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The death of consumer electronics?

The super expensive Monster wire.. probably still make them.
We didn’t have expensive monster wire in the 70s and 80s. All we had was 50’ of speaker wire on a spool, AND WE LIKED IT!
Getting Old Baby Boomers GIF by MOODMAN
 
The smartphone is the king and is constantly evolving. But there's been many other tech advances that are huge or key including streaming (music/tv/movies), DVRs, digital photo (mostly on phones, but even what photogs can do with digital cameras is crazy), Youtube/Twitch, online gaming/esports, ipads, smaller, lighter/faster laptops, wearable devices like iwatch or fitbit, wifi everywhere, wireless speakers, the 4k/UHDTV's are so much better than what was available 15+ years ago, then all of the smart home things like Alexa/Siri with thermostats, doorbells, video cameras, lights, garage doors, and more. Hell, just look at a car from 15 years ago and one now... worlds different with the tech available.
This is actually pretty true. Another example is the podcast I started this summer. I have literally no background in audio production, but within just a couple weeks, it was pretty easy to produce pro-sounding audio with even a decent mic and some free/cheap software. It’s pretty amazing. I know this also applies to photo/video tools and a ton of other areas as well.
 
I still think VR/AR will be the next explosion…..but not until there are uses beyond gaming and the physical interfaces have to get smaller, more practical. Think expanded Oculus type performance with more of a Google Glass interface, but maybe not even on a device we wear around. The Carrot weather app gives some fun AR capability, but eventually, we may be able to see a ton of the information around us by looking. Heads-Up Display (HUD) in cars is a very rudimentary starter example.

I fully admit that my view of it's usefulness could be limited but I feel like there isn't much use for VR outside of gaming. Like I don't see it as something that in 5 years everyone is going to own one. Hardcore gamers will but you might barely notice if you arn't a big gamer.
 
The smartphone is the king and is constantly evolving. But there's been many other tech advances that are huge or key including streaming (music/tv/movies), DVRs, digital photo (mostly on phones, but even what photogs can do with digital cameras is crazy), Youtube/Twitch, online gaming/esports, ipads, smaller, lighter/faster laptops, wearable devices like iwatch or fitbit, wifi everywhere, wireless speakers, the 4k/UHDTV's are so much better than what was available 15+ years ago, then all of the smart home things like Alexa/Siri with thermostats, doorbells, video cameras, lights, garage doors, and more. Hell, just look at a car from 15 years ago and one now... worlds different with the tech available.

Ring doorbells are definitely a good one I hadn't thought about from recent years. That's a technology that will be slowish on the uptake because for a lot of people it won't be added until they're replacing something or building a new house, but will probably be standard in the future.
 
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I fully admit that my view of it's usefulness could be limited but I feel like there isn't much use for VR outside of gaming. Like I don't see it as something that in 5 years everyone is going to own one. Hardcore gamers will but you might barely notice if you arn't a big gamer.

Yeah, I think it's a dead end for mass consumption. And I'm someone who has been way interested in it since it was considered science fiction. It's arguably as big a tech dud as has been seen in my lifetime, when compared to what was imagined versus the impact it has made.

It's not like it doesn't work or isn't cool...people just ultimately don't care. If anything, we're moving further away from the ideas around it, as we went through and added 3D to tvs and phones and game systems...and then removed it due to minimal interest.

It's as if we finally got the flying cars we were promised, and everyone was like "huh. Ok cool. I don't want one."

I have a hard time believing that a generation that, as we've discussed, would just as soon watch The Avengers on a phone or a watch as on a 65" 4K HDR TV is ultimately going to find VR as a necessary advancement of entertainment technology.

Obviously it still holds plenty of promise for hardcore gaming, education, training, etc. I just think it's potential as the next mass consumer electronic must have, the book is closed on that.
 
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Yeah, I think it's a dead end for mass consumption. And I'm someone who has been way interested in it since it was considered science fiction. It's arguably as big a tech dud as has been seen in my lifetime, when compared to what was imagined versus the impact it has made.

It's not like it doesn't work or isn't cool...people just ultimately don't care. If anything, we're moving further away from the ideas around it, as we went through and added 3D to tvs and phones and game systems...and then removed it due to minimal interest.

It's as if we finally got the flying cars we were promised, and everyone was like "huh. Ok cool. I don't want one."

I have a hard time believing that a generation that, as we've discussed, would just as soon watch The Avengers on a phone or a watch as on a 65" 4K HDR TV is ultimately going to find VR as a necessary advancement of entertainment technology.

Obviously it still holds plenty of promise for hardcore gaming, education, training, etc. I just think it's potential as the next mass consumer electronic must have, the book is closed on that.
I think if AR/VR takes off, it’ll be part of remote work and then someone will find other personal uses from there. I also don’t meant to imply that we’re knocking on the door of it now - but think about phones - cell phones started in the 80s as ridiculously expensive, huge things. By the late 90s, consumers had them, often for travel or work and then even though we had Palm Pilots and similar device and Blackberry, nobody really cared until the iPhone 3G came out. I could be wrong, but I do think there’s a lot of untapped potential that people will eventually care about.
 
Yeah, I think it's a dead end for mass consumption. And I'm someone who has been way interested in it since it was considered science fiction. It's arguably as big a tech dud as has been seen in my lifetime, when compared to what was imagined versus the impact it has made.

It's not like it doesn't work or isn't cool...people just ultimately don't care. If anything, we're moving further away from the ideas around it, as we went through and added 3D to tvs and phones and game systems...and then removed it due to minimal interest.

It's as if we finally got the flying cars we were promised, and everyone was like "huh. Ok cool. I don't want one."

I have a hard time believing that a generation that, as we've discussed, would just as soon watch The Avengers on a phone or a watch as on a 65" 4K HDR TV is ultimately going to find VR as a necessary advancement of entertainment technology.

Obviously it still holds plenty of promise for hardcore gaming, education, training, etc. I just think it's potential as the next mass consumer electronic must have, the book is closed on that.

Honestly I think a lot of what "movement" that we are going to see in the next 5 to 10 years is going to be the fallout and the death throes from all of the development that happened before.

I think a lot of specialty stores like Best Buy and the like are going to start going under. Walmart and Target and the general type stores that have a bit of everything will survive. But stores that sell almost exclusively durable goods in some markets are toast. 'Cause Amazon

I think Movie theaters are going to be in danger but probably not quite dead in 10 years. Some people I think will enjoy the experience of going to the movies which might keep some theaters alive but they are going to be hurting because movie companies are going to recognize they can make more money by just putting new movies that you can rent for $20 direct to streaming.

Cable companies and Dish companies are likely to start going under as streaming live TV takes over. My parents are talking about dropping Dish Network because they can get live TV via the internet for $50 a month cheaper.

I am thinking bio tech is where life is going to start changing. The kickoff might have been the use of MRNA to create the COVID vaccine.
 
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I think if AR/VR takes off, it’ll be part of remote work and then someone will find other personal uses from there. I also don’t meant to imply that we’re knocking on the door of it now - but think about phones - cell phones started in the 80s as ridiculously expensive, huge things. By the late 90s, consumers had them, often for travel or work and then even though we had Palm Pilots and similar device and Blackberry, nobody really cared until the iPhone 3G came out. I could be wrong, but I do think there’s a lot of untapped potential that people will eventually care about.

If that's the case I'm somewhat worried that we'll even more increasingly live our entire lives virtually. Which while beneficial in many ways has also in many ways been detrimental to society. I feel like this is why we have so many conspiracy theorists and extremists.
 
I will trust the super high end geeks at Microsoft, Amazon, or Google to get it fixed quicker than in house tech experts that may or may not have the skills, backup severs, quality software backups, and uninterrupted power supply’s.

the cloud makes more and more sense everyday.
Poof.
 
I fully admit that my view of it's usefulness could be limited but I feel like there isn't much use for VR outside of gaming. Like I don't see it as something that in 5 years everyone is going to own one. Hardcore gamers will but you might barely notice if you arn't a big gamer.

Eventually you may be able to watch sports from the stands on VR. For people who like to see more than what the broadcast view shows (defensive coverages, etc.), this would be popular.

Also VR will be huge for things like surgical and medical simulation. I see there is a new VR baseball simulator for hitters that will likely become popular as the technology improves. Lots of potential and useful applications for VR.

About 40 years ago, nobody understood why you would ever need a computer in your house except maybe to play games.
 
Does the death of consumer electronics mean I’ll soon not be able to access the masturbation superhighway???!!!!!!!!!
 
I still use old fashioned devices such as stereos. I've got damn good "minimal" gear, mostly stereo/sub setups in every room. I won't compromise on sound quality within my budget - I own the best gear I can afford - but as mentioned in this thread I've downsized to keep rooms less cluttered with gear. But as for media, I consume my stuff digitally - but in some fashion I have a hard copy of everything.

I want to own what I collect. It's that simple.



Around the early 2010's, as electronic formats and delivery kept changing at a dizzying pace - to me it did not make sense to "keep up" with that. For example, it did not make any sense to me at all to pay for a service to stream to me all my music I already owned when I had the capability via software to make my collection 100% mobile from a "how I use it" standpoint.

So, I've kept all my CD's, DVD's and BD's - I just don't use them. My home networks handle most my casual listening and viewing. I've digitalized my entire lifetime of video, from VCR stuff that is no longer available in any fashion, to DVD, to BD, to stuff that most people recorded onto their DVR (thereby making it roughly expirable, if you changed DVR's). And when I was a DTV customer, I recorded a massive amount of video in 1080i/DD...all I needed for all this were lots of hard drive space.

The new stuff I add are ripped BD's I rent, or the occasional CD purchase. I still record OTA using a PC in HD, and in analog from a Roku - mainly limited to Hawkeye sports any more.

I have a 400 disc CD player, I have a 400 disc DVD player. They work perfect. But for most stuff, I use Roku's or PC's. I own a nice 1970's turntable, but rarely use it (and am not adding new vinyl to my collection). I still own a single surround sound receiver for my home here and my cabin, but I use old school 1970's analog amplifiers for all my music listening.

Stereo was perfectly fine for me for 30 years, I see no reason why it still can't be that. As for video, I'm not missing much of anything in my main viewing rooms because I got great speakers and amplification - even though it's "only 2.1".



As for smart phones, I use mine mostly as a camera and phone - and the rare time I use it in a situation where I need to play music into something with it (like a friend's house). I also hot spot it at my cabin so I'm not paying $100 a month for DSL at a location I may tops be at 8 days per month.

A cell phone, for me, is a phone or camera. Very little else. I could use it for a lot more, but I simply don't need to.
 
And with all this we now have a population that spends much of their day staring into their phone.

Its no wonder people have no interpersonal or communication skills anymore.
 
But digital cameras as devices fell off the face of the earth. It's an extremely niche product now. Nobody is hoping to get a camera for a present at Christmas, or looking forward to their next camera.
Agree that a digital camera devices by themselves became niche. My point was that smartphones could have stopped at 10-12mp but that is not what consumers want. HDR, cinema quality video is now the norm and that all happened in the last 10-15 years. The fact that a smartphone device today dedicates a significant amount of real estate to the camera with multiple, telescopic lenses speaks to its overall importance. Higher quantities of higher quality pics and videos also demands larger local storage on the device as well as increased utilization of cloud storage. All of this I would call a significant innovation by itself (even though it resides in the phone category).
 
Interesting tweet thread that is specifically related to Silicon Valley and the collapse of SVB, but touches on an observation I've been making for several years now (I saw posts I made from 2019)...

Tech just isn't doing anything notable in the consumer space anymore, after absolutely transforming the world in my lifetime. I enjoyed this guy's thoughts in this thread...

(disclaimer...I have no idea who this guy is. If he's some alt-right bozo or "equity" grifter...don't care. Just thought it was interesting)

 
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Interesting tweet thread that is specifically related to Silicon Valley and the collapse of SVB, but touches on an observation I've been making for several years now (I saw posts I made from 2019)...

Tech just isn't doing anything notable in the consumer space anymore, after absolutely transforming the world in my lifetime. I enjoyed this guy's thoughts in this thread...

(disclaimer...I have no idea who this guy is. If he's some alt-right bozo or "equity" grifter...don't care. Just thought it was interesting)


And this addendum...

 
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One cool thing that we've got is really cheap, but still good HD projectors. I got the daughter an HD projector that she can use in her dorm room - it can connect to her laptop or cell phone - and it was $80. She doesn't have a TV in her room (although she does have a 32" monitor), and this lets her watch movies on a larger screen (the wall of her room). I couldn't have imagined that when I was in school and content watching TV on probably a 20" TV.

Like others have said, the innovations aren't the same as they were - they're no longer things you carry around with you - but they're all around your house, and they've changed everything about our lives.

Like checking the mail - when I was a kid, checking the mail every day was a huge deal. Now, between emails, electronic bill pay, and USPS informed delivery, I check the mail maybe once per week, just to clear out all the crap/junk mail that I already know is in there. If there was a way to opt out of junk mail and the free local town papers, we could probably do away with needing a mail box any longer.
 
Batteries, tracking devices, noise cancelling in-ear headphones. The advances are all in the smartphone ecosystem.

Also, robot vacuums have gotten really good.
 
Batteries, tracking devices, noise cancelling in-ear headphones. The advances are all in the smartphone ecosystem.

Also, robot vacuums have gotten really good.

I'd say the first list are things that are improvements in things we have had for a bit, and the improvements don't make a noticeable impact on a broad segment of the population. For enthusiasts, sure.

As for vacuums, yep. I think you can make a case that most of the consumer gadgetry impact in recent years has been in the home/kitchen space. Robotic vacuums, insta pots, air fryers, pellet smokers. Those are much closer to broad adoption/changing lifestyles than anything in the home entertainment/home productivity space recently.
 
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I fully admit that my view of it's usefulness could be limited but I feel like there isn't much use for VR outside of gaming. Like I don't see it as something that in 5 years everyone is going to own one. Hardcore gamers will but you might barely notice if you arn't a big gamer.
There are educational uses for it. Like, if you want to show your students what a Roman Forum looked like in its prime or something, but yeah, beyond those things I don't see a whole lot of use for it. I don't think there will ever be VR "movies" because being inside the entertainment kind of demands interactivity and then you have a video game.
 
One cool thing that we've got is really cheap, but still good HD projectors. I got the daughter an HD projector that she can use in her dorm room - it can connect to her laptop or cell phone - and it was $80. She doesn't have a TV in her room (although she does have a 32" monitor), and this lets her watch movies on a larger screen (the wall of her room). I couldn't have imagined that when I was in school and content watching TV on probably a 20" TV.

Like others have said, the innovations aren't the same as they were - they're no longer things you carry around with you - but they're all around your house, and they've changed everything about our lives.

Like checking the mail - when I was a kid, checking the mail every day was a huge deal. Now, between emails, electronic bill pay, and USPS informed delivery, I check the mail maybe once per week, just to clear out all the crap/junk mail that I already know is in there. If there was a way to opt out of junk mail and the free local town papers, we could probably do away with needing a mail box any longer.
The big move is the IoT, but we've been talking about this for a while. Unfortunately few companies have made a product that actually makes things easier.

However, if we can do AI without destroying the world, something like that may make some major changes for people?
 
Right, cameras now are cell phones and pro-level digital SLRs. I think it's actually helped development of the high-end cameras because they have to stay better than the phones.

Most high end cameras are pointed directly towards upper tier professional use anymore,... Anybody not in that realm is generally satisfied with the camera capability provided by their phone.
 
Most high end cameras are pointed directly towards upper tier professional use anymore,... Anybody not in that realm is generally satisfied with the camera capability provided by their phone.
yeah, the major advance has been that everything we've had as separate devices have moved to our cell phones. And that is better, but they've been iterative steps rather than massive leaps forward.
 
However, if we can do AI without destroying the world, something like that may make some major changes for people?
When we get real local AI processing, it’ll change everything. It’ll have a bigger effect on compression than ‘Middle-Out’ technology.
 
When we get real local AI processing, it’ll change everything. It’ll have a bigger effect on compression than ‘Middle-Out’ technology.
I've been following an interesting thread over the last few days where someone is using AI to help make as much money with 100 as possible. He's following it's steps exactly as defined. Will be interesting to see where it goes.
 
I've been following an interesting thread over the last few days where someone is using AI to help make as much money with 100 as possible. He's following it's steps exactly as defined. Will be interesting to see where it goes.
AI isn’t necessarily new in the finance space. There are high frequency algorithms that “learn” and develop.

One nice thing that will come with AI for the retail investor is that it will take a lot of the emotion out of investing.
 
AI isn’t necessarily new in the finance space. There are high frequency algorithms that “learn” and develop.

One nice thing that will come with AI for the retail investor is that it will take a lot of the emotion out of investing.
Well algorithms and AI are two different things. Algorithms always work in an expected pattern analyzing very specific, although potentially complex set of scenarios and responding as expected. AI is self learning and essentially self programming. So give it a specific question and it will analyze everything and attempt to determine it's own solutions which may often be unexpected. The problem is that we don't truly understand how AI thinks. Heck, in some scenarios, we found AI that developed it's own language and started communicating with other nodes. It's developers didn't understand the communication.

So will they devise things that truly make the world better, or will they create a cold/calculated approach that makes all worse.
 
Well algorithms and AI are two different things. Algorithms always work in an expected pattern analyzing very specific, although potentially complex set of scenarios and responding as expected. AI is self learning and essentially self programming. So give it a specific question and it will analyze everything and attempt to determine it's own solutions which may often be unexpected. The problem is that we don't truly understand how AI thinks. Heck, in some scenarios, we found AI that developed it's own language and started communicating with other nodes. It's developers didn't understand the communication.

So will they devise things that truly make the world better, or will they create a cold/calculated approach that makes all worse.
Our current computers are deterministic. Everything a computer does is the result of algorithmic design. You can teach the computer to teach itself, but it’s still operating within modern computational boundaries.

AI can’t generate a truly random number.
 
Our current computers are deterministic. Everything a computer does is the result of algorithmic design. You can teach the computer to teach itself, but it’s still operating within modern computational boundaries.

AI can’t generate a truly random number.
I mean that's true of anything that learns though. Our brains have an algorithmic design (Whether you think it's divine or natural); but there's a design behind how human brains work. And I'm not certain I can truly generate a random number without outside forces either. My brain naturally always draws to numbers with a 7 in them and then I force myself to choose another if I'm picking a number. I mean I could roll a dice, but so could a computer.
 
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