We might be the last generation

We might also be the last generation to know what a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) (remember those little pricy gadgets that helped you take notes, keep phone numbers and maintain a list of expenses?) well, these are now called "Phones". The old PDAs were everything that a modern smart phone is, without the ability to communicate. In other words, a crippled version. So why would you have one, if you could have the same device and have it work as a phone?

Speaking of phones, we might be the last generation to know what a land line is. Imagine in the -not so distant- future, you children asking you, why did people have those big bulky things called phones in their homes? Didn't they ever hear of cell phones?

Along the same line, Analog transmission is probably the next thought out for Radio. All those radio stations consuming the precious RF spectrum, with low quality, prone to interference broadcasts that don't do the artists any good. Those are probably going to give way to CD Quality digital transmissions. Possibly through low earth orbit satellite transmissions.

And speaking of low earth orbit satellites (of which GPS happens to be one of the biggest consumer), Maps appear to also be on their way out. Why would you have a paper map when you can pan, zoom, and get information on any PDA, and soon on any surface?

On a tangent of media distribution, the next thing to go away is probably going to be CDs, DVDs (even Bluray) and just about everything that can be distributed. Just like Cassette tapes, Video Tapes and Vinyl records gave way to the more recent media. The new media is going to go away soon. Why would you keep media when everything you can ever need can be stored somewhere in the cloud and have it all accessible from anywhere in the world, on any device?

It took the animal pulled carriage few thousand years to become obsolete, the light bulb, a little over 130 years, and less than few decades for the internet to displace all other forms of communications. In fact, humans have shifted consciousness from the older communicate through voice, written/printed word to communicating data. And that last part, "data" appears to be the single most universal quantum of communication in the form of "bits". Virtually everything that could be "communicated" can fit in data and represented in bits. People will no longer pay for anything per minute, second, or page, or disk but rather per data "bits". Which makes it effectively, the most valuable thing humans have ever invented.

Funny how our greatest discovery, happens to also be the smallest piece of information we can communicate... I guess now the circle is complete!