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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is
Speaker 1: Chris Polette. And I am an editor at how Stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Sitting across from me as always the
Speaker 1: senior writer, Jonathan Strickland. He was an old man who
Speaker 1: fished alone in the skiff in the Gulf stream and
Speaker 1: he had gone eighty four days now without taking a fish. Okay, then,
Speaker 1: obviously the first line to two thousand one A Space Odyssey,
Speaker 1: I thought that was the uh the intro to Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones. Yes, yes, fish is coming all right? So, uh,
Speaker 1: we're actually a dark picture? Are are still sharp? Our
Speaker 1: episode today comes courtesy of a listener, and this one
Speaker 1: is a message from Twitter. So let's hear that tweeting
Speaker 1: sound effect. I think I actually heard our producers say,
Speaker 1: do do do out there? Tet it tweet tweet tweet lovely.
Speaker 1: I hope that. I hope that's what we use. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I won't know until I get to listen to this later.
Speaker 1: But this comes to us from Wayne P. Seventy two,
Speaker 1: who says, I would love to hear a show on
Speaker 1: old tech that won't go away. I E the facts. Well,
Speaker 1: we are going to do an episode about that, but
Speaker 1: not one on just the facts. I wanted to do that.
Speaker 1: You know, we might get sued I was wondering. I
Speaker 1: was looking at him like, is he gonna do it?
Speaker 1: He's not our guy Friday. So anyway, we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about technology that a lot of people feel,
Speaker 1: or at least some people feel, or at least we
Speaker 1: at tech stuff feel has run its course and yet
Speaker 1: it's still around. Yes, and is one of those. So
Speaker 1: we actually had a couple that we thought about that
Speaker 1: we ended up deciding not to include in this list,
Speaker 1: but we should go ahead and mention them. But because
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago they may have made the list, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. And it's funny because right before we were
Speaker 1: we were going to record, we were talking about how
Speaker 1: we had done an episode on abandoned ware, which is
Speaker 1: stuff that, uh, people just give up on. Yeah, usually
Speaker 1: it's a company that gives up on it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the stuff that people no longer even bother using
Speaker 1: and it's just sort of part of history. This is
Speaker 1: the opposite this people will not let go of. And
Speaker 1: the two that we were thinking of that we did
Speaker 1: not include because we just feel that they've both kind
Speaker 1: of faded away enough so that it's a very small
Speaker 1: percentage of people that still hold onto These are pagers,
Speaker 1: which you know, sometimes some people like people, especially folks
Speaker 1: in like the medical field or whatever. We'll still use them,
Speaker 1: but pages have pretty much been replaced by cell phones
Speaker 1: and smartphones, and p d as also replaced primarily by smartphones.
Speaker 1: Personal digital assistance, not public displays of affection. Those will
Speaker 1: never go out of style smoogy smodgy. So those are
Speaker 1: the two that we almost included but didn't because we
Speaker 1: feel that there's just not enough of a population supporting
Speaker 1: them to merit being on this list. Ye. Well, so, uh,
Speaker 1: since Wayne brought this up, we probably should go ahead
Speaker 1: and start with fax machines. And yeah, I mean the
Speaker 1: fax machine still used in many many offices. You still
Speaker 1: see people's facts numbers. You know, there's one out there
Speaker 1: in the office. I've actually used it quite a few times. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, I mean, well, it uses you know,
Speaker 1: of course, it uses a similar imaging technology to a
Speaker 1: scanner or a copier machine. Um, there's nothing really wrong
Speaker 1: with it. It Uh, you know, it has a modem
Speaker 1: that that's the that's part of the problem. I think
Speaker 1: it has a mote a minute and uh, you know
Speaker 1: when you when you scan some stuff and it saves
Speaker 1: it in memory. These days it does anyway. You don't
Speaker 1: have to put it in one page at a time,
Speaker 1: although you used to, um where you put it on
Speaker 1: there and it would It dials a number and makes
Speaker 1: a connection with the fax machine on the other side,
Speaker 1: just like you, uh with a dial up internet connection. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a handshake between the two devices. They
Speaker 1: agree on the protocol and it says, okay, go ahead
Speaker 1: and send your whatever message this is going to be.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, the facts either takes the information
Speaker 1: from memory or it scans each page individually and sends
Speaker 1: it along down the line really slowly. Receiving machine receives
Speaker 1: that information, decodes, it changes it into the type of
Speaker 1: information it needs in order to print prints to some paper,
Speaker 1: and then you have the facts on the other end,
Speaker 1: which somebody puts in a tray and it never gets
Speaker 1: to the person that's supposed to Did you ever have
Speaker 1: to use a facts machine that had a roll of
Speaker 1: paper as a basted individual sheets. Yeah, they had the
Speaker 1: thermal printers and of course that that just curls up. Yes,
Speaker 1: also it's coated with Yes. I do not miss those days.
Speaker 1: So today, what will we do instead. Right, What we
Speaker 1: could do is, let's say we have a scanner and
Speaker 1: we a scan a document in and send it via
Speaker 1: change it over to say a PDF format, which is
Speaker 1: readily available. It's easy to find a reader for PDF,
Speaker 1: a lot of free reader a free reader, and a
Speaker 1: lot of word processing programs and things are capable of
Speaker 1: reading a PDF file and uh, you just send that
Speaker 1: via email and you don't have to worry about wasting
Speaker 1: paper or any of that mess or if say a
Speaker 1: facts machine is busy with a with a call, then
Speaker 1: you won't get a rejection and have to try it again.
Speaker 1: That's another thing that can be kind of irritating with
Speaker 1: sending a fact. Let's say you've got like a twenty
Speaker 1: page facts and you start going through and you don't
Speaker 1: know until it's gone through all twenty pages stored in
Speaker 1: a memory and tried to send it that it didn't
Speaker 1: go through successfully. Maybe you didn't put in the number correctly,
Speaker 1: maybe the machine on the other end is not turned
Speaker 1: on properly, or it's or it's busy, and then you
Speaker 1: have to try and do it again. Yes, it's so irritating,
Speaker 1: but then you know, yeah, scanning it and sending it
Speaker 1: by via PDF. Much much more paper friendly anyway, you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about wasting so much paper, and
Speaker 1: also it's not so time consuming. That being said, I
Speaker 1: still facts things because often some of the conferences I
Speaker 1: go to request that they send credentials, and I have
Speaker 1: to send them via fax. Uh, not all of them
Speaker 1: except email. Plus, depending upon your access to a scanner
Speaker 1: or a copier that can have scanning functionality, you may
Speaker 1: not have that luxury. So I think fax machine is
Speaker 1: kind of borderline on this. Because there is technology out
Speaker 1: there that can do stuff that would replace the fax machine.
Speaker 1: I don't know that it's propagated widely enough yet for
Speaker 1: it to really happen, especially for small businesses. For large businesses,
Speaker 1: almost all of them have some sort of scanner or
Speaker 1: copier that can can replace a fax machine. I think
Speaker 1: we're on the verge of this. This Beaten a technology
Speaker 1: that's like that, but it's uh, it's far enough along
Speaker 1: the way that you could you could make the argument.
Speaker 1: I think it's a valid a valid argumentum to include
Speaker 1: it on this list. But there's some other stuff I
Speaker 1: think that that merits that hit me with one. Well,
Speaker 1: this one is also on the verge landlines. Yeah, landlines. Again,
Speaker 1: more and more people are abandoning a landline in favor
Speaker 1: of just having a cell phone because you know, for
Speaker 1: one thing, a lot of people don't want to have
Speaker 1: to deal with two different phone bills or have like
Speaker 1: something packaged up where they have fewer choices. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of services out there that will
Speaker 1: package a cell phone and landline, uh uh, offering right
Speaker 1: where you can get with a bundle. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: get bundled, but then you are limited to whatever options
Speaker 1: they have. You don't you can't just go out and say, oh,
Speaker 1: I happen to really love this one particular phone, I
Speaker 1: want that to go with this plan. That's not the
Speaker 1: way that works. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: think you see that primarily from companies that offer both
Speaker 1: land lines, and you know that you don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of cell phone providers going, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into the landline business. Yeah, it's not well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to edge into that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: landlines are starting to kind of disappear. Now. There are
Speaker 1: some legitimate reasons why keeping a landline around is not
Speaker 1: a bad idea, Like emergency calls. Emergency calls is a
Speaker 1: big one because your call can be traced to your
Speaker 1: location very easily over a landline, so that let's say
Speaker 1: there's an emergency where you can't even vocalize maybe, which
Speaker 1: can happen sometimes dialing an emergency number, that's all you
Speaker 1: might be able to do. Well with a landline, they
Speaker 1: are going to be able to find you. With a
Speaker 1: cell phone or smartphone, they may not be able to
Speaker 1: get your location as accurately as they could with over
Speaker 1: a landline or even a voipe line. You'll find out
Speaker 1: that a lot of voice services have issues with calling
Speaker 1: emergency services. That being said that you can usually get
Speaker 1: a landline phone and plug it into any outlet and
Speaker 1: it will still allow you to make an emergency call
Speaker 1: even if you don't have a landline account, so you
Speaker 1: can still make a call to it well in the
Speaker 1: United States of a call to nine one, for example,
Speaker 1: UM and the UK, that number is a really really
Speaker 1: long one according to the I T Crowd and you
Speaker 1: have to sing it to a song. But anyway, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. It's it's an episode that anyone who's watched
Speaker 1: the I T Crowd will get that. Anyone who hasn't
Speaker 1: you should go watch the I T Crowd because it's
Speaker 1: awesome or the crowd if you prefer anyway. The the
Speaker 1: other reason besides for emergencies is uh is that it's
Speaker 1: something that if there's a power outage on cell service,
Speaker 1: you haven't you have an alternate means of communication. So
Speaker 1: not just personal emergencies, but regional emergencies. It's a good
Speaker 1: thing to have. That being said, I think there it
Speaker 1: is more common to run into people who have just
Speaker 1: adopted the cell phone only approach. I mean, my household
Speaker 1: is that way, so yeah, I can take it with
Speaker 1: you and you know, you you have your phone no
Speaker 1: matter where you are, so when you're at home, you
Speaker 1: have your phone. Well then, and the phone itself is
Speaker 1: really for a lot of people, myself included, it's it's
Speaker 1: transitioning into a device that I used to access the
Speaker 1: Internet more than I used to for voice communication, because
Speaker 1: almost all my communication now, or a lot of my
Speaker 1: communication now is through text messages, email, and social networking services.
Speaker 1: It's it's you know, I usually make two or three
Speaker 1: calls a day, but they're very short and they're usually
Speaker 1: between me and my wife, um, mostly me apologizing for
Speaker 1: something stupid I've done. I'm sorry, baby, that's all every
Speaker 1: single conversation starts. It's amazing. I've actually heard one side
Speaker 1: of that conversation before. Ye. Well, yeah, it's not a
Speaker 1: rare thing. So so do you have a list about
Speaker 1: this calculators adding machines because computers do it, smartphones do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got a lot of calculators built into
Speaker 1: other devices, So to see a standalone calculator is kind
Speaker 1: of interesting in the sense, you know, we have that,
Speaker 1: we have the technology at our fingertips almost all the time,
Speaker 1: So why do we need stand alone calculators apart from
Speaker 1: scientific calculators, which I meant a lot of a lot. Again,
Speaker 1: a lot of computers and smartphones can do that. You
Speaker 1: just have to get the apps for it. But I
Speaker 1: can understand someone wanting one of those as opposed to
Speaker 1: a phone. And there's certain applications where I can I
Speaker 1: can be a little more lenient. For example, let's say
Speaker 1: that you are in a university class and you have
Speaker 1: a final, and you're allowed to have a calculator next
Speaker 1: to your your work on your final. You might not
Speaker 1: be allowed to have a smartphone because you might use
Speaker 1: the smartphone to cheat. Right, So in that case, I
Speaker 1: can that's that's a speci a thic case where I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I understand that. But for a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that we use calculators for, either a calculator
Speaker 1: program on a computer or smartphone or a spreadsheet can
Speaker 1: do all of that work. Sometimes in a way that's
Speaker 1: much easier because you can do things like in a spreadsheet,
Speaker 1: you can copy and paste formulas so that you don't
Speaker 1: have to keep entering in the same thing over and
Speaker 1: over for different calculations. You just you just cutting paste
Speaker 1: or copy and paste rather not cutting paste. Um. So
Speaker 1: to me, though, that's another old technology that I'm surprised
Speaker 1: is still around, at least in the at the level
Speaker 1: that it's still around. How about you got another one? Well, um,
Speaker 1: to stick with our earlier topic, the phone book. Ah, yes,
Speaker 1: the yellow pages. Why why does that exist? Why are
Speaker 1: we killing trees? Well, because not everyone has access to
Speaker 1: the you know, the Internet, although you could argue that
Speaker 1: they would also have access to it, um, you know,
Speaker 1: by calling and you know, checking in with directory assistance.
Speaker 1: I think though that, you know, I think that's a
Speaker 1: safe argument for printing the phone book Now the question
Speaker 1: is do they need to here in the United States.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they do it everywhere else in
Speaker 1: the world. Here in the United States, at least where
Speaker 1: we are, they deliver a phone book to everybody's house. Yes,
Speaker 1: there should be an opt out, Yes, what it would
Speaker 1: be nice to have people, uh opt in, So yes,
Speaker 1: I do want the phone book, or really an opt
Speaker 1: out would probably be better. But that way you can
Speaker 1: start with. Yeah, that way you could say, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got the Internet, I can look up stuff on
Speaker 1: their Uh, I've got all the numbers I need of
Speaker 1: the friends I have. Um, a lot of my friends
Speaker 1: aren't listed in the phone book, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: want to be listed there. So the businesses almost all
Speaker 1: have some sort of web presence need that they don't.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of online directories that take the
Speaker 1: place of Yellow Pages. So yeah, that's one of those
Speaker 1: things where I think I would love to not see that. Now,
Speaker 1: it does raise the question that if we were to
Speaker 1: enact that, we being christened myself, you know, because we
Speaker 1: have that kind of power. So tech stuff enacts this
Speaker 1: thing where we were able to opt out of the
Speaker 1: Yellow Pages delivery. If enough people opted out. Then would
Speaker 1: that change the economy of scale of producing the Yellow
Speaker 1: Pages so that producing a fewer amount for for the
Speaker 1: people who stay in is actually more expensive per book,
Speaker 1: and therefore it becomes a problem, uh to fund the
Speaker 1: printing of the Yellow Pages. Yeah, yeah, well, of course
Speaker 1: part of the we make it up in volume is
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Part of the part of the problem
Speaker 1: there is that the Yellow Pages makes its money from advertising.
Speaker 1: UM those those big ads that did you see on
Speaker 1: different places for you know, when you go look up
Speaker 1: the plumber or or somebody else moving company and you
Speaker 1: see the full page ads they paid, you know, to
Speaker 1: reach a certain number of people. All we're going to
Speaker 1: print two million copies of this Okay, maybe that that's
Speaker 1: kind of large. There. We're gonna print five thousand copies
Speaker 1: of this, UM and so your your ad is going
Speaker 1: to be there in everyone's home that we deliver this
Speaker 1: to UM. If they said, okay, well we're only going
Speaker 1: to print ten thousand of these books for people who
Speaker 1: really need them, then they advertise they can't command that
Speaker 1: kind of price. So you know, I don't think we're
Speaker 1: going to be able to talk him out of dropping
Speaker 1: them off on our door because I promptly put them
Speaker 1: in the recycle bin. But yeah, so here's here's a
Speaker 1: similar thing to that, you know, in the sense that
Speaker 1: you know, I know the reason why they're still around.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of again a dying thing. CDs that
Speaker 1: you need to install programs. Yes, and they're and they're
Speaker 1: really similar when you get right down to it. Um.
Speaker 1: In both cases, not everyone has the technology they need
Speaker 1: to get the information an alternate way. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, they're ying computers now that
Speaker 1: may not even have an optical drive, so there's no
Speaker 1: use for that CD. It's just it's d or DVD. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just taking up space because there's no way to
Speaker 1: put that in your machine. You what you would need
Speaker 1: is some sort of USB drive or you would have
Speaker 1: to connect to the internet and download whatever drivers you
Speaker 1: might need for something, as opposed to having a CD
Speaker 1: for it. And um, I would love to see thumb
Speaker 1: drives take the place of those, just for saving space.
Speaker 1: Plus the fact that if you can wipe whatever is
Speaker 1: on that thumb drive off if you don't need it,
Speaker 1: then you've got some extra storage space. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that I do that frequently, I'm just saying I've got
Speaker 1: a lot of thumb drives. Yeah, yeah, with a lot
Speaker 1: of logos on them. Well, that we're getting towards the
Speaker 1: end of my list, to the point where, um, I've
Speaker 1: I've got it. I've got more on here. But those
Speaker 1: are the things that we talked about so far. Um
Speaker 1: are I think is that we sort of think about that, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, man, why do people have that? Then you
Speaker 1: realize that, well, really there are quite quite a number
Speaker 1: of people that still depend on those. More of those
Speaker 1: because I have CDs and DVDs in general, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think fall into that category. Uh, and even blue rays
Speaker 1: at some to some extent, um, I think these are
Speaker 1: not as far along, say the Yellow Pages, but um yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and a lot of companies are very concerned
Speaker 1: about the fact that these are technologies that are slowly
Speaker 1: becoming obsolete and uh, digital distribution is becoming the the
Speaker 1: like buzz phrase for entertainment, uh, and that that causes
Speaker 1: concern for multiple industries. Right. Well, Netflix, it's awesome. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing is, though, they tripped on it because on
Speaker 1: this very thing, because they were ready to move to
Speaker 1: digital digital distribution. People aren't ready. People are not ready yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a balance you have to strike between pushing
Speaker 1: people toward a new technology and writing out the waves
Speaker 1: so that you don't alienate your customer base. Right, But
Speaker 1: the people I think, or the organizations that I think,
Speaker 1: are really concerned with this. You have the m p
Speaker 1: a A, the r i a A. So that's the
Speaker 1: Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association America.
Speaker 1: So you've got these two different major organizations that have
Speaker 1: lots and lots of really big companies in them, and
Speaker 1: they're very much concerned about this because they make a
Speaker 1: lot of money selling physical media, actual physical products that
Speaker 1: have content on them, whether they're movies, television shows, music, whatever, books, books.
Speaker 1: So moving from that to a digital one scares a
Speaker 1: lot of companies for legitimate reso. We're not saying that there.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't be scared. Um. And then you've got retail organizations.
Speaker 1: So we've already seen in the United States several retail
Speaker 1: organizations in the last few years go belly up becau guys.
Speaker 1: They cannot compete with the digital distribution method. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to find a record store anymore. Right, you
Speaker 1: walk into a Best Buy and suddenly all the music
Speaker 1: and movies aren't front and center like they used to be.
Speaker 1: You know, it used to be that as soon as
Speaker 1: you walked into the store, all of that was front
Speaker 1: loaded right there at the very beginning of the store,
Speaker 1: so you had to walk through it. Well. As digital
Speaker 1: distribution gets more and more popular, that section moves further
Speaker 1: and further back in the store. And there's a reason
Speaker 1: for that. It's because you can't have that be the
Speaker 1: focus of your store when that whole business model is
Speaker 1: starting to deteriorate. So I put that along the same
Speaker 1: lines as the installation CDs and the Yellow Pages. It
Speaker 1: is just it's not quite far as far along. I
Speaker 1: mean again, if you don't have a broadband connection, then
Speaker 1: physical media is the way to go, because you just
Speaker 1: you cannot physically get the information you need to be
Speaker 1: able to watch the content or listen to the content
Speaker 1: you want at a good enough quality, Otherwise you're gonna
Speaker 1: be buffering every thirty seconds. Trust me, I know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Until recently that was me. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Then there are other technologies that I think kind of
Speaker 1: died out and then came back. Well, there's one that
Speaker 1: that needs to go, especially here in the United States.
Speaker 1: Hit me incandescent light bulbs. It's a good one. I
Speaker 1: didn't have that on my list. Yep, the the good
Speaker 1: old light bulb that has its roots in um Edison's
Speaker 1: and other people's work. A lot of people say that
Speaker 1: Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb. Um he improved
Speaker 1: upon a design. Yeah, well he was instrumental though, and
Speaker 1: getting it into our homes without Without him, whenever we
Speaker 1: had a bright idea, we'd have no way of putting, uh,
Speaker 1: some sort of indicator around our heads to let people
Speaker 1: know we had a bright idea. Yeah, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't he didn't hear that little pinkish and the little
Speaker 1: light bulb over be like it would be like something
Speaker 1: like you know, a tweet anyhow. Um, yeah, they I
Speaker 1: mean they use a lot more electricity, they give off
Speaker 1: a lot more heat. Um was you know, wasted energy. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and other products have come along that are superior
Speaker 1: toward it to it, fluorescence and L E. D s. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course fluorescence now they have their own problems. Of course,
Speaker 1: there is mercury in them. Uh. You don't want to
Speaker 1: just go around smashing fluorescence on the stuff and yes,
Speaker 1: so LEDs are very expensive, but they last a whole
Speaker 1: lot longer and use a lot less electricity. Um, so
Speaker 1: you know, they're still we're still in that transition phase,
Speaker 1: but we don't have to use incandescence in Some societies
Speaker 1: have already outlawed them. The United States is moving away
Speaker 1: from them, and of course it's a big country. There
Speaker 1: are lots of people. Unfortunately they're dirt cheap. Um. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's that's the you know, when you get the economics involved,
Speaker 1: people might say, I understand why you want us to
Speaker 1: move away from these, but the is are affordable to us.
Speaker 1: Even if you present the argument of well, a fluorescent
Speaker 1: light bulb is going to last longer, therefore you're going
Speaker 1: to have to buy fewer of them, and then the
Speaker 1: economy ends up paying out in the long run. Some
Speaker 1: people are living in a short term kind of lifestyle
Speaker 1: through no fault of their own. They are. They cannot
Speaker 1: look that far ahead because that's not the way the
Speaker 1: economy works out for them. I've been there too. I've
Speaker 1: been in that situation where it's paycheck to paycheck, and
Speaker 1: you do you think, well, I would love to be
Speaker 1: more environmentally friendly, and I would love to have something
Speaker 1: that's going to last longer, but I honestly cannot put
Speaker 1: that in my budget. Right, It's tough. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be much longer though, Nope. Before there's no choice
Speaker 1: in the matter. So yeah, that's a good one. Uh well,
Speaker 1: there's the technology I was talking about that that essentially
Speaker 1: died out and has been never really die now, but
Speaker 1: it definitely faded away and then has come back. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I'm talking about in the operating system
Speaker 1: that just won't die? No, I'm not, but we can
Speaker 1: talk about that. Okay, So you're talking about XP, Windows XP,
Speaker 1: Windows XP. Alright. So Windows XP was one of those
Speaker 1: things that got widespread adoption, particularly in the business world. Well,
Speaker 1: it was such an improvement on its predecessor, you know,
Speaker 1: Windows two thousands, and uh yeah, I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a functional system. Let's you know, let's face it,
Speaker 1: you know, taking everything aside. If you you put all
Speaker 1: the operating systems together on the table, XP is a
Speaker 1: great operating system. It's it's in general, it's pretty stable.
Speaker 1: There's a work course, it's a workhorse. So many companies
Speaker 1: have standard on XP, standardized on XP that they're they're
Speaker 1: comfortable with it, and that I think is the reason
Speaker 1: it's stuck around is really the corporate world. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I used to work for a company that would stay
Speaker 1: one generation of Windows back from what the cutting edge
Speaker 1: was because everything was stable. They got it where it
Speaker 1: was working. They had thousands of people to support, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to make sure all the service packs were
Speaker 1: out before they would date to the next operating Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you had if you have thousands of employees for
Speaker 1: your company, then you want you want something that's going
Speaker 1: to be stable, because if you start having failure, is
Speaker 1: you're going to spend more time responding to two problems
Speaker 1: than you can doing business. And that's just not a
Speaker 1: very smart way of doing things. So staying with a
Speaker 1: tried and true system makes sense. This is somewhat complicated
Speaker 1: by the fact that even though we're at Windows seven,
Speaker 1: so we're two generations beyond Windows XP. Now Windows Vista
Speaker 1: has a stigma on it about being an undependable, over inflated,
Speaker 1: difficult to use operating system. Now, some of the problems
Speaker 1: that Vista had early on were addressed by Microsoft, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's it's a different system than it was when
Speaker 1: it debuted. But that being said, that first impression was
Speaker 1: so negative that a lot of companies just that was
Speaker 1: that's where they drew the line is that we are
Speaker 1: not going to Windows Vista because it's just too many
Speaker 1: there are too many problems. Beyond that, though, related related
Speaker 1: term to this outdated technology idea is the legacy system.
Speaker 1: So a legacy system is a is any kind of system,
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be technology, but in technology, what we're
Speaker 1: talking about is some sort of system that is a
Speaker 1: core component of the way a business does business, and
Speaker 1: you want to keep that core component going, and replacing
Speaker 1: it would mean having to to to well reinvent a
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of your business. So let's say you've
Speaker 1: got some sort of computer program that is instrumental to
Speaker 1: what you do, and it runs perfectly on Windows XP.
Speaker 1: That's the that's the foundation that it was built for.
Speaker 1: So then when the new operating systems come out, they
Speaker 1: may not support that legacy system, so you are forced
Speaker 1: to stay with an older operating system or else you
Speaker 1: can't do business. So that's one reason why a lot
Speaker 1: of the companies are still on Windows XP. They have
Speaker 1: some sort of program, software application that runs on XP
Speaker 1: and will not run on anything else. And in order
Speaker 1: for them to be able to run on something else,
Speaker 1: they'd have to pour so many resources into building a
Speaker 1: new tool that does the same thing that they're old tool,
Speaker 1: which is still working perfectly fine for what they need.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't make sense, you know, that much time,
Speaker 1: money and effort. You could say, well, we could put
Speaker 1: that towards this and then update all our systems and
Speaker 1: then hope everything works, or we could stick with what
Speaker 1: we have and just concentrate doing business. Yea. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you have Windows seven at home and
Speaker 1: XP at work, you may be frustrated by this, but
Speaker 1: that you're not really the person that is the most frustrated,
Speaker 1: because people who are most frustrated by this are the
Speaker 1: ones working in Redmond, Washington at Microsoft who have been
Speaker 1: trying to convince both uh, you know, the the casual
Speaker 1: user and the corporate user to switch over to Windows seven. Yes,
Speaker 1: and the thing is Windows XP just works. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: now Microsoft has stopped supporting it and then and they're
Speaker 1: they've they've basically said, look, we're not going to do
Speaker 1: anything for you. They don't distribute it anymore. Really, it's
Speaker 1: an eleven year old operating system. That said. In researching
Speaker 1: this yesterday, Jonathan and I ran across some very interesting news.
Speaker 1: There's an article in zd net Australia that quoted statistics
Speaker 1: from net applications in December and Windows XP is the
Speaker 1: dominant operating system out there. It had forty six point
Speaker 1: five of market share and in January it had forty
Speaker 1: seven point one nine market share. Windows XP is growing,
Speaker 1: is continuing to increase an adoption rate. Excuse me for
Speaker 1: a second while I banged my head against the microphone.
Speaker 1: Carry on. Um So anyhow, Vista is in third place
Speaker 1: among the Window operating systems, and Windows seven is increasing
Speaker 1: as well. Um but imagining that and operating system has
Speaker 1: been discontinued is technically no longer supported, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's increasing in market share. That's kind of impressive. That's
Speaker 1: not the worst of it, though. That's the XP story
Speaker 1: is is that's that's kind of mind blowing. But that's
Speaker 1: not the most mind blowing story. You sent no, no, no,
Speaker 1: And and this is the thing is these these two
Speaker 1: are tied together, and those of you in the know
Speaker 1: are gonna go, oh um, but but no. The reason
Speaker 1: I mentioned XP first is because Windows XP works, it
Speaker 1: does what it's supposed to, it's stable, it's pretty secure.
Speaker 1: But in contrast, contrast, there's another technology that Microsoft would
Speaker 1: really really really really like to see end of life
Speaker 1: by everyone, and for very good reasons, and yet it
Speaker 1: so increased in market share. Please please go ahead and
Speaker 1: reveal what it was. Internet Explore six. Uh. Internet Explore
Speaker 1: six also increase in adoption rate. Um so Internet Explores
Speaker 1: six Now that words fail me? Really, um they've they've
Speaker 1: Microsoft has tried its best to kill it's not. It's
Speaker 1: it's not a safe system to use. It's not. And
Speaker 1: websites will warn you when you go on. There are
Speaker 1: websites as you can't see if you have Internet Explorer six,
Speaker 1: you try and go to the website and you won't
Speaker 1: be able to view it. Please, if you're using I
Speaker 1: E six, update, please please try anything, try the newest
Speaker 1: version of Internet Explorer. We're not even telling you to
Speaker 1: switch brands. You can. You can update to the latest
Speaker 1: version of Internet Explore and there's going to be a
Speaker 1: world of difference. The only reason I could see anyone
Speaker 1: using i E six is that they have a machine
Speaker 1: too old to run anything better. Yeah, yeah, well, there
Speaker 1: are some. The reasons to use legacy systems in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases have to do with a specific tool. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you are so. Let's say that you've got a corporation,
Speaker 1: and that corporation has an internal network, an intranet, not
Speaker 1: an Internet, and that in order to access this Internet
Speaker 1: you need to use a specific kind of browser because
Speaker 1: it was built to support a specific type of browser.
Speaker 1: Then I could understand as well having Internet Explorer six.
Speaker 1: I would pity that person because that is a miserable experience.
Speaker 1: But that could be the case. You could have a
Speaker 1: corporate system where let's say you need to go in
Speaker 1: and manage things like a digital timesheet, or you have
Speaker 1: to request some vacation time or sick time, or you're
Speaker 1: doing something like you're changing your You might even be
Speaker 1: putting in things like an employee record into a company's
Speaker 1: Internet system, and the only way you can access it
Speaker 1: is through an outdated browser. Um. There are plenty of
Speaker 1: systems that are like that. I've seen lots of them
Speaker 1: where they will tell you don't use any other version
Speaker 1: of any other browser because some of the functionality will
Speaker 1: not work. If you use it, you might be able
Speaker 1: to see some stuff and access some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that's on the the corporate Internet, but you're not gonna
Speaker 1: be able to get the full run of it unless
Speaker 1: you use this particular browser. Yeah. See Yeah. The an
Speaker 1: article on ours Technica UM published on February first, twelve
Speaker 1: said that in January, uh, Internet Explorer grew more, its
Speaker 1: market share grew more than any other browser. In fact,
Speaker 1: Chrome went down a little bit, but the biggest share
Speaker 1: of that growth for I E was in I E six.
Speaker 1: So so, um, people are going to write in to
Speaker 1: tell you that that was really loud. Um, But anyway, Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of and I understand. To see. The thing
Speaker 1: is that one of the things that's common about most
Speaker 1: of these technologies is that, um, there there's some good
Speaker 1: reason why some people are gonna want to use it.
Speaker 1: You know, perhaps you have a machine that just won't
Speaker 1: go any it won't run Vista or or Windows seven
Speaker 1: or Windows eight. Uh, you have a machine that that
Speaker 1: where or you have an intranet where you might need
Speaker 1: to use I E six to run it otherwise it
Speaker 1: won't work. A O L is the Internet, Yes, that's possible.
Speaker 1: I mean for the lightbulb thing, the socket fits the
Speaker 1: same size. I really don't have a they're cheap. There
Speaker 1: is a reason to use that that. The thing is
Speaker 1: that the majority of people still using um I E
Speaker 1: six and Windows XP. The majority of those people probably
Speaker 1: are not doing it because their computers are slower, because
Speaker 1: they are reliant on a legacy system. It's probably more
Speaker 1: because as their corporation, their corporation won't let them right,
Speaker 1: or they just don't know. Yeah, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who just have don't have They just don't
Speaker 1: know that there there is a better way out there
Speaker 1: to them, they've associated a specific kind of browser with
Speaker 1: that's the Internet. It's not a browser you use to
Speaker 1: access the internets. A note that is the to them,
Speaker 1: that is the Internet. It's or a little box with
Speaker 1: a little blinking line on the top. It doesn't weigh anything.
Speaker 1: It's kept up top of big bend. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is definitely the type of water cooler thing where
Speaker 1: you stand around and go, yeah, why do people still
Speaker 1: use that? I mean there in general, there's a reason
Speaker 1: why people still use some of these things, But why
Speaker 1: why some of them are so widespread is another question.
Speaker 1: Still a few more, Yes, there's the one that I
Speaker 1: had said had died out but came back. This. No,
Speaker 1: this is one thing. This is a different one, and
Speaker 1: this is one that didn't really die out either. It's
Speaker 1: one of those where it's more for nostalgist, say, I think,
Speaker 1: than anything else. Vinyl. Oh yeah, so vinyl records is
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, not not the material vinyl, but
Speaker 1: vinyl vinyl record albums. So yeah, something you would play
Speaker 1: on a record player. Uh. There are people who argue
Speaker 1: audio files, who will argue that the vinyl gives the best,
Speaker 1: truest sound to whatever the original recording is, and there
Speaker 1: are others who say that that's a bunch of balogny,
Speaker 1: that if you are using the proper digital equipment, there
Speaker 1: is no humanly detectable way of differentiating the two. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go into that too much because it's
Speaker 1: it's frankly, it's something that I would need to see
Speaker 1: a lot more studies on because there are lots of
Speaker 1: different arguments to either side, and there are certain people
Speaker 1: out there who have very very finely attuned senses of
Speaker 1: hearing that might be able to detect those differences. I'm
Speaker 1: not one of them. I do not have a great
Speaker 1: sense of hearing, So perhaps the fault is on my
Speaker 1: me and not on the technolog G. But still it's
Speaker 1: interesting to me that vinyl has never really gone away,
Speaker 1: considering that a lot of the the trend has been
Speaker 1: to favor convenience over perceived quality, right because when MP
Speaker 1: three's got really popular, a lot of them were recorded
Speaker 1: at terrible bit rates and you were losing a lot
Speaker 1: of information and in some cases that was detectable, and
Speaker 1: you could tell that you were losing some of the
Speaker 1: highs and lows. There wasn't a whole lot of variation
Speaker 1: between the lowest of the lows and the highest of
Speaker 1: the highest, so you weren't getting a really dynamic sound
Speaker 1: like you could with a better recording. But today that's
Speaker 1: not as big an issue. Right. Well, with people having
Speaker 1: higher bandwidth connections, Uh, they're more willing to do that
Speaker 1: because you're you're able to include some of the frequencies that, um,
Speaker 1: you know make this sound richer. Um. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: one of those where I'm just surprised now that being said,
Speaker 1: I own a lot of vinyl folks, well, a vinyl fan,
Speaker 1: and there's a UM there's a been a resurgence in
Speaker 1: manufacturing final Yeah, which is funny because the equipment almost
Speaker 1: completely died out. Yeah, there was a there was a
Speaker 1: time in the late eighties and into the nineties where
Speaker 1: finding a turntable was if you weren't if you weren't
Speaker 1: buying DJ equipment, it was pretty much. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: you had to go to like some sort of hobby
Speaker 1: store or like an audio Yeah. And now now you
Speaker 1: can find them all over the place. In fact, I
Speaker 1: see them like I've seen plenty of ones that you
Speaker 1: plug in via USB to a computer where you can
Speaker 1: rip things too MP three or you can actually just
Speaker 1: listen to it over a computer or plug it into
Speaker 1: another sound system. Yeah, it's so it's started to it's
Speaker 1: been enjoying a resurgence, nowhere near what it was when
Speaker 1: that was the way to listen to music. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to give the wrong impression, but it
Speaker 1: has come back from what look like it was. It
Speaker 1: looked like it was going to go extinct. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of independent bands have been
Speaker 1: recording and releasing their records on vinyl pressing because truth
Speaker 1: be told, it's not as as expensive as you might think.
Speaker 1: Um so, uh, you know, it's it's enjoyed a resurgence
Speaker 1: in in popularity for bands as a you know, hey,
Speaker 1: look how cool we are we have a final record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a gimmick almost, by the way, Yeah
Speaker 1: for some folks. Yeah. Yeah. I also wrote down typewriters
Speaker 1: because they still have not died away. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: a typewriter in public in a long time. No, but
Speaker 1: I used to work in an office that still used
Speaker 1: typewriters to fill out forms instead of trying to create
Speaker 1: digital forms. They still had physical forms and physical typewriters
Speaker 1: that you had to use to fill out the forms.
Speaker 1: It was not that long ago, so I have them
Speaker 1: down here. I mean, maybe they've died out in the
Speaker 1: five years since I joined how Stuff Works. It's possible.
Speaker 1: That's that's long enough. But I have a feeling that
Speaker 1: if I went back to this office, I'd still find
Speaker 1: that typewriter and it would be mocking me as it
Speaker 1: always did. Um and and let's see to have anything else, like, yes,
Speaker 1: there is something else I have, uh scheduled television? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because now we've reached a point where with the the
Speaker 1: invention of DVRs and with streaming services like Hulu and Netflix.
Speaker 1: The the importance of a TV schedule has decreased dramatically,
Speaker 1: right like back in back in the day, you would
Speaker 1: have to plan your night around around your stories if
Speaker 1: you wanted to watch television. So if you wanted to watch,
Speaker 1: you know, a particular sitcom, you had to be there
Speaker 1: in front your TV at eight pm on a Thursday night,
Speaker 1: or else you weren't going to see it, or you
Speaker 1: had to set a VCR to tape it later on.
Speaker 1: You could do that. But before that, you know, before
Speaker 1: VCRs became household items, you know. Yeah, and that's another
Speaker 1: one too, But VCRs are pretty much on that. They're
Speaker 1: pretty m dead. Yeah, VCRs are almost dead. So but yeah,
Speaker 1: the scheduled television stuff. Before there were VCRs, the only
Speaker 1: other option you had was to set your kid down
Speaker 1: until have the kid just act out the entire episode
Speaker 1: when you got home so you could find out what
Speaker 1: happened on Mash I know, I know season seasons two
Speaker 1: through four like the back of my hand. Anyway, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: the but yeah that Now we have DVRs and we
Speaker 1: have streaming services. Even DVRs now are starting to kind
Speaker 1: of reach a point where I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are are moving away entirely from worrying about recording
Speaker 1: stuff that's on the air right now. For one thing,
Speaker 1: so many of them come out on DVD later or
Speaker 1: or in some other form is a collection, so you
Speaker 1: can catch up on an entire series all at once
Speaker 1: if you wanted to. Yeah, So I think, uh, I
Speaker 1: think that's one of those dying technologies. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's a tough one because again that's that's another one
Speaker 1: that's industry that that will completely change industries, And anything
Speaker 1: that's going to completely change an industry, it's going to
Speaker 1: be a tumultuous and and and drawn out of fair
Speaker 1: It's not something that happens very quickly usually unless it's catastrophic,
Speaker 1: but normally it's gonna take a while. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of resistance. We're seeing that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of resistance to it for a good reason. Again, because
Speaker 1: the economies that are involved are huge, and the considerations
Speaker 1: you have to make are enormous, and you know the
Speaker 1: fact that there's just not as much there's not as
Speaker 1: much money streaming to the to the Internet as there
Speaker 1: would be going through a cable or broadcast approach. Right,
Speaker 1: it's just it's that's the truth. There's not as much
Speaker 1: money there. And if you've got a big corporation that
Speaker 1: requires a lot of money to to generate the content
Speaker 1: that it makes, that raises some very tough questions where
Speaker 1: do you start making cuts? Do you do you make
Speaker 1: huge cuts in the corporate personnel, do you also have
Speaker 1: to make huge cuts and the production costs for your
Speaker 1: shows or your movies. There's been a lot of discussion
Speaker 1: about that recently with with movie blockbusters, about whether or
Speaker 1: not the blockbuster itself is perhaps an outdated concept, and
Speaker 1: perhaps it's we've we've really pushed the concept of blockbusters
Speaker 1: so far that they are having these massive, overinflated budgets,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's time to stop that and really focus
Speaker 1: on making movies a different way where it's more efficient
Speaker 1: and economical, and maybe the focus isn't so much unspectacle.
Speaker 1: Now that's a totally separate argument, but it does at
Speaker 1: least tangentially tie into this idea of the scheduled TV
Speaker 1: event where we don't have to be in front of
Speaker 1: our sets at a set time and place anymore, you know,
Speaker 1: we can we have a lot more flexibility to get
Speaker 1: entertainment on demand, with the exception of things like live events,
Speaker 1: like sports, things like that. So I think that that
Speaker 1: is definitely on the bubble, you know, in a in
Speaker 1: another maybe five or ten years, UH, scheduled TV is
Speaker 1: going to be kind of a thing of the past,
Speaker 1: um with the exception of live events. Well, I think
Speaker 1: too that that's gonna require um more people to have
Speaker 1: availability of the technology, you know, because not everyone can
Speaker 1: afford a DVR or even broadband Internet. But we're starting
Speaker 1: to see that stuff being built into the television sets themselves.
Speaker 1: So again, in five or ten years, you're going to
Speaker 1: have the average TV set sold at whatever store you
Speaker 1: go to is going to have a lot of Internet
Speaker 1: connectivity stuff built into it. Now, that doesn't solve the
Speaker 1: problem of broadband penetration. If you don't have broadband penetration,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how advance your TV is, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to get that content. But assuming that
Speaker 1: the broadband penetration problem has been addressed enough so that
Speaker 1: there is this transition, then I think we do see
Speaker 1: UH an end to the scheduled t V approach. And
Speaker 1: you just want your Louis, you turn your television on,
Speaker 1: you say I want to watch this one particular program.
Speaker 1: I want to watch this one particular episode, and it
Speaker 1: pulls it up and it may be that it's a
Speaker 1: subscription based thing, and maybe it's a per episode payment thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it's gonna be free all the time,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely gonna be a different model than what
Speaker 1: we're used to right now. It will, you know, it'll
Speaker 1: no longer be like, you know, oh, it's Thursday night.
Speaker 1: This is when these my my favorite three shows come on.
Speaker 1: It'll be hey, I got home, It's time to watch
Speaker 1: my favorite show. Okay, So and I think that's let
Speaker 1: me look and did I miss anything on my list? No,
Speaker 1: that's all the things I have on my list. Not
Speaker 1: that not to suggest that that's the only outdated technology
Speaker 1: we have that we rely on on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis. Well, if people have their you know, a
Speaker 1: favorite outdated technology that they didn't I think made our
Speaker 1: list for good reason, then they should write us and
Speaker 1: let us know. I mean, there's plenty of other stuff
Speaker 1: we can talk about, like like cold powered power plants,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff right where we could say, look,
Speaker 1: there are alternatives that we could look into that maybe
Speaker 1: more environmentally friendly. But even so, these have their own
Speaker 1: sets of restrictions and problems. Um. But yeah, you could
Speaker 1: argue that saying like, hey, look at the state of
Speaker 1: the world. Isn't isn't like anything that burns fossil fuels
Speaker 1: isn't that outdated? And I would agree with you in
Speaker 1: the sense that I think we really need to move
Speaker 1: to things that aren't going to be as as dangerous
Speaker 1: to the environment. But the reality of the situation is
Speaker 1: a bit more complex than just saying, hey, this is
Speaker 1: an old way of doing things. There there such complex
Speaker 1: issues with that, um that it's not it's not an
Speaker 1: easy thing to solve. If it were easy to solve,
Speaker 1: we would have solved it already. But the truth is
Speaker 1: life is complicated, moves pretty fast. You don't stop look around,
Speaker 1: you might miss it. And with that, we're going to
Speaker 1: conclude this episode of tech Stuff. If you guys have
Speaker 1: suggestions for future topics, or you have an outdated technology
Speaker 1: you just want to bring up to our attention, let
Speaker 1: us know on Facebook or Twitter or handle at both
Speaker 1: of those is tech Stuff hs W, or you can
Speaker 1: send us an email in our email address is tech
Speaker 1: stuff at Discovery dot com and Chris and I will
Speaker 1: trot to you again really soon, Brought to you by
Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you