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?
Reply 4 comments

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.

Re: Conservation (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-07-30 20:23 (#2Q9)

Power consumption.
A lot of older stuff draw quite a bit of power.

Re: Conservation (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-07-31 00:26 (#2QJ)

Yeah, power consumption is a big one. My old Pentium III was an energy hog by the standards of what I'm running now, and I'm appalled by the P4 desktop I picked up used: seems like the fan is running almost all the time, trying to keep the thing cool. But I'm definitely on the "keep it until it's no longer useful" train, not the "replace it every year with something newer/shinier" train.

I had a PPC Powermac laptop (the awesome one with the silvery keyboard; one of the best laptop keyboards I've ever used and definitely better than the new chicklet keyboards I hate so much) running from when I bought it in 2003 until I dropped it (smashing it) in 2013. That's old for a laptop, but what the hell - it was working great and did everything I needed to do except show me flash video (which is no loss, let's face it). My PIII laptop lasted from 2000 until 2009 I think.