The next big thing: smart garbage

by
in environment on (#3S0)
Given the huge evolution and expansion of the consumer electronics market, we are generating a lot of discarded, electronic devices. The New York Times ponders Is smart garbage the next booming category of electronic waste?
By some measures, we are witnessing a rapid change in computing and the swift evolution of relationships between humans and automated helpers. A vision of the future is materializing before our very eyes, the development of networked helper bots that will manage every aspect of our lives, automating it and, theoretically, improving it by simplifying it.

But what happens when those devices go into disrepair - or worse, obsolescence - and their sleeker, faster successors go on sale, as part of the relentless cycle common among most major hardware companies?

Conservation (Score: 2, Insightful)

by nightsky30@pipedot.org on 2014-07-30 11:18 (#2Q2)

I think our society has gotten to the point where they think everything is useless unless it's new, and that simply isn't the case. I've got a desktop I built in 2004 which I somehow coaxed to accept a 1TB drive and had to replace the PSU. But it runs Linux very well. My other box is from 2009. Why throw either of them away when there is still potential for legit use? The newest tech I bought was my tablet back in 2012. But what do I know...I'm just using a dumb phone.
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