What tech has improved slower than expected?

[bloomen]

For me it's mobile signal which is still a joke in tons of places.

I also expected storage to be bigger and cheaper by now. SD cards are certainly moving along, but by now I expected laptops to have 10-20 tb with ease. Obviously there are physical limits and the cloud has taken over but I still expected it to have moved further.

What else has disappointed you with its lack of progress?

[bloomen]

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.

I expected more from storage. Most laptops have around 1 tb and have had for many years now. There aren't many you can get more than 2-4 tb into other than things the size of patios.

[bloomen]

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.

[bloomen]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Housing, I know the UK has it's own unique challenges due to climate but it's we're still essentially throwing up boxes the same as we were 50 years ago with a bit more insulation!

I'd go for heating and hot water in particular. Though there are a few interesting developments most places are still heated in ways the average Roman might relate to.

[bloomen]

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.

[bloomen]

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.

[bloomen]

irocfan said:

IMO the biggest luxury we don't have is time which is where concorde (and similar planes) would score massively.

The rise of the hyper rich might inspire something new. If there is to be another supersonic passenger plane it may well be a private one.