Technological obsolescence in our times

jtr1962

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After reading several EV threads it suddenly occurred to me that we're now living in a time when so many technologies which were used for literally decades, even generations, are poised to become obsolete in the coming decade. By obsolete I don't mean that they will no longer exist, but rather that they will be made in such small numbers as to be insignificant.

Incandescent lighting is obviously the first thing which comes to mind. Within probably five short years it will be as hard to get an incandescent lamp as it is presently is to get a tube stereo. Now if incandescents were the only long-lived technology poised to become nearly extinct it wouldn't be so remarkable. After all, new technologies always displace old ones. It's just that these changes usually don't happen within the same life time.

It now seems that the demise of the internal combustion engine, at least for ground transportation, is imminent. Five years ago almost nobody would have said LEDs will be the next revolution in lighting. Well, EV technology is probably where LED technology was 5 years ago, relatively speaking. It's only a matter of time now before the rumble of the internal combustion engine goes the way of the chuffing of the steam locomotive. The pieces are already in place. It's just a matter of building up critical mass.

Magnetic data storage is yet another technology ready to bite the dust. As we've seen, hard-drive manufacturers are coming up against real physical barriers to increasing storage capacity. The rate of capacity increase has slowed to a trickle, unless of course one looks at solid-state where it's more than doubling annually. How long before solid-state overtakes magnetic storage not only in terms of capacity, but also cost per GB? I'd say about five years. Other than cost, solid-state storage is inherently better in every way than magnetic storage even now.

These are just three examples I've come up with in the few minutes of rare free time I had to post on CPF today. All have been around in one form or another for at least 50 years (over 100 in the case of incandescents and internal combustion engines). There are others which seem about ready for a major change although no breakthroughs have come so far. Mechanical refrigeration will eventually be replaced by solid state, but thus far nothing promising has made it out of the lab. Aeroplanes will probably be replaced by maglevs in evacuated tubes spanning continents, but the logistics of building such a system means it's probably decades away. Still, these are things which may pass within the lifetime of many reading this.

Any others? While it can be said that change is the only constant in the universe, the remarkable way in which old technologies are now rapidly being displaced by new ones which are better in every way is breathtaking. Oh, I almost forgot. Decentralized power generation is another thing coming soon with the advent of cheaper solar power. Once Home Depot sells "solar roofing shingles" you'll know that time has arrived.
 

Oddjob

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Good points. It's amazing how fast things change. I find it difficult to keep up at times and I'm sure I am not alone. It boggles my mind to think of the technological advancements that will occur in as little as the next 5 to 10 years let alone 20 or 30. Being in the medical profession I am particularly keen on seeing advancements in medicine.
 

nobody

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Even though 24 bit 192kHz digital audio recording/editing/mastering has been around for several years and Pro Tools has become commonplace, large format reel to reel magnetic audio tape is still widely used in some professional applications despite its limitations.

Same goes for 12" vinyl LP's, despite the digital revolution of the past 20 years. I know audiophiles that would argue that cd's aren't even in the same ballpark. Everybody that knows audio tech knows that mp3's are inherently "lossy" but just look at how they have taken over today's consumer audio.

I may be wrong on this, but even the very best digital photographic technology still has a way to go before it can finally bury the oldschool film/emulsion of the past 150 years.

Sometimes it seems that as technology marches on, in some respects quality ends up either the same or possibly worse.
 

fieldops

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How about land line phones themselves. Increasingly folks are going the PCS route. Has anyone noticed how hard it is to find pay phones anymore? amazing what can happen in just 10-15 years.
 

PlayboyJoeShmoe

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All of what you say is probably true.

In what I do for a living I know this: When we have a part that works perfectly time after time... it gets replaced with one that does NOT!

What I mean by this is certain parts that used to be made at one place are no longer even made, and the one that's now available SUX!
 

h_nu

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While some people will cling to vinyl records, vacuum tubes, and other old technology the masses will go for newer technologies. Most watches have quartz crystals today.

It's not that all new technologies are always better but that they are marketed better. How many of us have bought something thinking we were getting a quality part only to find out it was plastic with a gray/silver/metallized finish designed to fool us? With newer technologies we are at a disadvantage to the marketers. We won't always know how to make the right decisions until too late.
 

tvodrd

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The extension in my garage is push-button and has a genuine bell! That Western Electric stuff lasts forever!

Larry
 

UncleFester

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Lets' not get carried away here. I remember when I was going to middle school and high school in the 60's and 70's we learned that by the turn of the century everyone was going to get around either by jet pack or flying car. Also energy would be so cheap that no one would bother to meter it anymore...............
 

ringzero

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It now seems that the demise of the internal combustion engine, at least for ground transportation, is imminent...It's only a matter of time now before the rumble of the internal combustion engine goes the way of the chuffing of the steam locomotive.


I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the demise of IC engines. IC engines are mature, well-established technology with over a century's worth of investment and development.

Nothing will soon replace IC for transport, simply because other energy storage technologies aren't up to the task.

What do you forsee for energy storage? Rechargable batteries? Fuel cells? Ultra-capacitors? Superconducting inductors? Ultra-fast flywheels? Hydrogen? None of these techs are anywhere close to being practical or economically viable for replacement of IC engines.

People have been predicting the imminent demise of the IC engine since I was kid during the 1960s. Somehow, it always turns out to be just another 5 or 10 years down the road.


.
 

BGater

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Some of our current ways must come to an end and soon. Fossil fuel usage is long overdue to slow down. Fossil fuels cant last forever, we need to get busy on things like Biodiesel fuel, wind and solar electricity, ect. Making electricity from coal and natural and propane gas is a waste. Heck, just getting the fuels to the plants is a mind numbing waste of fuels. I like my gasoline and lights to come on when i flip a switch, but our fuels will run out.

We switched all the incan bulbs in the house over to low volt florescents, in January. We seen an instant drop in our bill of $20 a month and it has stayed that low. Our bill shows the past 12 months usage, we are consistantly lower than last year. What if everyone in the nation did this ? I bet the brown outs on the grid would stop. I agree with progress and that our old ways and technologies should be pushed aside to make way for new and better things. Hope this wasnt to far off topic. :whistle:
 

ringzero

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Fossil fuels cant last forever, we need to get busy on things like Biodiesel fuel, wind and solar electricity, ect. Making electricity from coal and natural and propane gas is a waste.

US coal reserves are sufficient to power all US electrical generation for quite a while. I've seen estimates of from 50 years to 400 years worth of coal, allowing for increased power demand in the future.

The entire US power grid could be run on uranium and thorium far into the future. Nuclear power would be better than coal in some ways, such as less air pollution.

Wind power and surface solar energy will never amount to more than a tiny fraction of total power - too diffuse and too expensive.

Space-based solar is another matter. It has the potential to deliver sufficient power from space to provide electricity for the entire planet. For practical purposes, space-based solar would be nearly limitless. It could deliver power continously, far into the future - so long as the sun continues to shine. (If the sun were to ever stop fusing nuclei together and emitting energy, it would be a serious problem.)


.
 

jtr1962

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What do you forsee for energy storage? Rechargable batteries? Fuel cells? Ultra-capacitors? Superconducting inductors? Ultra-fast flywheels? Hydrogen? None of these techs are anywhere close to being practical or economically viable for replacement of IC engines.
This company has some batteries that look very promising. I'll also point out that ultracapacitors will probably be up to the task within a few years. All the other ideas you mentioned are non-starters with too much complexity (actually the very reason fuel cells are pushed by the automotive industry-they break and the auto industry loves unreliable cars). Given the driving patterns of most people, we could have long ago switched to electric vehicles which would have been up to the task for 99% of trips, with gas car rentals for those few trips where electrics lacked the range. Now that quick recharge is possible, the range of electrics isn't really an issue anyway, if indeed it ever was (the auto makers put it into everyone's head that the family car needed to be capable of cross-country journeys).

Another practical solution is for vehicles to simply get their power on the fly via inductive pickup from high-frequency power cables buried under highways. There are two variations on this theme. One is to have a more or less continuous cable, and cars only need a small amount of energy storage for the few short dead spots. The other is to have short lengths of cable every ten or twenty miles where cars top off their energy storage on the fly. Here you would need enough storage to go at least 20 to 30 miles. Both ideas allow for unlimited range with no refueling stops at all (something not even possible with gas cars). They are similar in principal to the way electric railways get their power on the fly, except that railways don't use any type of energy storage beyond a few batteries to keep the lights on over dead spots.

Given the rise in gas prices (this time with no end in sight as supplies are dwindling) coupled with technology which just didn't exist in the last energy crisis, I think it very likely we'll soon abandon the ICE in cars at least. For railways electrification is always an option once diesel fuel prices make it economic (actually our heavy freight lines already past that point with $2/gallon diesel but RR execs can't think past the next quarter). ICEs will probably be around longest in ships and planes as no practical alternatives short of nuclear exist. While converting the entire heavy shipping industry to nuclear power would be a great idea, it'll never happen with all the NIMBYs. Longer term there's fusion, but I feel that won't become viable until at least 2040.

Finally, I'll point out that this whole idea of using cars for long distance travel was never really a great idea to begin with. Had we used cars in the niche they are best suited to (commuting to work, running errands, shuttling to train stations), then the so-called limited range of electrics would have been suitable from day one. Actually, this brings me to a point made earlier in this thread about new technologies not always being better than what they replaced. So it was with the auto replacing train travel for intermediate and long distance, or even commuting to work. Compared to even typical 1960s electrified railways, never mind state-of-the-art high-speed rail, a car is a decidedly inferior way to travel. It's cramped, noisy, smelly, slow, bumpy. It requires frequent time-wasting stops for refueling, going to the restroom, etc. It requires frequent, expensive maintenance. It wastes huges amounts of energy for the speed and number of passengers relative to train travel. It's far less safe. It requires someone to operate it, thus wasting that person's time whereas they could do something else while traveling by train. It costs the owners a huge sum of money. It wastes huge amounts of land for highways, parking lots, streets relative to the number of passengers moved. In all honestly, it's a prime example of newer not necessarily being better. You can thank very clever marketing more than anything else for their present popularity. While I don't predict the demise of personal transportation entirely, I suspect in the future we'll be using cars in the niche they're really suited to, rather than trying to shoehorn them into every possible transporation role as is now done. That's really the crux of the problem, and the reason we even have a problem now. We need to have a more balanced transportation system where cars are but one piece of the puzzle, not the only option.

People have been predicting the imminent demise of the IC engine since I was kid during the 1960s. Somehow, it always turns out to be just another 5 or 10 years down the road.
And the automakers/big oil always kill it off. This time around I feel there's too much momentum for that to happen. Also, geopolitical reasons (the Iraq war is very unpopular) may be the nail in the coffin of the ICE this tim around.
 
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PlayboyJoeShmoe

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I have at LEAST 20 years to go here on planet earth and maybe more like 40.

Try as I might, I just can't see a sea change away from the status quo.

Sure, some electric stuff will show up. And perhaps biodiesel will hit the mainstream.

But 18 wheelers are gonna be around for the rest of my life.

Oh! > (If the sun were to ever stop fusing nuclei together and emitting energy, it would be a serious problem.) <

Not JUST for the generation of solar energy!!!
 

Fallingwater

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Video screens. Plasma never really had a chance against LCD, and LCD looks likely to be blown into the weeds by OLED as soon as manufacturers manage to make the blue diodes last more than a few hundred hours.
I took possession of two 21" CRT screens three months ago, by the way, and I intend to keep using them for a long while. Obsolete? I don't think so. :p

Batteries for electronic gadgets: NiCD is pretty much only used by radio control enthusiasts now, on account of its higher discharge capacity, but even NiMH is going the way of the dodo.
Some time ago the problem was that NiMH gadgets had standardized cells, while LiIon ones had proprietary cells that tended to be expensive and with incompatible sizes.
Nowadays we have RCR123, 14500 and 18650 LiIon cells (along with many more). They are cheap, with standard sizes (more true for 14500 than for the others), much slower self-discharge and higher energy density.. and lovers of fancy flashlights are spearheading the revolution.

Two-stroke engines: I disagree with jtr about how quickly the fuel industry will go. I think gas is here to stay for at least another 20 years, probably more.
But increasing prices and pollution are spelling the doom of two-stroke engines. Even 50cc scooters now often come in slow but extremely economical four-stroke versions, and two-stroke 125cc and 250cc are only bought by enthusiasts looking for performance in a small package.
 

ringzero

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This company has some batteries that look very promising. I'll also point out that ultracapacitors will probably be up to the task within a few years.


I don't doubt that battery powered electric cars may be useful for urban dwellers in the not too distant future. Maybe even for suburban dwellers' daily commute into the city. That's still a long way from bringing about the demise of IC engines for ground transport.

Have any recent info on ultracapacitors? As far as I know, they're still a long way from storing enough energy to be useful for cars.

All the other ideas you mentioned are non-starters with too much complexity (actually the very reason fuel cells are pushed by the automotive industry-they break and the auto industry loves unreliable cars).

Actually, you are wrong about flywheel energy storage systems. Flywheels are already used in some commercially available UPS systems. They are also powering buses in a few urban areas. Flywheels offer some huge advantages over batteries or fuel cells. They are also elegantly simple.

Another practical solution is for vehicles to simply get their power on the fly via inductive pickup from high-frequency power cables buried under highways...I think it very likely we'll soon abandon the ICE in cars at least....Also, geopolitical reasons (the Iraq war is very unpopular) may be the nail in the coffin of the ICE this tim around.

Sorry, you do raise some intesting points, but I think your conclusions are mostly nonsensical.

The power strips buried in highways is a great idea, but it's not going to happen in the next few years.

Once people have tasted the personal freedom that is provided by owning their own automobile, it is among the last things they will voluntarily give up.

Even in densely-populated, traffic-congested, problematic-air-quality cities like New York, London, and Tokyo (which all have good public transport) the politicians have been largely unable to restrict the use of private cars.

If they can't restrict cars in those over-populated places, there's no way it'll happen elsewhere in the US, with its wide open spaces and extensive ex-urban population.


.
 

jtr1962

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Once people have tasted the personal freedom that is provided by owning their own automobile, it is among the last things they will voluntarily give up.

Even in densely-populated, traffic-congested, problematic-air-quality cities like New York, London, and Tokyo (which all have good public transport) the politicians have been largely unable to restrict the use of private cars.

If they can't restrict cars in those over-populated places, there's no way it'll happen elsewhere in the US, with its wide open spaces and extensive ex-urban population.
The reason people are so attached to their cars is because most of the US lacks a comprehensive public transportation system. In fact, we had one long ago consisting of long distance railways, interurbans, and trolleys which served even sparsely populated areas fairly well. However, it was left to rot in the 1950s when the auto and aeroplane were suddenly seen as the magical solutions to all our transportation woes. Fifty years down the road it's become readily apparent that the "solution" has become a huge problem in its own right. Cities are divided by highways, pollution and noise from ICEs are ever prevalent, 600 thousand per year die of cancer caused by environmental pollution in the US alone, etc. The public is actually more open to the idea of public transportation now than at any time in the last 50 years. Convenient or not, a car represents a huge financial drain on a household. If it were possible to own one less car, or even none, while still getting around fairly well, people would be receptive. Also, in large cities like NY close to a majority don't own cars. Get this voting block galvanized, and you may well see at least zero-emissions requirements within city limits, and even a total ban on private transportation in Manhattan, perhaps even city-wide. The recent congestion pricing proposed by the mayor has a good chance of becoming law, for example.

The reason people still own cars even in places like NYC is because the public transport system is Manhattan-centric. Going from the outer boroughs into Manhattan, subway is the most convenient mode. However, going from one point to another in the outer boroughs often takes far longer via subway or bus than driving. This is the crux of the problem. You need a system which serves all points equally well. Were even half the money people spend on their cars put into public transportation we would have a first class system. Don't forget that 60 years ago almost nobody had cars, yet people still got around. Had we kept the old system in good repair, and built upon it, I highly doubt the car would have been taken seriously.

For all the talk of personal freedom autos ostensibly give, I tend to think I have more by not owning one. Freedom from paying for gas, insurance, registration, repairs, the car itself. Freedom from wasting time in court if I screw up while driving. Freedom from spending months in rehab if I get in a bad accident. Freedom from worrying about where to park the thing. All the time allegedly saved by owning an auto is negated by the extra time working to pay for it, and the time to service it. Of course, people are very bad at factoring all that in. They complain if they wait 10 minutes for a bus, but somehow spending the same 10 minutes to gas up their car, or to find a parking spot, doesn't bother them. Or the hour totally wasted driving themselves to work whereas they could be doing something else if they took a train. Or for that matter the very poor utililization rate of a very expensive capital investment (that $40K Lexus is usually sitting unused for 22 or 23 out of every 24 hours). Thanks to clever advertising, people are totally irrational when it comes to cars. And because the majority in the US have never used public transport extensively, they really have no frame of reference for a fair comparison. How can someone say they like traveling by car better if they've been on a train twice in their lives? I've used both modes extensively. Give me a train any day of the week despite any drawbacks. I'll take them over the vomit-inducing fumes and bumpy ride typical of automobile travel, not to mention the constant, excessive accelerations/decelerations for obstacles, signals, etc.

As I said, I'm not predicting the death of private transportation, only that in the future it'll hopefully be used only where it makes sense (short errand trips with many stops), and perhaps be designed accordingly. Using a car for interstate travel, or even to commute 60 miles to work, makes absolutely no sense. Having many places in the US where a car is the sole means of transport makes even less sense. Even in a country as sparsely populated as the US a high-speed intercity railway system would be viable. Remember that France, home of the TGV, is about as sparsely populated as many mid-Western states. The sad part is that for what the Iraq war will ultimately cost us we could have built a better system than France has, largely negating the need for the war in the first place.

Now getting somewhat back on topic, I think another thing which will be technologically obsolete soon is the venerable CRT. It served us well for many decades, but flat panel technology has already made huge inroads. I recently saw that Newegg only had about 15 CRT monitors for sale compared to a few hundred LCDs.
 

TorchBoy

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Now getting somewhat back on topic, I think another thing which will be technologically obsolete soon is the venerable CRT. It served us well for many decades, but flat panel technology has already made huge inroads. I recently saw that Newegg only had about 15 CRT monitors for sale compared to a few hundred LCDs.
In the last couple of years CRTs have all but vanished from shelves here, and in the last month or so some quite impressive LCD monitors have been available at amazing (low) prices.
 
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