take a ton of space to implement properly.

A smartphone with a GOOD optical zoom would be the size of a brick. No one, least of all apple, is going to make that tradeoff.

So, the $100 point and shoot market is toast, but that's a relatively recent phenomenon anyway. They cannibalized polaroids before them.

The market for people actually looking to take good shots of important events (and admittedly this is only a couple times a year) isn't really threatened by smartphones.
 

Sober

Member
Hang on, I'm 23 and I vividly remember dial-up.

Additionally, most of these are silly. This reeks of the "tablets will replace everything" mentality, without having much thought put into it. The windows and movie theatre predictions are particularly stupid.
I definitely remember dial-up as well, as well as a life before (having) easy access to the internet. Probably the last generation that remembers not having internet for a short period of time. Anyone 20 and under probably haven't experienced that.
 

Dhx

Member
We all grew up and our parents took photos of us with shitty cheap cameras, and here we are in 2012 and parents are so fucking cheap they use some shit ass camera phone camera to document their kids childhood.. what.the.fuck?

Buy a fucking $200 point and shoot and the quality jumped 100x. Buy a DSLR, learn the trade and you can have professional looking photos of your kids one and only childhood.

I don't get parents or people who rely 100% on a camera phone. I think they're narrow-minded and will regret it in the future when all they have left are shit quality photos of their loved ones.

I'm firmly on the side of real cameras being irreplacable (Lenses aren't going to scale down with quality. It's simple physics). However, to assert that parents should document their children to the point of buying expensive cameras and "learning the trade" seems a bit much. There is a limit to nostalgia. Part of the effect actually is having the imperfect record. If we had 24/7 HD surveilance on our childhoods, I doubt the memories would be as romantic.
 

Appleman

Member
Physics says you're wrong. Even the cheap point and shoots have larger lenses and sensors compared to an iPhone.

I'm well aware of the physics regarding cameras but...

and I'll say it again:

"How's that zoom on the Iphone 4s?"

exactly. Smartphones are perfectly fine for anything directly in front of you, but to get anything that's more than 5 feet away in any kind of quality requires an optical zoom. Optical Zooms are chunky, mechanical, and take a ton of space to implement properly.

A smartphone with a GOOD optical zoom would be the size of a brick. No one, least of all apple, is going to make that tradeoff.

So, the $100 point and shoot market is toast, but that's a relatively recent phenomenon anyway. They cannibalized polaroids before them.

The market for people actually looking to take good shots of important events (and admittedly this is only a couple times a year) isn't really threatened by smartphones.

current high end smartphone cameras are "good enough" for 90% of point and shoot users, and that will only get better with better low-light performance for indoor, night time shots. Even landscape shots (despite the lack of zoom) are adequate for the average vacation. I can't see anyone who is "serious" about taking high quality photos of landscapes or special events opting for the awkward $250 point and shoot that is in-between a smartphone and a low-end DSLR.

Point and shoots are gone, smartphones based on convenience and quality will make up the low-end, and DSLRs will consume the mid-high end markets.
 

Suairyu

Banned
Even landscape shots (despite the lack of zoom) are adequate for the average vacation.
With smartphone battery lives as short as they are? Nobody with brains is going to trust their vacation snaps on a journey to a smartphone.

But my post was more in response to you claiming iPhone cameras rivaled "low to mid-range" cameras in quality. You just attempted to move the goalposts.
 

Hcoregamer00

The 'H' stands for hentai.
I disagree, especially with the Camera statement.

I think lower end DSLR's like the Canon Rebels and the Nikon 3100/D5100 cameras will go the way of the dodo because of smaller mirrorless cameras with large sensors and interchangeable lenses. Higher end will likely still be dominated by DSLR's.

The idea of specialized cameras is because of sensor size and lenses. Unless they decide to make smartphones with huge APS-C sensors with huge glass in front of it, I don't see it replacing specialized cameras. Forget even having fullframe or larger sensors in smartphones with lenses like a 50mm f1.8 lens.
 
I'm well aware of the physics regarding cameras but...



current high end smartphone cameras are "good enough" for 90% of point and shoot users, and that will only get better with better low-light performance for indoor, night time shots. Even landscape shots (despite the lack of zoom) are adequate for the average vacation. I can't see anyone who is "serious" about taking high quality photos of landscapes or special events opting for the awkward $250 point and shoot that is in-between a smartphone and a low-end DSLR.

Point and shoots are gone, smartphones based on convenience and quality will make up the low-end, and DSLRs will consume the mid-high end markets.

And this is where you're wrong again. I have a smartphone with a good camera, and STILL ran out to get a standalone point and shoot because the distance simply isn't good enough.

Smartphones are inadequate for any event where you aren't DIRECTLY in front of the subject, and lens physics prevents smartphones from ever improving on it.

Want to take photos of that victory parade? your child's performance? Your daughter graduating on stage or taking her vows? Your smartphone isn't going to get the job done.

Camcorders? same deal. You're not going to film your kid's ballgame on your smartphone. The lenses on smartphones aren't good enough to pull this off and these are the kinds of things people buy camcorders for. Most of the $100 point and shoot variety tends to have shit lenses and zooms for this anyway, but you can easily find a standalone camera in the $200 and up range that can hit *ten times* the distance of a smartphone without sacrificing quality. And you're saying there's no market for this? you're high.

So yeah- spur of the moment shots, or night out at the club? perfectly fine. Important, once in a lifetime events? That's what "good" cameras and camcorders are for- and there's no amount of innovating that can be done in the short term for smartphones to fix this. Even the quality of the nokia with the ridiculous processor completely goes to shit at any kind of distance.
 

Appleman

Member
With smartphone battery lives as short as they are? Nobody with brains is going to trust their vacation snaps on a journey to a smartphone.

I'm mostly referring to the camera quality itself, but smartphone battery life is only going to improve (and there's always the portable battery pack accessories). I'm not sure what percent of vacation photos are taken on trips removed from electricity for more than a day, but I would guess that it would be dwarfed by the amount of resort/hotel/hostel style vacations where a day of juice is more than sufficient.
 

SUPREME1

Banned
I disagree with many of the items he mentioned.


The mouse? Because people really are going to want to point and touch a monitor/screen
all day long.

Remote controls? If you use your smart phone or any such device, it will, by default, become the remote. That option is actually already available and I don't use it, because a dedicated remote is there and always ready to go. No need to bring up an app or any such thing. What the fuck.

Phone numbers? OMG, I'm done.


Many more, but I'm just pissing myself off thinking about this guy's way of thinking.
 

Suairyu

Banned
I'm mostly referring to the camera quality itself
Wait, what? We just went over this. Now you're moving the goalposts back? Okay, we can go again:

Physics says you're wrong. Even the cheap point and shoots have larger lenses and sensors compared to an iPhone.

but smartphone battery life is only going to improve (and there's always the portable battery pack accessories)
Naw. It's still decreasing. The extra power is just put back into powering stronger chips.

The two biggest "smart moves that are also really dumb" in the post-iPhone phone market has been the move away from plastic to glass, and the sacrifice of battery life. Pre-iPhone, you'd expect your phone to last an entire week without a charge. Even with light-use, you're lucky to get a day and a half out of smartphones.

If you want to constantly take pictures like you would with a regular point and click camera, you can maybe have three hours if you're lucky.
 

Appleman

Member
And this is where you're wrong again. I have a smartphone with a good camera, and STILL ran out to get a standalone point and shoot because the distance simply isn't good enough.

Smartphones are inadequate for any event where you aren't DIRECTLY in front of the subject, and lens physics prevents smartphones from ever improving on it.

Want to take photos of that victory parade? your child's performance? Your daughter graduating on stage or taking her vows? Your smartphone isn't going to get the job done.

Camcorders? same deal. You're not going to film your kid's ballgame on your smartphone. The lenses on smartphones aren't good enough to pull this off and these are the kinds of things people buy camcorders for. Most of the $100 point and shoot variety tends to have shit lenses and zooms for this anyway, but you can easily find a standalone camera in the $200 and up range that can hit *ten times* the distance of a smartphone without sacrificing quality. And you're saying there's no market for this? you're high.

So yeah- spur of the moment shots, or night out at the club? perfectly fine. Important, once in a lifetime events? That's what "good" cameras and camcorders are for- and there's no amount of innovating that can be done in the short term for smartphones to fix this. Even the quality of the nokia with the ridiculous processor completely goes to shit at any kind of distance.

I'm not saying dedicated cameras are going to die, I'm saying point and shoots are going to be replaced by smartphones on the low end, and ever-cheapening DSLR style cameras on the midrange (which will also replace "camcorders")

EDIT:

Wait, what? We just went over this. Now you're moving the goalposts back? Okay, we can go again:

Physics says you're wrong. Even the cheap point and shoots have larger lenses and sensors compared to an iPhone.

Believe me, I'm not arguing with the physics of sensor size, I'm merely stating that for the people that the point and shoots are marketed at don't care about the physics, and are merely concerned with how good a 4x6 looks to them, and smartphones do the job for the most part.


Naw. It's still decreasing. The extra power is just put back into powering stronger chips.

Sort of. The big problem is that battery tech itself isn't really improving, but ever-increasing software efficiency, smaller manufacturing processes for the chips, and power-saving hardware innovations will steadily increase battery life in the next few years
 
Well if they want to take away the mouse and keyboard great strides will need to be made in interfacing.

Some better than Windows 8 Tablet. A change to how the keyboard is displayed.
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
23 year old doesn't remember dial up. I call shenanigans on that. I'm only 24 and I had dial up for quite a while and I was late on the Internet train.

  • Cameras. Guess this guy doesn't know about zoom or lenses.
  • Phones. Power cuts for ages. You can't charge your mobile. Oh look the phone still works. Also companies will still use an extension system because staff will not want to give their mobile number away to the general public.
  • Booting up computer. Has this guy ever updated one? Some installs still take ages. With better speeds we can even expect bigger updates so faster drive won't suddenly make install time obsolete.
  • Windowed Operating Systems. Pretty sure people like the idea of seeing more than one thing at once. Now he is just suggesting progress for the sake of progress rather than thinking of what people want. I'm already feeling sorry for this theoretical son.
  • Hard drives. Is this guy suggesting we can't use both like how people use them now. SSD for OS. HDD for media. He just wants to scrap things now because they are old.

At this point I'm guessing the author of this piece is actually telling us cryptically that he is going to lock his son in a box until he is 30 by which time these technologies may finally be gone. The fact he expects them to be gone within about five is a real long shot.
 
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