Gadgetory

here at CNET we're always looking ahead to the next technology the next gadget the next app we don't waste a lot of time getting sentimental about last year's tech or even that thing that was crazy hot just a month ago but at some point you have to turn around and marvel it all the technology that our lives used to revolve around that are now obsolete and I guess you're wondering about what gadgets we use today that our kids will only read about in history books assuming they still have history books I'm Donald Bell and in this top 5 I'll be counting down the five technologies we use now that will soon be obsolete starting off at number five the home printer now maybe this is just wishful thinking because I seriously hate these things you plug them in over USB and spend the next 20 minutes chasing down the driver you try to set them up over a protected Wi-Fi network and it's like diffusing a bomb as we move away from conventional computers and towards a life where there's an always connected screen in our pockets all the time the compulsion to print something out at home will disappear and that flashing lo8 indicator will just go unheeded until you mercifully pull the plug coming in at number four keyboards you laugh now but take a look around today's kids are growing up with iPads as their first computers and not only are they totally at home on a touchscreen but features like predictive text and autocorrect are as expected as caps lock also as anyone notice how dictations software has become really good in the past few years and it's now part of both Android and iOS now you'll have to pry my crusty keyboard from my cold dead hands but it won't change the fact that the computer keyboard as we know it is going the way of the typewriter let you throw the mouse in there with it at number three hard drives at least hard disk drives those spinning whirring hard drives that are still found in the majority of computers these days now you can buy a one terabyte hard drive right now for under $80 but who cares your music collections out on Spotify your photos are all on Flickr and your documents are all on Google Drive for everything else solid-state drives are quickly becoming the norm they're fast and there so the hard-disk was taken out by a ninja but at least it will be a relatively painless death compared to this next guy who I think is still in denial at number two the pocket camera now that it's almost impossible to buy a cell phone that isn't a smartphone everyone suddenly has a decent camera on them at all times and they don't really need another one now sure the lens may not be as great and the storage may not be much but it's always on you and you can always use it to blast out an Instagram of your lunch and the time it takes you to pick up your fork what's sad is that there's actually some amazing compact cameras out there right now but unless something happens to suddenly kill off the smartphone the pocket camera is going the way of the dodo bird now before we get to the number one soon to be obsolete technology on this list let's take a moment of silence for the gadgets that have recently fallen into obscurity I still miss my Zune all right and now the number one technology we live with today but will soon disappear sooner than you think optical discs DVDs CDs video games even blu-rays not only are we streaming and downloading most things these days but the big media companies would be all too happy to stop manufacturing a resellable disc that they can't wrap their drm around on the plus side these things weren't such a great format to begin with I mean how many movie nights have been ruined by a hairline scratch caused by just putting the DVD on a table it's enough to make you yearn for the days of VHS so there you go 5 technologies you'll be telling your grandkids about assume you can get them to tick off their Google Goggles and pay attention to your old boring stories for more than 5 minutes more ways to waste everyone's time head over to top-5 cnet.com i'm donald bell thanks for watching you