Friday, January 3, 2014

BEATING THE TOMTOM:  Five current tech products that are likely to be dead in five years.

17 comments:

  1. Joseph Finn9:03 AM

    We bought a car with smart key last year and it's just about the best thing ever; not sure how people are still locking themselves oiut of their cars, as ours will not lock the doors if there is a fob inside.

    I tend to think it might be a bit longer, but I think standalone smoke detectors and CO2 alarms are about to start going; people are finally looking at that tech and realizing how antiquated it is.

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  2. I saw that there were now $50 BluRay players and considered buying one, because I love bonus features and commentaries. If Netflix starts supplying alternate audio, they could destroy the medium completely, but I think there's a niche of people who like their physical libraries and hate the revolving door content rolls through.

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  3. Jordan10:45 AM

    Two problems: my dad just went to get a new car and dealers from multiple companies told him that they pretty much can't sell built-in GPS's anymore. The point is the same, that stand alone GPS's are being killed by smartphones, but that's a poor assumption on their part. And as to Blu-Ray Players, I think they last a while longer, as Netflix is still relatively limited and most BDPs are used for streaming content as well as playing discs.

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  4. Benner12:54 PM

    i wouldn't mind being able to put a smoke detector on "chill the fuck out, i'm cooking" setting, but i don't see why it's a technology in any need of replacing. It's not antiquated, in that regard.

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  5. Adam B.2:10 PM

    Or at least give me a convenient button to press to say "dude, stop it. I got this" rather than frantically waving a blanket under it for minutes.

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  6. Adam C.2:23 PM

    They've got that: the Nest Protect https://nest.com/smoke-co-alarm/life-with-nest-protect/. If they could bring the price down a bit, I could see more of these replacing the existing detectors; as it is, probably something a lot of people would consider using as (at least) their first floor detector.

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  7. Benner2:43 PM

    my guess is insurance companies would rather take the position that you don't got this, but my smoke detector is, however, an asshole, because it detects heat i think so i can't even check stuff in the oven if it's over 450, paradoxically risking my food being more not less burned. also, a smoke alarm that you can turn off might be one you forget to turn back on. even now, taking the batteries out is an option, one i do not recommend in multi-unit dwellings or with childrens present.

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  8. Adam B.3:56 PM

    That's unless your smoke detectors are hard-wired into the system, in which case the batteries are just a backup.


    How about a button which would turn off the sensitivity for just 15-30 minutes?

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  9. On that note, I can't recall the last time I checked for a movie on Netflix streaming and found it on there. I tried for When Harry Met Sally the other day, and no luck. Really?

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  10. Joseph Finn7:21 PM

    That's exactly it, Adam, the first stop I see in improving the tech.

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  11. Becca7:53 PM

    I just mentioned this on twitter, but even the movie industry itself is slow to acknowledge the eventual death of the DVD player. Showtime has been providing us with a link for the past few years to view their content for nominations purposes, but all the rest of my movie screeners arrive as DVDs. They must be considering a switch to streaming, as the shipping costs for the DVDs alone must be astronomical, but I haven't heard a peep.


    But oh, how I long for keyless entry! A bluetooth-equipped car would be awesome, too, so I don't have to use the tapedeck adapter to play my music in the car. Car technology regarding driver convenience has really come a long way since I bought my car back in 2004.

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  12. I think one of the big concerns for streaming is the ease of piracy and the difficulty of tracking source.

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  13. mhgatti11:01 PM

    I just bought my wife a Garmin GPS for Christmas. iPhone GPS only works when it can find a T-Mobile signal, and that's a problem in the Pinelands of South Jersey.

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  14. Becca2:02 AM

    Oh, I'm sure that's it. I just feel like DVDs aren't much better, and streaming would likely save them lots of cash. I'd guess eventually they'll build apps we can access with Apple TV or the like. We'll plug in a code, and the content will be accessible. Each code only gets one IP login, or something like that. But really, it's a total first world problem, as dealing with the delivery nonsense is a hassle.

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  15. Adam C.10:38 AM

    Lots of catalog titles cycle on and off streaming - I imagine at some point later in the year you could find WHMS. But that doesn't do you any good if you want to watch now, of course. This adds another refinement to Jordan's point - if DVDs leave, then our choices become a lot more limited because truly on-demand streaming does not seem very close.

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  16. Adam C.10:42 AM

    Good point, which is probably generalizable to many exurban/rural locations...though we certainly had pre-iPhone days (super-cloudy, or out in the middle of nowhere) when our Garmin had trouble picking up the satellites too. Maybe the newer models get better reception?

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  17. Jordan2:18 PM

    Yeah, I still think they're on their way out, but because of the size of streaming libraries, they'll be killed by Digital Copy before they'll be killed by streaming.

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