Tech that will Fade with Time

We all love our gadgets. And when new ones appear, we can’t envision how we lived without them. Even so, there’s an ugly truth to the world of technology: Much of what’s hot today becomes obsolete tomorrow. Just consider the humble landline telephone. Sure, many households still have them, but a growing number of people are relying solely on cell phones and ditching the expense of operating a landline. It’s not tough to imagine a future in which landline telephones are no longer mounted on our kitchen walls but are instead filling our landfills.

So we thought we would focus on a few technologies that may be phased out soon. Some of these may even vanish in the next 10 years.

Fax Machines: Don’t you hate receiving or sending faxes? You’re not alone. The fax machine, once the height of gee-whiz technology, is now a pain in the posterior. Don’t be surprised if all our “faxing” in the future is done entirely through e-mail.

Newspaper Classified Ads: The Huffington Post recently stated in an article that classifieds are on their way out. This is primarily due to websites like Craigslist. Sites like this create huge forums for people to search classifieds all over the country and create their own for free. This may put the old-fashioned newspaper classified section out of commission.

Film-Based Cameras: Digital cameras have revolutionized the art of taking photos. Once venerable, Kodak has felt the brunt of this revolution, and the company is no longer making cameras. Consumers like digital cameras as they can instantly print their photos, and they can dump photos that they don’t like without having to pay a cent. This has dramatically decreased the lifespan of the traditional film-based camera.

The Calculator Watch: This little gem didn’t last very long, but while it did it was well loved. It was the perfect strategy to always have a calculator on you. However, it wasn’t very attractive and now people have a calculator in their cell phone. That’s the reason it is on PCWorld’s list of 40 obsolete technologies.

The Video Arcade: The video arcade may be dying also. Older gamers remember hoarding quarters so they could later feed them into Pac-Man and Space Invaders consoles at their local malls. Those times are gone, though. Gamers today prefer experiencing their video adventures from the comfort of their own homes.