A Brave New World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsBwnv_dAg
I’ve compiled a list of things that I believe could possibly be extinct or completely out of use by the year 2050. While some of the items below are already on their way out, others are slowly starting to vanish due to advances in technology and people’s access to high speed Internet. Only time will tell as to whether some of these things have the ability to survive the world and its’ technological advances.
Mail Men and Women
In the entry entitled Technology, I talked about how the decrease in snail mail will have a direct affect on our government’s postal service. Last year alone, physical mail went down an astonishing 22%, which has left many postal workers unemployed. In the years to come, if snail mail continues to decrease in annual volume I think it’s only a matter of time until mail men and women are completely fazed out of our mail system. When was the last time you mailed a letter? Does the milkman seem like a foreign and outdated idea to you?
Books, Newspapers, and Magazines
In the year 2050, will there still be books, newspapers, and magazines? In 2007 Amazon released the Kindle, which is a tablet that gives one the ability to search, buy, and read all kinds of media electronically. The kindle enables you to search, browse, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media. The iPhone and iPad, two other very popular devices, allow you to connect with electronic media such as newspapers, magazines, and blogs. So, I think it’s just a matter of time until these three inventions diminish the demand, but not completely, of books, newspapers, and magazines. I think that they’ll still exist, although I don’t think that they’ll be as prevalent as they are now.The green revolution will also contribute to the increasing amount of people who would rather “save a tree” or “a buck” and read the N.Y. Times on their smarthphone, iPad, or electronic book.
Movie Stores
The movie Be Kind Rewind(2008) was, in my opinion, a 102 minute obituary or send off to movie stores in America and the world as we know it. In Beverly Massachusetts where I grew up, we had a local movie store, VideoSmith. VideoSmith had the feel of a “mom and pop” business, always had the newest releases and many other classic titles. However, it’s been years now since VideoSmith has been in business. It was larger chains like Blockbuster, which carried more titles and gave longer rental periods for the same price, that eventually helped to do away with local owned video stores like VideoSmith and the movie store in Be Kind Rewind.
Yet, I believe it is Blockbuster’s turn to fall and for companies like Netflix to thrive and survive. It’s almost Darwinian in the way that I’ve seen the world of renting and buying videos change in my short 24 years. Netflix, a company that offers a DVD delivery system with flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees, shipping or handling fees, or per title rental fees has revolutionized the way we search for and rent videos. Internet video streaming is the latest addition to the Netflix Empire and allows users to watch live streaming feeds of a number of popular selected titles on Windows, Mac OS X, and other compatible devices.It was Blockbuster that did away with my beloved childhood VideoSmith, although now Netflix, and our ability to download movies illegally from the Internet or legally from places the like the iTunes store, will be the one who will do away with Blockbuster and the video store as we know it.
Wallets - Credit Cards, Cash, License, Keys
New programs like GOOGLE Wallet are essentially a digital way of organizing your everyday needs in an electronic format. Credit cards could one day be replaced by simply taping your smartphone on an NFC reader(normally marked by a PayPass logo) to process a payment. Keys could one day all be in electronic format and would use a similar method of the NFC reader. Licenses could one day be fazed out as well, although experts are saying that this will be the most difficult aspect of the contemporary wallet to do away with as its’ legal implications are serious and the need to have it approved by state and federal agencies.
Compact Discs
CD's, since the time I was in High School, have been on their way out. I remember listening to cassettes and thinking that my walkman was the coolest thing in the world. The first cassette I ever bought was Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise(1995). I remember it taking about 45 minutes for me to convince my mom, in the middle of Sam Goody, that the little sticker in the bottom right hand corner that said Parental Advisory meant nothing. Now, looking back on it, cassettes are old relics of an ancient time when one had to rewind tape or “flip a cassette” to find the desired song. How many of you remember rewinding a cassette with a pencil? CD’s did away with cassettes like DVD’s did away with VHS, although now MP3’s (electronic music files) have slowly started to usurp CD’s. I just wonder if in 2050 whether the youth will see CD’s as I’ve always looked at 8-track tapes?
Point and Shoot Digital Cameras
Recently on cnn.com I took a test to see whether I could tell the difference between a photos taken with a classic point and shoot digital camera and those from an iPhone. Has it come to do this? Are we going to do away with point and shoot digital cameras? I don’t believe that classic DSLR’s will ever be done away with due to the photo taking community and professional photographers who demand the highest quality of photo, enjoy developing and augmenting their own prints, etc. However, I do think that one day the old point and shoot digital camera will be a thing of the past?Yes.
The iPhone, for an example of a popular smartphone, comes equipped with an 8 mega-pixel camera which is 5 pixels better than my 3 mega-pixel Sony(2001) point and shoot digital camera. While my camera is 10 years old and very outdated, it still serves to show how a smartphone’s photo taking abilities could eventually leave the point and shoot digital camera industry on the fringes. Who’s going to carry a digital camera and their smartphone to a concert, a birthday party, graduation, or any other worthwhile-recorded event? The answer is they’re not going to carry the two and who would leave their smartphone at home? Especially, if it had replaced their wallet.
In case you're in the mood for something old fashion, my address in Guatemala is as follows:
Jarrett Carpenter
Malacatanctio, Huehuetenango
Guatemala, Central America
great post. creative. I would add the RedBox to the movie revolution. 1 dollar- 24 hours, and on every corner. awesomeness. I would also even bargain that magazine readership will go up with the new digital features and delivery... Still looking forward to the UFC post.
ReplyDelete-chels