Technology has always been known for its state of rapid innovation and change. However, the past decade has seen considerable change where old technology is just not relevant anymore. What you relied on a decade ago is probably rarely used in today’s fast-paced Internet market.
Here are a few technologies that will probably die off in a few years:
Beepers
Just like most people can’t leave the house without a cell phone, beepers were an integral part of people’s lives a couple decades ago. Beepers (or pagers) allowed someone to get a phone number or a message using an analog phone line. They were the lifeblood for emergency workers such as doctors or paramedics. Now, most people can’t go without their smartphones, so pagers are obsolete.
Car Phones (or Any Analog Line for That Matter)
Smartphones have replaced several technologies, and the car phone and any analog line are two technologies that you might occasionally run into, but they are no longer relevant. The car phone was the predecessor to later cell phones. It was the only way to get voice messages on the road. Analog landlines are still used in businesses, but most home users ditched their old landline for a smartphone. If you ever had a landline, you probably remember expensive long-distance charges. Smartphones abolished those charges and gave people a way to have a conversation without the wires.
Blackberries
There was a time where everyone thought Blackberries were the future. They dominated the market, but Blackberry soon fell to the wayside for smartphones. The Blackberry app market is the slowest, least popular of all the markets compared to Windows, Android and iOS. Some business people still hold on to their Blackberries, but they aren’t able to compete with the current tablets and smartphones and high-tech apps.
Portable Drives
Zip drives were common in the 1990s, but they were then replaced with portable hard drives. While some people still use a portable drive, they are very fragile and clunky. USB thumb drives replaced these external hard drives, and most people never looked back. If you need portable disk space, go with a USB flash drive. They’re much smaller, they hold several gigabytes of data, and they are far less fragile.
Fax Machines
When was the last time anyone told you to fax them documents? Fax machines are still found in some government agencies, but they’ve mostly been replaced by scanning and the Internet. You can pick up free scanning software in the app market, scan a document using your smartphone and tablet, and then send it over the Internet. Fax machines are slow, require specific type of paper, and require a landline. This makes it one of the biggest technologies that should die.
These few devices made such an impact on communication and messaging decades ago, but they no longer have any relevancy in today’s market. If you still use any of them, it’s time to upgrade to current technology before they are completely obsolete.
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