Its funny…we just bought a new car and we were looking at getting a DVD system, a built in one, factory installed. And they’re ridiculously expensive of course, and all they do is play movies. So a friend of mine said what a waste. Just get Austin an iPad. And that way if I get him just the small one without 3G, loaded up with a bunch of games and download some movies for him, it would take us like three years before we come close to the price that you pay for DVD. And she said its old technology anyway and it will be useless and they charge about $2,000 for them. …If you’re on a road trip and you have a $2,000 built in DVD player in your car, and first of all, all they can watch is DVDs. They can’t do interesting educational games, they can’t draw, all they can do is watch a movie, totally passive….and then you get to the hotel for the night and you go inside and you don’t have anything. You buy an iPad and you’re reading books, you’re drawing, you’re doing puzzles, you can watch a movie, and then you get to the hotel and you bring it in with you.
Posts tagged obsolescence
Microsoft killing off support newsgroups
Microsoft has announced that it intends to phase out its support newsgroups. The company currently has more than 2,000 public newsgroups used for tech support and developer dicussion, but in recent years has been migrating to a more commonplace, Web-based discussion forum platform. On top of these newsgroups, there are a further 2,200 private newsgroups used for beta discussion, MVP communities, and other closed communities.
The closure of the newsgroups will begin next month and will start with the least trafficked newsgroups, with users redirected to the relevant support forums.
» via ars technica
Sony to discontinue 3.5 inch floppy disk in Japan
Sony announced on April 23rd that they will be discontinuing sales of the classic 3.5 inch floppy disk in Japan in 2011. The news marks a major end to a nearly three decade history of the disk type that the company helped to pioneer.
According to Sony, they introduced the 3.5 inch floppy disk size to the world in 1981, and began sales within Japan in 1983. Sony had shipped approximately 47 million disks within the country at its peak around the year 2000, but that number had fallen to around 8.5 million by 2009, Sankei News reported.
» via examiner.com
I think people make new devices in such a way as to make them obsolete very quickly. Sometimes I want to punch people who make technology.
Is “Yellow Pages” Becoming An Obsolete Concept?
The term “Yellow Pages” has been a literal description of a business directory product and the name for the industry which has produced it for over a hundred years. Rapid evolution of internet media seems to be revoking the conceptual connection between printed pages which are yellow and sources for finding local businesses. So, is the “Yellow Pages” name itself becoming obsolete?
» via SearchEngineLand
Yearbooks ending at University of Virginia, other colleges
Last spring was the first time since World War II that University of Virginia students did not publish their yearbook, “Corks and Curls.”
No one seemed to notice.
This school year, despite hopes that the yearbook could be resurrected, no staff has formed, and the yearbook office is dark. The Cavalier Daily, the student newspaper, reported this week that “Corks and Curls” had died one year shy of its 120th edition for lack of funding and student interest.
» via The Washington Post
Lost Formats Preservation Society
Have the internet and cloud liberated us from the “tyranny” of formats?
Paper punch card, IBM, 1890-1970s
via Experimental Jestset, Smart Mobs
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No Checks Please, We’re British
This week, the British banks governing the UK Payments Council decided to phase out their check clearing system by October 2018. In effect, they set an expiration date for the use of paper checks (or “cheques” as they prefer). In a statement, the group’s chief, Paul Smee, noted: “There are many more efficient ways of making payments than by paper in the 21st century, and the time is ripe for the economy as a whole to reap the benefits of its replacement.”
Like letters of credit, demands for payment and bills of exchange, bank drafts can trace their history to Roman times, when checks were known as “praescriptiones.” Paper drafts analogous to today’s checks were in use in the Islamic world in the 9th century and as early as the 12th century Templars honored pilgrims’ checks from one chapter house to the next. In England, clearing houses have had responsibility for settling checks since the early 1800s (before that they were often cashed in coffee houses).
Bankers complain that many British retailers don’t accept checks anymore, that young people don’t even have checkbooks, and that it’s costing them as much as a pound (about $1.63 today) to process every check. But the decision certainly has its critics—especially advocates for the elderly and small business owners. On one hand, a generation uncomfortable with electronics will be forced to risk carrying and handling more cash. On the other, mom and pop stores have one more disadvantage against giant competitors (some of whom are starting to act as banks themselves). The move will also put the “unbanked”, who have to pay fees to cash checks but also lack access to accounts capable of electronic payments.
» via Mint Blog
Ten things mobiles have made, or will make, obsolete
The history of mobile phone technology reads like the plot from Highlander. A variety of standalone devices have been decapitated and absorbed into increasingly complex handsets. To highlight how powerful mobile phones have become, here’s a list of things that the mobile phone has made, or will make, obsolete. As Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez would say, “In the end, there can be only one”.
Seen at recombu.com
Original Content — Copyright © 2010
Christopher D. Barth.
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