15 Technologies I Thought My Son Would Never Use

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Incredible article, was a blast to read. I'd like to compare your predictions to my situations. Please note that I'm much older than your son obviously, so I might sound old-school-ey in my judgement.

1. 5G is still a fata morgana here. Some ISPs has been pushing "cellular broadband", but when it comes to performance, price, and convenience, fiber optic cables are still king. We just moved to our new home this new year, and after weighing our choices, we decided to go with fiber optic cables as they're much cheaper while offering better stability. It's here to stay.

2. Yes, I couldn't even remember where I put my Nikon point and shoot. But, I still have my 2012 (I think) Sony Camcorder that I use occasionally. The only reason I use it is it's easy to mount on a tripod, so whenever I need to record something where the camera needs to stay put (family gatherings comes to mind), I'd whip out the old badboy. Yes, the video quality is... unremarkable (it's not even Full HD I believe), but it had its uses. The projector is handy too.

3. We had a landline installed back in 2017 in our last house. Never really used it. It's part of the internet package so there's nothing we could do.

4. I first dipped my proverbial feet on SSDs sometime around 2018. Very late to the party. But when I first used an SSD, I swear it felt like I was running an alien technology. Never in my wildest dream I ever thought a computer could run that fast. 6 seconds boot time yeah.

5. Let's face it, windowed OS is here to stay.

6. HDD is still everywhere,, but yes, SSD is becoming the new standard real quick.

7. I'm not really a cinema-goers type of guy, but with the pandemic, it's basically went from "going to the cinema once per month" to "never visit one in an entire year" type of thing.

8. I can't say much about this though, but safe to stay we all still use the mouse.

9. I WAS a staunch supporter of 3D TVs. We bought a 3D TV back in 2010-2011, we picked that model solely because its 3D tech. It was expensive, yes, but we believed in it. It was amazing at first, then it got old quickly, and we ended up never using that feature. We still have the TV on the living room, but boy it's long in the tooth.

10. When it comes to remote controls, I actually went backwards. I used to have a Samsung phone which has IR blaster, I could control everything with that single phone. Then I upgraded to Galaxy Note 7 (not sponsored) that I'm still using now and it has no IR blaster. I went backwards this time.

11. Desktop PC is still here to stay, but PC builders I believe is on the rise.

12. This point actually made me feel really old. I still dial numbers, of course that's more of a copy-and-paste business now, but still am.

13. What's a prime time?

14. What's a fax machine?

15. I watch all movies online like everyone else, but if there's a movie I really like (and I mean, really really like), I'd go ahead and actually buy a disc version of that movie. I don't know, there's something about having the hard medium, like owning a piece of history. Same goes for music discs.

IF there's something I could take from reading this article and comparing it to myself, it's that I'm far behind the technology curve.

Back in around 2013, I actually made few predictions about the future. Some of them are :
  • Windows Phone will take over the world (was a staunch supporter of WP, we all know how it went)
  • AMOLED screens will be everywhere (somewhat true on phones, but a far cry on desktop monitors, laptops, or TVs)
  • 360 folding laptops will come as a standard (funnily enough 360 laptop seems to be rather rare,, but on the other hand it's somewhat of the new hot stuff on the phones side)
  • No one would beat Lumia 1020's 41 MP camera when it comes to megapixels (horribly wrong, as I've seen phones go up all the way to 108 MP mark)
  • Sometime in the future, Qualcomm would overtake AMD as the main rival to Intel in desktop space, and Intel would start to dominate the mobile space (ridiculously wrong, as bad as my stock predictions. In reality, AMD turns competitive against Intel, Intel utterly fails at mobile (phone) space, and Qualcomm is in its own pocket dimensions now with its own rivals)
  • Laptop GPUs would be as powerful as their desktop counterparts (please tell me this one is true)
  • Cryptocurrency is another fad (I always wanted to hang my head in shame when I thought about this one. I made mistakes, yes, but this one is just unbearable)
 
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Admin said:
In 2012, I made some predictions about tech my son wouldn’t use. Here’s what happened next.

15 Technologies I Thought My Son Would Never Use : Read more
Click to expand...
1. Most ISPs will remain wired-only because it's the best way to provide a connection, especially one with low-latency. Wireless is neat, but it just won't ever be able to compare to wired.

2. Digital cameras may have lost their appeal for most people, but they still outshine phone cameras in a few areas. With one or two exceptions, phones don't have optical zoom. Also, using a dedicated camera means not using up your phone's storage and battery for taking photos or videos, which makes dedicated cameras and camcorders ideal for long photo or video sessions. Phone cameras are great for times when you weren't expecting to be taking photos or videos, but dedicated cameras are great for times when you are expecting to be taking photos or videos.

6. Mechanical Hard Drive - It depends on the purpose. For most things, an SSD is fine. But if you need 3+ terabytes of storage for files for which you don't need super-fast access, hard drives still win over SSDs because they're much cheaper. For example, I turned an old PC into a server several months ago and fitted it with an 8TB hard drive. It normally goes for $240, but I was fortunate to cache it on sale for $200. An SSD of the same capacity would cost upwards of $800. Sure, an SSD might last at least twice as long, but I don't think it's worth the extra $400, and I can't see spending that much on a hard drive. Besides, in a year or two, I'll probably fill that 8TB and need to purchase another. It'll probably take me a lot longer to fill that second drive since I already had 3.5 terabytes of media before buying the first one, but it'll keep me from needing too many drives, which is good because my server only has four SATA ports and I'm using one for a 120 GB SSD.
 
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1. I predict that when the 5G's hype has calmed down, we are going to face the same realities as we've always done.
Telecoms have not provided satisfying coverage in rural parts of the world for 2G, 3G or 4G, and many telecoms still have bandwidth caps. What makes you think they will change just because of 5G?
5G has also led to larger smartphones so as to fit the larger batteries needed for it.
Just because 5G is being used as an excuse to shut down wired Internet does not mean that it is a valid replacement.

2. I see people using more cameras, on drones, webcams, action cameras, 360° cameras, Raspberry Pi etc.
I just watched a Youtube video of a guy showing off a "12K" camera that he's using.

5. Smartphones and tablets have now got support for running two apps on the same screen. What are those if not crude windows?

6. Friends of mine correctly predicted this in 1995.

7. The insistence of movies being 3D almost killed movie theatres before COVID happened. And during the same time, streaming and 50"+ TV sets became mainstream ... so this might happen.

8. We are beings who like to touch and feel things. I predict that some day, your son will want to have a mechanical keyboard — because it feels better.

14. I'm 45 y/o and I don't think I've ever used a fax machine either.

15. Having physical media (of some sort) in your hand is the only way to actually own a copy of a movie. Every other way is only long-term rental.
BluRays might be overtaken by some kind of SD card though.
 
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I never see landlines, Desktops, the computer mouse or Windows going away. As far as optical discs, there will always be audio CDs, because the diehards won't listen to lossy MP3 files. I'm one of them. And how would the "remote control" go away anyways? Surely, a phone can be programmed to change channels on many devices, but the button layout is inconvenient in comparison to a dedicated remote control. That makes no sense. Wired internet isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Ask gamers about that one. Ping response time in WI-FI vs wired affects lag too greatly, not to mention also in trying to stream to platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, etc.
 
Wireless spectrum is and will always be a finite resource. Even with point-to-point connections (e.g. 5G Fixed Wireless) serving your home from a nearby pole, a wire-line connection will still be more secure and far less likely to suffer ill effects from weather, interference, etc. I could replace my home wire-line connection today with home wireless, but with significantly reduced speed and greater latency compared to my current connection.
 
We are just starting wireless 5G rollout here in Australia. NBN is the wired connection provider, which has been a disaster of a rollout. Articles I've read suggest that the only reason people will try 5G is because NBN are unresponsive, slow and anti-customer. These articles predict only 35% of household will convert/adopt the technology.

We still have FTTP but most connections have been FTTN - which is as unpredictable and unstable as ADSL. It too is a disaster. The other option is HFC but NBN can't even get that right and have halted all HFC connections. NBN are worried now that 5G is going to take their business.

Personally I hate wifi. It's the first thing I didable on all PCs and routers. I run 10G infrastructure on all PCs. Too many weak points compared to wired. With a 100/40 FTTP connection the only thing I have to worry about is someone cutting the fiber. I dont have a cell phone so another reason Wifi is not needed.

And so many people just don't bother changing the wifi passwords, assuming the ISP even allows them to. So many of the routers supplied by ISPs are cheap POS that should never be allowed on the 'net with virtually no security. I remember several years ago (before I gave up on wifi completely), being able to successfully connect to a couple of my neighbors wifi from home. 5G won't improve peoples carelessness.
 
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Findecanor said:
1. I predict that when the 5G's hype has calmed down, we are going to face the same realities as we've always done.
Telecoms have not provided satisfying coverage in rural parts of the world for 2G, 3G or 4G, and many telecoms still have bandwidth caps. What makes you think they will change just because of 5G?
5G has also led to larger smartphones so as to fit the larger batteries needed for it.
Just because 5G is being used as an excuse to shut down wired Internet does not mean that it is a valid replacement.

2. I see people using more cameras, on drones, webcams, action cameras, 360° cameras, Raspberry Pi etc.
I just watched a Youtube video of a guy showing off a "12K" camera that he's using.

5. Smartphones and tablets have now got support for running two apps on the same screen. What are those if not crude windows?

6. Friends of mine correctly predicted this in 1995.

7. The insistence of movies being 3D almost killed movie theatres before COVID happened. And during the same time, streaming and 50"+ TV sets became mainstream ... so this might happen.

8. We are beings who like to touch and feel things. I predict that some day, your son will want to have a mechanical keyboard — because it feels better.

14. I'm 45 y/o and I don't think I've ever used a fax machine either.

15. Having physical media (of some sort) in your hand is the only way to actually own a copy of a movie. Every other way is only long-term rental.
BluRays might be overtaken by some kind of SD card though.
Click to expand...
I'm not too sure about the SD card. I had a similar thought about ten years ago, but with music. My idea was that you could go to the store with a flash drive, go up to a kiosk, select an album, insert your flash drive, pay, and then the album would be copied over to your flash drive. Granted, this was when I was kinda young and hadn't yet used iTunes. The trouble with SD cards or any sort of flash storage for that matter, is that it'll gradually lose the data if it isn't powered up once in a while. With optical discs, the data is pretty literally burned onto the disc, in the form of microscopic pits. There's even a type of disc, called M-Disc, which uses some sort of stone or something so it can last like a thousand years. I'm reasonably certain that optical media will stay in one form or another. Plus, you can actually get the best of both worlds by liberating Blu-Rays with MakeMKV and then compressing them with Handbrake.
 
I think we are getting close to being able to boot up in 2 seconds. I have an sn850 as my boot drive now and it's really really fast. I've never timed it but probably between 10 and 15 seconds. I had a pcie 3.0 drive before this and thought that was really fast and that I wouldn't notice a difference with the sn850 but I definitely do.
 
1. Cable Internet in home will not disappear like ever. There is finite spectrum available for wireless communications with noise and congestion issues in areas with many consumers. WiFi congestion problems in high-rise apartment and office buildings a first example. Maybe future ISPs will convert all uplinks to fiber optics or some more exotic media in future, however "cable" as media for customers with requirements for stability and speed will live forever.

2. For majority - correct. When phones got more or less good cameras, market of cheap dedicated cameras literally vanished. Expensive cameras with good lens and sensors will remain for pros and niche uses and most likely will live for long time ahead because physics. Phones still does not have proper optical zoom. Also noise, aberration and distortions is hard to get rid of in phones (can't defy physics again).

Findecanor said:
2. I see people using more cameras, on drones, webcams, action cameras, 360° cameras, Raspberry Pi etc.
I just watched a Youtube video of a guy showing off a "12K" camera that he's using.
Click to expand...

Action cameras, drone cameras and CCTVs are in different niches. Article author certainly had still image handheld cameras in mind.

3. Correct. Majority already moved to mobile phones. Remaining landlines behind scenes transformed to VoIP almost everywhere - if not in end user phone, then providers and former communication companies transparently do that in their hardware. Got rid of my landline a decade ago.

4. Partially correct. In decent hardware with SSD waking from sleep mode and hibernation happen in few seconds. For average user it may be equal to fast boot.

5. Three decades ago people speculated about user interfaces in form of "connected rooms". Didn't happened. Through last decade real life scenarios proved that touch interfaces with simplified UI are suitable only for specific scenarios. In all other scenarios windowed UI still rules. And seems will continue to rule for decades ahead.

6. For consumer computers SSD is better no doubt. New computers mostly come with only SDD inside. HDD though due to their specifics will remain as archival storage media and seems will live in this niche for long time ahead.

7. Going to cinemas will resume when majority will be vaccinated and authorities will allow to resume public activities. Humans are social animals and going to cinema is a form of mass socialization. Can't see how this can cease to exist in foreseeable future.

8. Mouse will cease to exist only when something convenient in use like mouse and cheap as mouse now will appear. So far I can't see anything like that.

9. 3D TV turned out into redundant gimmick. Never doubt about that though - 3D for TV cause more problems than good. 3D VR found a niche in gaming and some specific use cases and seems will live here further.

10. Cheap infrared and wireless based remote controls will live for long time ahead. You still must have something to control your device though if you haven't suitable phone around.

11. Desktops will live at least for next 2-3 decades in businesses and other places. In enthusiast niche due to very convenient upgrade and modding possibility they will live long time ahead.

12. Dialing now is sort of living dead. Mostly done automatically behind scenes on contact selection in phone contact list. But still required as sure contact identifier and due to zillion of dialing dedicated phones around. Probably will cease to exist when more convenient and cheap contact identifier for average Joe will appear and all old phones will broke.

13. Since it is now possible to recall all TV program in limited time or record particular events, prime time indeed become redundant.

14. Fax machines de facto are gone. Existing faxes are built in MFP-s and seems will live here for some time until digital signing will become convenient enough for everyone.

15. Optical disks are bygone thing. They indeed will continue to exist for existing audio/movie/software owners for some time. As data storage however they lacked longevity expectations, capacity is too small for decent requirements and device is too huge.
 
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JOSHSKORN said:
I never see landlines, Desktops, the computer mouse or Windows going away. As far as optical discs, there will always be audio CDs, because the diehards won't listen to lossy MP3 files. I'm one of them. And how would the "remote control" go away anyways? Surely, a phone can be programmed to change channels on many devices, but the button layout is inconvenient in comparison to a dedicated remote control. That makes no sense. Wired internet isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Ask gamers about that one. Ping response time in WI-FI vs wired affects lag too greatly, not to mention also in trying to stream to platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, etc.
Click to expand...
My Panasonic TV from 2013 has a remote app for my phone. It works pretty good but has one LARGE problem. While I can turn off the TV with the app, you cannot turn on the TV from the app. Since the TV is in sleep mode, it isn't connected to the network so the app is useless. The only way to make a phone work as a remote is to have the TV always connected to your network even when in sleep mode.
 
jeremyj_83 said:
My Panasonic TV from 2013 has a remote app for my phone. It works pretty good but has one LARGE problem. While I can turn off the TV with the app, you cannot turn on the TV from the app. Since the TV is in sleep mode, it isn't connected to the network so the app is useless. The only way to make a phone work as a remote is to have the TV always connected to your network even when in sleep mode.
Click to expand...

Heard about this curiosity. Indeed it was possible to turn on only with IR remote or phone with IR transmitter (had this in my old Samsung S4 phone).
 
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