

15 Current Technologies A Child Born Today Will Never Use - tomse
http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/15-current-technologies-child-born-today-never-142409696.html?orig_host_hdr=news.yahoo.com&.intl=US&.lang=en-US

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Tyrannosaurs
A bunch of these (optical disc, hard drives, fax and so on) are shooting fish
in a barrel, technologies that are already in their death throws.

Others I'm sceptical about though - movie theaters as the main one. My dad
worked in the film industry and predicted it's demise time and time again over
40 years (though has stopped now) but I think there's something about the
shared experience of sitting in a room with a bunch of people, away from (your
own) kids and (hopefully) phones and other distractions.

It's not about widescreen TVs, it's about a dedicated environment for doing
something and a sense of occasion. I've got a large flat screen, surround
sound, blue ray and all which is great, but I still loved going to the cinema
this Saturday night.

A bunch of the other things can be summarised in a single point - the death of
the single use device whether it be a remote control, a camera, a phone
(because landline phone will exist, it'll be over the cable to your house but
won't terminate in a dedicated handset, it will route to a smartphone or
computer).

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joelrunyon
I agree, but for a different reason. "Movie Theaters" and "Prime Time
Television" are much less "technologies" and more like entertainment business
models.

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Tyrannosaurs
That's completely it - it's a commercial and cultural thing, rather than a
technical thing.

Much of the technology involved in a cinema today is a world apart from how
things were 50 years ago, but at the heart of it it's the same experience - a
big picture on a big screen being shown to a load of people sitting in comfy
chairs who are getting aware from their normal lives for a few hours.

Do what you want with the technology, that sounds like a great experience to
me and something I'll want to do for a lot longer.

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stephenr
The "author" lost credibility when he suggested that wireless can replace
wired connections as the norm.

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pserwylo
Good call. This is one of the reasons why I currently prefer the government in
Australia over the opposition. They are rolling out a national FTTH network
[0], rather than the opposition which seems to think that wireless broadband
is the way to get fast internet into homes.

As an example of the attitude of the opposition (from 2009, but their views
are the same as far as I'm aware) [1]:

"What they are proposing is the effective re-nationalisation of the fixed line
network in this country ... But it certainly should not please the rest of
Australia to have the re-nationalisation of a fixed line network in this way,
particularly when there will be some $20 billion at least of taxpayers’ money
put at risk in an investment in a particular fixed line technology which many
have noted will take another 10 years to roll out. And by then we have no idea
what the capacity and possibilities will be with alternative communications
technologies—most particularly, of course, mobile and wireless. There is a
massive flight from fixed line to mobile and wireless broadband going on right
now. What will it be like in 10 years time when this thing is finally built? I
suspect this will be one of the all-time great white elephants this country
has seen."

[0] - <http://nbnco.com.au/>

[1] -
[http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?id=2009-05-12.77.1&...](http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?id=2009-05-12.77.1&s=%22wireless+broadband%22+speaker%3A10460#g80.1)

~~~
stephenr
Yes - I was until 5 weeks ago living in Melbourne, I'm aware of the NBN and
Tony Abbott's delusions about technology ;-)

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oneandoneis2
Is anyone else getting tired of the endless predictions of the doom of the PC
as tablets take over?

Tablets are wonderful for "consumers": People who want to use apps, read web
pages, etc. They just aren't useful for actual WORK: If you want to so much as
write a letter, you'll long for a real keyboard if all you have to hand is a
tablet.

If you want to sit down and code.. well, I can't see xmonad and vim going
touchscreen-based any time soon :)

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dagw
Tablets don't preclude keyboards (see the Microsoft surface pro for their take
on the problem). Also tablets don't preclude attaching to a 30" monitor and
your external keyboard and mouse combo of choice. I suspect that in two-three
years time I'll be running xmonad and vim on a tablet more powerful than most
current laptops and with a choice of keyboard solutions every bit as good as
the one on my macbook.

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joelrunyon
Here's the non-mobile version - [http://news.yahoo.com/15-current-
technologies-child-born-tod...](http://news.yahoo.com/15-current-technologies-
child-born-today-never-142409696.html)

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geon
> movie tickets in New York cost around $13 each

That's cheap! I pay $ 14-18 here in Sweden. And there are still new theaters
being built.

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EdwardQ
The Senna documentary last year cost me £12 in central London, around $19 at
current rates - I can't imagine it has changed massively. I was as surprised
as Axel Foley: "I could get blown for 12 bucks!"

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
He's not been to Soho for a while....

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chroma
I see 11 invitations to "read more". Thanks, but no. I waste enough time as it
is.

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ableal
They forgot driver licenses.

(OK, that's not a technology. I think there's a fair chance that children born
this year will not need to learn how to drive just to use a car.)

