What tech has improved slower than expected?
Discussion
RizzoTheRat said:
jamoor said:
snuffy said:
jamoor said:
I’d say a computer today starts quicker than one 15 years ago.
It does. But way slower than one from 35 years ago.Meanwhile my Windows 10 desktop has internet access within about 10 seconds of pressing the power button, and can load data from the other side of the planet faster the BBC could load data from the aforementioned tape.
I'd say that's pretty good progress personally.
bloomen said:
Driver101 said:
Printers have come along way. For £40-50 you can get a Wi-Fi enabled printer with all functions and scanner.
I can remember spending 7x that for a very basic black and white printer.
I'd like to try a laser printer before condemning modern stuff, but as it stands I find inkjet ones painful too. They really are not good enough. No idea what a dot matrix cost but at least it was totally dependable. Inkjets are like babies on balconies. You have to hover over them constantly. I can remember spending 7x that for a very basic black and white printer.
steveatesh said:
Posting for a friend:
Fully immersive games or “entertainment” .
I saw the first VR headset at a computer fair in the 90s and fully expected to quickly be able to buy the tech to have fully immersible entertainment.
Still a little way off, or at least my friend told me that.......
Your friend is correct. I suppose the thing is in the 90s, people would be happy to spend hours fiddling with anything to make it work. Now with VR you have to fanny around with the bloody things for a few minutes and in this instant world, that fannying around for even a few minutes is not acceptable. Fully immersive games or “entertainment” .
I saw the first VR headset at a computer fair in the 90s and fully expected to quickly be able to buy the tech to have fully immersible entertainment.
Still a little way off, or at least my friend told me that.......
That's the main reason VR is dead in the water. Too much faff.
TheJimi said:
paul.deitch said:
AI has not met any of the hyped expectations for me.
Yes it can do some limited things very quickly, but can it make me a cup of tea?
You’ve not spent much time digging into current AI capabilities, then.Yes it can do some limited things very quickly, but can it make me a cup of tea?
AI, even right now, is *seriously* impressive/scary, and in the grand scheme of it, the tech is at the fledgling stage, which makes it all the more impressive. It’s not “flashy”, so it doesn’t get a lot of coverage beyond tech & science based mediums, which is why it seems like the tech hasn’t progressed very quickly.
The reality is that the opposite is true
AI in the classic sci-fi sense is a seriously long way off. That is; perfectly sensible normal discussion with another self aware being with it’s own thoughts and emotions (emotions possibly not relevant).
AI in the sense of very advanced programmes much more able to do things that natural intelligence takes for granted after millions of years of evolution, such as complex pattern / facial / image recognition is very well advanced, but it’s very narrow. Try asking Huawei’s P30 “AI” camera technology on its views on West Ham’s performance at the weekend.
snuffy said:
That's the main reason VR is dead in the water. Too much faff.
In terms of set up and entry the Oculus Quest is impressively faffless. Weight, fit, resolution and weedy content count against it but it does give a tantalising glimpse of the future. I think VR is still at least 2-3 generations away from fulfilling its potential but when it does it'll be very special.
jimmyjimjim said:
bloomen said:
Driver101 said:
Printers have come along way. For £40-50 you can get a Wi-Fi enabled printer with all functions and scanner.
I can remember spending 7x that for a very basic black and white printer.
I'd like to try a laser printer before condemning modern stuff, but as it stands I find inkjet ones painful too. They really are not good enough. No idea what a dot matrix cost but at least it was totally dependable. Inkjets are like babies on balconies. You have to hover over them constantly. I can remember spending 7x that for a very basic black and white printer.
JonChalk said:
TheJimi said:
paul.deitch said:
AI has not met any of the hyped expectations for me.
Yes it can do some limited things very quickly, but can it make me a cup of tea?
You’ve not spent much time digging into current AI capabilities, then.Yes it can do some limited things very quickly, but can it make me a cup of tea?
AI, even right now, is *seriously* impressive/scary, and in the grand scheme of it, the tech is at the fledgling stage, which makes it all the more impressive. It’s not “flashy”, so it doesn’t get a lot of coverage beyond tech & science based mediums, which is why it seems like the tech hasn’t progressed very quickly.
The reality is that the opposite is true
AI in the classic sci-fi sense is a seriously long way off. That is; perfectly sensible normal discussion with another self aware being with it’s own thoughts and emotions (emotions possibly not relevant).
AI in the sense of very advanced programmes much more able to do things that natural intelligence takes for granted after millions of years of evolution, such as complex pattern / facial / image recognition is very well advanced, but it’s very narrow. Try asking Huawei’s P30 “AI” camera technology on its views on West Ham’s performance at the weekend.
As I said, spend some time reading up on it. AI, in my opinion, is way more advanced than many people realise - your post proves my point, I'd say.
Edited by TheJimi on Thursday 23 January 22:01
snuffy said:
Your friend is correct. I suppose the thing is in the 90s, people would be happy to spend hours fiddling with anything to make it work. Now with VR you have to fanny around with the bloody things for a few minutes and in this instant world, that fannying around for even a few minutes is not acceptable.
That's the main reason VR is dead in the water. Too much faff.
As you say, things used to be a lot faffier though. That's the main reason VR is dead in the water. Too much faff.
With my Oculus Rift I sometimes go through the 30 second setup routine to make sure the sensors haven't moved since I last use it, but that's a lot less faff than writing autoexec.bat files with menus to let me load different config.sys files depending on whether I wanted to play X-Wing or EF-2000.
Newer VR headsets don't have the external sensors so the level of faff is decreasing, but I agree it's taken longer than I expected to get this far.
RizzoTheRat said:
Indeed. My old BBC Micro used to start pretty much instantly...but it couldn't actually do anything until I'd played it a cassette for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile my Windows 10 desktop has internet access within about 10 seconds of pressing the power button, and can load data from the other side of the planet faster the BBC could load data from the aforementioned tape.
I'd say that's pretty good progress personally.
And how long does that Windows 10 take to boot if it cant find an internet connection?Meanwhile my Windows 10 desktop has internet access within about 10 seconds of pressing the power button, and can load data from the other side of the planet faster the BBC could load data from the aforementioned tape.
I'd say that's pretty good progress personally.
hutchst said:
RizzoTheRat said:
Indeed. My old BBC Micro used to start pretty much instantly...but it couldn't actually do anything until I'd played it a cassette for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile my Windows 10 desktop has internet access within about 10 seconds of pressing the power button, and can load data from the other side of the planet faster the BBC could load data from the aforementioned tape.
I'd say that's pretty good progress personally.
And how long does that Windows 10 take to boot if it cant find an internet connection?Meanwhile my Windows 10 desktop has internet access within about 10 seconds of pressing the power button, and can load data from the other side of the planet faster the BBC could load data from the aforementioned tape.
I'd say that's pretty good progress personally.
snuffy said:
True, I agree.
But look at the processing power. The BBC Micro had a 6502, 8 bit running at 2MHz. Now a CPU is 3-4GHz with multiple cores, so thousands of times the power. I know the OS was on EPROM, so no disk to access. But I still recall turning it on and beep-beep, there it was. And you could not corrupt the OS's storage if you just pulled the plug.
In that respect we have gone backwards.
Yup. As you say, because the O/S was burned on to EPROM. The vast disadvantage being it cant easily be upgraded, hence why modern computers load it from disk (usually SSD now).But look at the processing power. The BBC Micro had a 6502, 8 bit running at 2MHz. Now a CPU is 3-4GHz with multiple cores, so thousands of times the power. I know the OS was on EPROM, so no disk to access. But I still recall turning it on and beep-beep, there it was. And you could not corrupt the OS's storage if you just pulled the plug.
In that respect we have gone backwards.
jamoor said:
This, for someone thats occasionally printing buy a laser they aren't expensive and can sit for months unused no problem.
I've a little Epson inkjet for this currently - its easily 6-7 years old but i only print a few pages per month if even that. I've basically to do a head clean before i can use it, which of course uses up ink.I'll look in to a cheap colour laser.
bloomen said:
Wilmslowboy said:
Batteries
You must be joking about storage, I debated long and hard about my first desktop Mac having 40MB or 60MB, 25 years later by phone has about 2,000 times as much.
Good call about the batteries. You must be joking about storage, I debated long and hard about my first desktop Mac having 40MB or 60MB, 25 years later by phone has about 2,000 times as much.
Phone batteries in particular.
Appalling short life given the 'advances' in 'smart' phones.
I think the storage is, as usual, being dribbled out to the market far behind actual technological advances.
Goaty Bill 2 said:
Phone batteries in particular.
Appalling short life given the 'advances' in 'smart' phones.
A lot of the lack of battery we get is down to fashion. You could easily have the life doubled but that would make the phone a bit thicker and that certainly wouldn't do. No, sir. Appalling short life given the 'advances' in 'smart' phones.
100% agree on printers. It reminded me of this Oatmeal comic from a while back
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers
bloomen said:
Goaty Bill 2 said:
Phone batteries in particular.
Appalling short life given the 'advances' in 'smart' phones.
A lot of the lack of battery we get is down to fashion. You could easily have the life doubled but that would make the phone a bit thicker and that certainly wouldn't do. No, sir. Appalling short life given the 'advances' in 'smart' phones.
It would be nice to be offered more choice though.
jamoor said:
Rotaree said:
Aviation – I still find it amazing that Concorde used to cross the Atlantic in an average time of just under 3.5 hours and now the usual flight time is about 8h 10mins. I appreciate there have been advances in safety and capacity but I'm surprised that we haven't got back to supersonic travel.
Price is all it is imo With low cost carriers and ultra luxurious business and first class it doesn’t make much sense
Other lack of advances:
- property security. Now I know that things have come on in leaps and bounds but it appears that the crims have made even quicker progress
- VR, two words: uncanny valley
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