http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news...chnologies.html

Here's the list of things a major electronics retailer thinks will be lucky to survive to the end of next year. Note; not "on the decline", they're saying that all of these might actually be dead within 14 months.

1. DVD players
2. Fax machine
3. Analogue TV
4. The landline phone
5. Mobile phone charger
6. Wii-mote
7. Sat Navs
8. Dongle
9. The computer mouse
10. Chip and pin credit cards

They think Blu-Ray will completely replace DVD that fast, that Natal could somehow kill the Wii almost instantly after it comes out, and with no explanation whatsoever, they are making the bizarre claim that people won't be using computer mice in 2011.

Yeah, I think they're jumping the gun on most of those things. And why would chip and pin credit cards be included in this list? My bank just finally sent me one, why are they now considered endangered?

Thank god! finally killing the fax machine! I hate those hugging things.

I could easily see them killing the mouse between now and 2011, depending on what kind of replacement (and it would need to be a replacement, the mouse is not vestigial) they offer up. Maybe switch to relative touch screens and tap everything, or some kind of eye controlled laser system. Blink to click. It would be one hell of a trick, killing and replacing the mouse in less than a year, but I think you could swing it.

I suspect that DVD will be an honest to god competitor for blu ray right up until blu-ray's replacement is announced and launched.

I think even Blu-ray players are doomed to end up as a niche product as more and more TVs come equipped with built-in internet connectivity and USB ports allowing them to play media files directly from the internet or a flash drive.

They seriously think

DVD players
Mobile phone charger
Wii-mote
The computer mouse

are going to be dead/gone/etc in little over a year?

Crazy.

There are stilll quite a few people who prefer having a real product as opposed to a digital download. I have no problem with downloads, I just don't expect to pay anything for them.

And that stymies me. I know people who actually take pride in their DVD library to the point that they'll buy any piece of bargain-bin garbage just to expand their collection. Idiots.

Yeah, that is pretty stupid; and I've always thought so. But that's an extreme, and I think there are more people who are selective in what they buy. I've never bought a bargain-bin DVD in my life, although at this point I don't really buy DVDs at all anymore, preferring Blu-Ray.

Blu-ray still makes sense as it'll always be superior to a compressed media file, but that'll only matter to videophiles. On the other hand, the people who prefer Blu-ray only because they feel some compelling need to own their movie on a shiny disc in a handsome plastic case are just nuts.

No one's taking my mouse away from me!

It'll be mandatory. All computer mice will be replaced with console-style control pads so PC gamers can finally play their first-person shooters the way God intended.

What the hell will Fun Publications do if the fax machine is dead? Cancel Botcon?

I can see analog TVs being gone since I thought they already stopped manufacturing them.

But the computer mouse isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

So, as an Autocad and Solidworks user by trade, what am I supposed to use instead of a mouse? Touch screens don't really work in that kind of environment. And fax machines will never go away. Will they become rare? Some day, for sure, but there will always be enough small businesses around for whom it makes more sense than getting things via e-mail.

not surprised about old tvs... its already getting to the point that having a standard def screen is like some kind of handicap.

and yeah, ive always hated fax machines. seems like they should have died a long time ago.

No. Blu Ray may eventually replace the DVD player, but we're at least a good 5 years from that happening. Stores still vend VCRs and other tape media players, even though you can barely find new tape media. They have been more accurate to have said VCRs, frankly.

Maybe, but doubtful. Both are on the decline, but fax machines are...simple. Email and printers are more and more convenient, but fax machines will likely live on, albeit as part of multimedia devices. Printer/phone/fax, etc. Analogue TVs do feel like they're on the way out, though I'd still be wary of stating they'll be completely gone by the end of next year.

We are seeing more and more people dumping their land line phones for cell phones, but the rate isn't going to hold steady and the usefulness of a landline phone, as well as the reliability over cell phones, especially in rural areas. Landlines aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
The hell? Let alone with how this directly contradicts the supposed inevitable extinction of the land line phone...

Yeah, no. W/ PS3 getting ready to introduce their own and this feature being high on the list of reasons for said console's popularity, they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Motion sensors will likely become a controller standard in the same way that rumble has been built in to most remotes after it's introduction in the N64/PSX era.

Now they're just making things up.

Yeah, when this area suddenly becomes something other than one massive dead zone, I may actually believe this one.

ANd what about gaming? Touch screen cant work with something like first person shooter. You need a mouse.

How sad a reflection this is of the modern human condition. We can point at people and shoot them, yet can't bring ourselves to touch them.

For shame, RP, for shame.

This list is almost as ridiculous as the lack-brained claim that e-mail is dead.

It doesn't say anything about DVDs, though. Just the players. Blu-ray players are backwards-compatible. I do think it's entirely likely that the point will be reached where there is no longer a point in making DVD players within one to two years. Once the threshold of component cost versus profit margin hits that point, you won't see a DVD player anymore. Probably will still see DVD recorders for a while after that, until Blu-Ray recorders reach mainstream affordability, but those are niche products anyway.

1. DVD players - Not going away until you can get a <$50 Blu-ray player in any store at any time, which I doubt will be in the next year.

2. Fax machine - This has a lot of high-value niche purpose in places like law offices and real estate, where you need to have things signed and sent FAST. While the transmission over the lines isn't as fast as using the internet, the user experience at the device is. Until a viable, affordable, EASY internet-enabled standalone device is created, fax machines will have a place. (Just like many offices still have a typewriter to input data onto paper forms that must stay in that medium.)

3. Analogue TV - I thought this was actually gone already?

4. The landline phone - There are so many lines to so many homes in this country (fewer, but still a good amount worldwide) that this isn't going away. Usage will decline. But as long as the lines remain connected, someone will be there with some sort of service, and someone will find a use for them.

5. Mobile phone charger - Until smartphone prices drop SIGNIFICANTlY (most are a few hundred bucks right now), disposable single-use phones aren't going to find a place. And that ain't happening next year. I mean, what the hell? This is just a stupid prediction.

6. Wii-mote - Stupid prediction. Natal, even if it works, isn't going to render Wii-motes or any other controller technology completely dead. The joystick used to be dead, but ever controller now has *at least* one.

7. Sat Navs - Web-enabled phones will kill this as a standalone device. The functionality will still be there, and the smart companies will transition into apps and maps rather than devices. Sort of like how Palm changed gears and got into the phone market when standalone PDAs stopped making sense.

8. Dongle - Not going away until USB stops being easy. Certainly not next year.

9. The computer mouse - Same thing with Wii-motes, tactile hand interfaces will continue to have a place long after any sort of new "hands free" technology might come up.

10. Chip and pin credit cards - Not next year, but I could see this giving way to internet-enabled transmitting cards that interface your account more directly with merchants. But again, not next year.

What a shortsighted list that really seems to be trying to shock people instead of thinking seriously about the multitude of issues involved.

Haha, wow. Is this article serious?
I really don't see anything in that list beyond analog TV ending anytime soon.

1. DVD Players - they're right. Read-only Blu-Ray drives for computers are already down to $60, and the standalone players are sub-$150. Once they hit $100, which they will around Thanksgiving of this year temporarily and then again permenantly mid-next year, there won't be a reason to buy a normal DVD player--because a Blu-Ray player is still a normal DVD player too.

2. Fax Machine - I wish, but no. If e-mail didn't kill faxes, nothing will.

3. Analogue TV - Depending on whether you're talking about a) analog broadcasts or b) analog inputs on TVs, it's either a) already dead or b) complete wishful thinking. HDMI may be popular, but composite and component inputs won't be dead for another few decades at the earliest.

4. Landline Phone - Certainly not anytime in the next 14 months. In fact, it's actually more competitive than ever, with VOIP services offering competitors to local phone companies. Cell phones will displace landline phones for the vast majority of usage sometime in the next decade or two, but for consumer use landlines will still be around for emergency usage--and remain in heavy usage for businesses.

5. Mobile Phone Charger - Dedicated wall power brick? Gone, thanks to industry-wide agreements to standardize on MicroUSB cables. Wall adapters for said MicroUSB cables will continue to be included with the phones for quite some time, though.

6. Wiimote - Haha, no.

7. Standalone GPS devices - Dead. Why buy a separate device with a monthly service charge when you can get a smartphone with Google Maps-based GPS?

8. I'm not even sure what the hell they mean by Dongle.

9. Computer Mouse - It certainly won't be as ubiquitous as it was, but between games and any business use of a computer, it's not going anywhere.

10. In the United States, chip-and-pin credit cards are DOA, because we insist on holding onto the magnetic strip design. Internationally, they're here to stay, thus screwing over any Americans travelling abroad who want to use their credit card.

While I'd love to see more internet-based payment options like 'pay by cell phone' pop up, they won't be prevalent enough to use reliably at point-of-sale for at least another five years.

MY WIIMOTE! MINE!!

TVTropes explains exactly where this list came from.

Dammit, Nutjob.

<sees link to tv tropes>


fuuuuuuuuuuu


well, there goes my productivity for the day...

That list is really terrible.

They might not be counting VOIP as a "landline," and could just be saying that traditional phones will go away.

It's still bunk, but it'd be at least slightly more plausible.

After living a week without power after the ice storms a few years back, I can say with complete confidence that landline phones that require no external power beyond the phone line itself will never go away.

(Looks up from his slide rule collection)

Hm?

---Dave

This whole list is rubbish except for analog TV. I too thought they had already been discontinued from production.

Wii-mote...endangered?

Ironbite-can I get some of what they're smoking?

Do they mean that desktop computers will cease to exist, or are they talking about touchscreens? I mean, it's irrelevant, because mice are still a necessity either way.

I won't have a Blu-Ray player until it comes built into a computer that I happen to buy for other reasons. It's an evil bastard format with a hell of a lot of evil bastard DRM gotchas, and I wouldn't trust it to be reasonably dependable under Windows, out alone under Linux.

I assume they're talking touchscreens. Most people I know who use laptops also have mice that they carry around in their laptop bags.

And I'm one of those people, although I use it almost exclusively for graphics and layout stuff. The touchpad is far more convenient (to me) for less intensive functions ....

In that case, it's all the more absurd. I'd say maybe in ten years, right? = )

Here's my list:

-CDs
-2D graphics
-PS2
-laptops (hellooooo, iPhone)
-eyeglasses
-1337speak

1337speak, netbooks running XP, CDs. I think that's the most we can hope to see disappear in one year. Oh, and the music industry. : P

Eyeglasses are cheaper than surgery and more convenient than contacts. Even if it weren't for the image, we'd still have ten years to go in the first and second world before kids with problems were more likely to get zapped than framed. And most people who have glasses aren't likely to lose them.

What do they mean by analog televisions?

We'd *never* have kids who were more likely to get zapped than framed. They typically don't allow you to get laser eye surgery until you're at least 21, because your cornea and lens change too much as an adolescent for you to be able to "lock in" a correction with surgery and still be able to see properly a few years later. Some adults' eyeglass prescriptions STILL change too often (+-0.5 dioptyres per six months) to make corrective surgery worthwhile. Some extreme prescriptions aren't entirely correctable via surgery, so even if those individuals got surgery they'd still need glasses--their vision just wouldn't be as lousy without them. Plus, once you hit 40, the flexibility in your eyes that allows you to change your focus between near and far starts to go, so even if you DO get corrective surgery you'll still probably need reading glasses. And, of course, there are several conditions (like diabetes, cataracts, and glaucoma) that make you an unsuitable candidate for corrective surgery.

And the only reason 1337speak is going away is because txtspk is supplanting it.

Man, I'll swear by my XP-running netbook. Meanwhile, I hugging loathe iPhones. Or, well, anything with a touch screen. Damned things (touch screens, that is) never work properly for me.

What the hell?

Cathode Ray Tube, or CRT TV's. Technically, they have stopped making them, though some third party producers are still making the last gen flat CRT TV's for general consumption. Hell, I can still buy a Tube TV new if I wanted, but I need to go to loblaws to get it, and even then, they sell LCD screens too.

I had no idea they weren't making CRTs anymore. Crazy!

Is there something creeping in to succeed the Wii remote or do these people just think Wii is a fad?

Fools, hawt chicks wear glasses!

Microsoft's Project Natal for the Xbox 360 and Sony's Untitled Poorly-Thought-Out Motion Controller Glowing Ball On A Stick for the PS3.

Landlines and fax machine have a lot of life left in them.
Try to think of a large business entity that doesn't use both of these frequently.

Faxes are also infinitely simpler than scanning and sending a file. The amount of errors is reduced to a much smaller number. People sending information frequently don't want to worry about file format and setting up the scanner etc. Also, things get made even more complicated if we start talking about documents requiring signatures.

Every department and every office has their own cell phone?
How many phone numbers are there at my University?
It just seems impractical to use cell phones.

And then... the service thing... Its going to be a LONG time before my old home has cell phone service. I don't have a land line here in Texas, because I live right next to school, but the service still gets pretty sketchy in some places, even in the middle of big cities.

I think the mouse is here to stay for a while. We could get rid of keyboards for typing while we are at it... but we wont. Simplicity is a useful feature of such devices.

And the Wii mote? Its going to disappear a year or two after Nintendo has its next big console. And even then its going to be replaced by a similar device.
I don't really believe that Microsoft is going to be able to immediately destroy the Wii with their new device.
I also don't really believe that their new device is going to be practical at all. This thing is just supposed to sense body movement? Sounds expensive. What if you want multiple people? What if your dog walks by? What if a friend is sitting next to you and watching? It sounds like a pain even to get this thing working if you are playing isolated, and the resulting product sounds expensive... But actually getting it to work practically sounds even worse.

Stuff like this is why I can't respect journalists as a group.

An electronics retailer in the UK publicly releasing this list makes journalists un-respectable?