Endangered Everyday Things

Did you know breeds of Zebras, Horses, Peacocks and Giraffes are nearing extinction (per Treehugger.com). Surprised?

Just like these every day taken for granted animals, here is a list of every day taken for granted devices that, in my opinion, are going extinct. Bear in mind:

• Each of these does have their boundary conditions of usage and will not be long before they are addressed
• Each of these does have its own timeline for going extinct, could be months, could be years.

 Watches

Watch (because of time) is a default operation in most modern electronic devices. Handhelds – phones, portable players, medical equipment tell time, Kitchen Appliances – microwaves, fridges tell time, Cars tell time. The mass usage of a watch now is reduced to being a non-communicating jewelry. Smart watches may be on a rise but stuffing an Android on a smaller footprint, with little difference from a phone, is not enough.

Home or Office Phone Lines (Landline)

This is the black box with an ear and a mouth piece sitting idle on a table. People now prefer accepting calls on cell phones (when remote or at home) or soft phone (when at a desk in offices). With services like Google Voice one can easily enable routing of calls to any private number, helping maintain a single number and at the same time not having to share their personal private phone numbers. VOIP is on speedy upward curve.

Cable TV via set-top box or dish antennae

Combine Smart TVs (or a non-smart TV with Apple TV or Google Chromecast like) device) with streaming services, DishTV like. Who needs set-top or dish?

Paper Printers and Scanners (not the 3D)  

Smart phones with improving camera quality make scanning easy. Both camera phones and scanner produce JPEGs and as long as they are legible they should be acceptable. There are banks, like Bank Of America, that allow check deposit from their app based on phone camera clicked images. As everything goes digital and online there will be fewer instances of paper based submissions, therefore no more printers.

Digital Optical Discs – CD, DVD, Blu Ray 

The last time I seriously had to use a CD/DVD was 10 years ago. This was when I used Windows and it needed an installation after a crash. Car audio and Home AV receivers are complimented with USB or Bluetooth or vendor proprietary wireless connectivity. A lot of the TV is streaming. External USB drives and Cloud storage is getting cheaper. Online stores allow downloading. Why else would one need these digital optical discs? Surprisingly, Sony has announced the next-gen Blu-Ray disc. I wonder why? This probably explains why Sony is spirally down.