Tech You Thought Would Be Completely Redundant By Now

Well, the turn of the century (and millennium) has long since come and gone and we’re still no closer to getting around in those flying cars a lot of people thought we’d have by 2010, latest. Looking back in hindsight one would have a strong case for concluding that we were a bit too ambitions in our expectations of the rate at which our technology would be evolving, especially if you think about the fact that we’re only really on the brink of perfecting driverless cars as of now. That’s how it is with regards to the flying cars example though; otherwise there is a lot of technology which one would have bet their house on being obsolete by now.

All that said though, there’s absolutely nothing wrong ambition. If anything, ambition either works out to catalyse a serious paradigm shift in the technology we use to make our lives easier, or it acts as a good mechanism through which to ground us and in a sense steer us in the direction of developing that technology which really matters. I mean you just have to look at the latest iPhone release to ask yourself just why anybody would spend so much money to in effect just “look rich.” Smartphones do indeed make for one area of the development of technology which seems to have hit a brick wall. If there are any “improvements” to a new smartphone released, it’s only something like a better camera or more memory / storage space.

There are however quite a few pieces of technology which just don’t seem to want to die out, no matter how their counterparts seem to be evolving and improving.

The Landline Telephone

You would have thought that landlines would be completely redundant by now, even though they still hold the significance of providing that trust and security element to companies in particular. Who wants to get in touch with a call centre agent of a specific service provider through a mobile phone number? This would look rather dodgy and between mobile phones and “virtual landline numbers” issued by the likes of Skype, it’s rather remarkable how landline telephones are still in high demand.

Photocopiers

With the high rate at which Toshiba photocopiers are flying off the supply-line showing no signs of subsiding, it’s clear to see that photocopiers are here to stay for a while yet. Admit it — with all the “going paperless” initiatives gaining traction over the years, you thought that by 2016 photocopiers would form part of the basket of technology pieces which would have been redundant. It’s not quite happening mostly because of the continuous need for physical documents in industries such as law, recruitment, etc, so we’re going to be using paper for a while yet.

Other pieces of tech you probably thought would be obsolete by now perhaps include the likes of compact discs and even desktop computers. Cloud storage and the power contained in smartphones and tablet PCs make for some technology which was all set to make CDs and desktops redundant, but because of features such as permanent storage, multitasking and screen real-estate, CDs and desktop PCs are here to stay as well.