What tech has improved slower than expected?
Discussion
Self.driving, but with a caveat.
Only those punting the promise have ever said that it was 2 years away (for the last 8 years). Lots of others are less bullish.
Batteries. My iphone can't do a full day. A new battery degrades in under 2 years. Loads of cynics say it's planned obsolescence, but Porsche couldn't get a 919 hybrid to have full performance over 24h (known battery degredation) in as little as 3 years ago, and to them money was no object. I also suspect that if a decent battery for smartphones existed, someone would have gone to market on that exact USP - which business user / phone addicted teen doesn't want an android phone with the battery life of an old Nokia?
Only those punting the promise have ever said that it was 2 years away (for the last 8 years). Lots of others are less bullish.
Batteries. My iphone can't do a full day. A new battery degrades in under 2 years. Loads of cynics say it's planned obsolescence, but Porsche couldn't get a 919 hybrid to have full performance over 24h (known battery degredation) in as little as 3 years ago, and to them money was no object. I also suspect that if a decent battery for smartphones existed, someone would have gone to market on that exact USP - which business user / phone addicted teen doesn't want an android phone with the battery life of an old Nokia?
House building.
Trains - we have cars that can drive themselves on public roads to some degree but a train on rails relies on a driver looking for a red light at the side of the track which often break down taking the whole line out.
Trains - we have cars that can drive themselves on public roads to some degree but a train on rails relies on a driver looking for a red light at the side of the track which often break down taking the whole line out.
Edited by bazza white on Tuesday 21st January 21:40
Norfolk B-roads said:
My immediate thought for slowly improving tech is.... video conferencing.
Why, in 2020, does every meeting still start with 15 minutes of people faffing about with trying to get Skype for Business working properly, or installing software, or trying to get rid of audio feedback from laptop microphones, or dialing in on the phone because the audio doesn't work...
And when you do get everyone in, why can't you hear a damned thing anyone is saying? We have loads of bandwidth, and dozens of audio and video codecs to choose from, and everyone sits there, silhouetted against the room lighting, and pixelated by stuttering mpeg compression, and sounding like they're mumbling underwater.
It's such a simple problem to solve. So many one to one facetime/whatsapp/zoom type things work fine. But get 10 people from 10 companies on a Skype call and 5 of them will have technical difficulties. Because VC tech only works if everyone uses the same system, and everyone uses Microsoft products at work, we are stuck with the absolute clusterf
k that is Lync/Skype/Skype for Business version incompatibilities, or occasionally a forward thinking IT director will fork out for Webex, but then all the guests are late because they have to install that and work out how to use it. I hear MS are turning Skype for Business off soon, and so we'll all have to endure the crap that is Teams, which is only about 10 development-years behind Slack...
Honestly, we have iPhones and VoIp and Facetime and lots of cool communication tech. So why is Video Conferencing no better than it was 15 years ago?
Yep this......Why, in 2020, does every meeting still start with 15 minutes of people faffing about with trying to get Skype for Business working properly, or installing software, or trying to get rid of audio feedback from laptop microphones, or dialing in on the phone because the audio doesn't work...
And when you do get everyone in, why can't you hear a damned thing anyone is saying? We have loads of bandwidth, and dozens of audio and video codecs to choose from, and everyone sits there, silhouetted against the room lighting, and pixelated by stuttering mpeg compression, and sounding like they're mumbling underwater.
It's such a simple problem to solve. So many one to one facetime/whatsapp/zoom type things work fine. But get 10 people from 10 companies on a Skype call and 5 of them will have technical difficulties. Because VC tech only works if everyone uses the same system, and everyone uses Microsoft products at work, we are stuck with the absolute clusterf
k that is Lync/Skype/Skype for Business version incompatibilities, or occasionally a forward thinking IT director will fork out for Webex, but then all the guests are late because they have to install that and work out how to use it. I hear MS are turning Skype for Business off soon, and so we'll all have to endure the crap that is Teams, which is only about 10 development-years behind Slack...Honestly, we have iPhones and VoIp and Facetime and lots of cool communication tech. So why is Video Conferencing no better than it was 15 years ago?
Conference call on Skype today with colleagues at 16:30 ......16:40 people are still dialing in as cant get on Skype...
My firm have used loads over the time ut one thing is certain...there is always 1 that has to dial in .
bazza white said:
Trains - we have cars that can drive themselves on public roads to some degree but a train on rails relies on a driver looking for a red light at the side of the track which often break down taking the whole line out.
Lots around. E.g jubilee line, northern line, victoria line, DLR etc etc. Edited by bazza white on Tuesday 21st January 21:40
Printers. For the love of goodness.
Noisy, slow, frequent paper jams - they don't seem to have improved at all, apart from possibly the quality of the print. That and the networked ones seem to frequently throw wobblies.
People mention batteries - I think this is improving. iPhone 11 Pro Max happily lasts two days for me, based on the fact I get to the end of a day with more than 50% left most days before I put it on charge overnight, and I'm a fairly heavy user.
Noisy, slow, frequent paper jams - they don't seem to have improved at all, apart from possibly the quality of the print. That and the networked ones seem to frequently throw wobblies.
People mention batteries - I think this is improving. iPhone 11 Pro Max happily lasts two days for me, based on the fact I get to the end of a day with more than 50% left most days before I put it on charge overnight, and I'm a fairly heavy user.
Episode of Tomorrows World 1989 talking about the home of 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qStTIX86mhE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qStTIX86mhE
Video conferencing is what I would say as well.
I am baffled that no-one has really cracked the home market with VC either. The living room TV is a natural home for family calls. 'Alexa/Siri/Google call Gran' and gran appears full screen in her living room with proper audio and full widescreen HD quality with no fuss.
We have the tech for all of that but no-one has managed to do it properly.
I am baffled that no-one has really cracked the home market with VC either. The living room TV is a natural home for family calls. 'Alexa/Siri/Google call Gran' and gran appears full screen in her living room with proper audio and full widescreen HD quality with no fuss.
We have the tech for all of that but no-one has managed to do it properly.
pip t said:
Printers. For the love of goodness.
Noisy, slow, frequent paper jams - they don't seem to have improved at all, apart from possibly the quality of the print. That and the networked ones seem to frequently throw wobblies.
People mention batteries - I think this is improving. iPhone 11 Pro Max happily lasts two days for me, based on the fact I get to the end of a day with more than 50% left most days before I put it on charge overnight, and I'm a fairly heavy user.
Printers have come a long way. For £40-50 you can get a Wi-Fi enabled printer with all functions and scanner. Noisy, slow, frequent paper jams - they don't seem to have improved at all, apart from possibly the quality of the print. That and the networked ones seem to frequently throw wobblies.
People mention batteries - I think this is improving. iPhone 11 Pro Max happily lasts two days for me, based on the fact I get to the end of a day with more than 50% left most days before I put it on charge overnight, and I'm a fairly heavy user.
I can remember spending 7x that for a very basic black and white printer.
Edited by Driver101 on Wednesday 22 January 06:13
Driver101 said:
pip t said:
Printers. For the love of goodness.
Noisy, slow, frequent paper jams - they don't seem to have improved at all, apart from possibly the quality of the print. That and the networked ones seem to frequently throw wobblies.
People mention batteries - I think this is improving. iPhone 11 Pro Max happily lasts two days for me, based on the fact I get to the end of a day with more than 50% left most days before I put it on charge overnight, and I'm a fairly heavy user.
Printers have come along way. For £40-50 you can get a Wi-Fi enabled printer with all functions and scanner. Noisy, slow, frequent paper jams - they don't seem to have improved at all, apart from possibly the quality of the print. That and the networked ones seem to frequently throw wobblies.
People mention batteries - I think this is improving. iPhone 11 Pro Max happily lasts two days for me, based on the fact I get to the end of a day with more than 50% left most days before I put it on charge overnight, and I'm a fairly heavy user.
I can remember spending 7x that for a very basic black and white printer.
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.
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.
Oh sure, they're cheaper. But nobody's managed to create a paper feed that doesn't jam, a printer that prints quietly *and* quickly (especially double sided - good Lord the paper reverse mechanisms are loud).I can remember spending 7x that for a very basic black and white printer.
I'd happily pay more for a printer that I could walk away from having clicked print on a 100 page document and come back to find it printed, instead of returning to find it's jammed after the second page.......
bhstewie said:
hstewie said: Batteries.
Just give me an iPhone X that I can use for a minimum of 2 days without having to keep an eye on battery.
Agree with batteries. However, my iPhone 11 Pro Max was charged on Sunday evening and it’s currently at 56% 48 hours later. Just give me an iPhone X that I can use for a minimum of 2 days without having to keep an eye on battery.
Much better than my old 8 Plus.
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