But several Stone Age technologies still refuse to die, despite having passed their best-before dates long ago. PC for Everyone’s American sister magazine Computerworld lists the technology that will die in 2010.
1. The fax machine
Most documents that are faxed are digital from the start. The digital document is printed on paper, fed into the fax machine which makes it digital again and then transmitted through analog audio.
The same procedure, but in reverse, is then done by the recipient (usually the fax is scanned or typed into a new document). Now the information has been digital four times, in paper format twice and audio once!
And it’s not safe for five cents. The poor transfer quality makes it super easy to stick a fake signature there without being noticed.
It’s time for email to take over for good.
2. The Cigg outlet
Car manufacturers started with the cig outlet as early as the 1920s and refined the technology during the 50s. Despite the fact that the cigarette sockets have several decades behind them, the car industry has chosen to keep this awkward contact as standard.
Cars should instead be equipped with the same connectors as for wall sockets and have a built-in converter to offer 230 volts. A familiar alternative is USB connectors for charging mobile phones and other equipment.
Almost no one smokes in their car anymore, but almost everyone has a mobile phone or other gadget that needs charging.
3. WWW
During the early days of the Internet, the abbreviation “www” was added to all addresses to emphasize the type of protocol used. For example, www.idg.se was used to mark that it was about IDG’s web server and ftp.idg.se to mark that it was about IDG’s ftp server.
However, the prefix “www” is no longer needed because everyone still knows what an internet address is, and it only takes up unnecessary space. We’ve already done away with typing “http://” so it’s time to do away with “www” as well.
4. Business cards
There is no longer any reason to fill our wallets with small paper-based business cards that require hundreds of thousands of trees each year. Send information via Vcards, e-mail or SMS.
5. Fixed telephone lines
Today, more or less everyone has a mobile phone. There is no longer any reason to use a fixed telephone network for anything other than the Internet. A cell phone gives you the ability to take your number with you wherever you go, receive text messages, and has an excellent answering machine. What is the advantage of a landline phone number?
6. Video rental stores
The time has come when real internet movie rental and download services start to grow. There is no longer any reason to have to waste energy and gas going to a video store when we should be able to access all the movies online instead.
7. Music CDs
iTunes if anyone has proven that you no longer need expensive CDs to sell music. There are no advantages whatsoever to CDs compared to digitally distributed music. CDs are not environmentally friendly, they are susceptible to scratches and are clumsy to carry around. It’s time to fully transition to storing our music digitally.