Tech you miss/ new tech trends you hate - ok boomers

[ToroidalBoat]

There is this modern obsession with numbers and graphs for meaningless metrics.

It's almost as if they want real life to be like vidya...

 

[Town Drunk]

Semi old news, but I only recently found/ it affected me. Chromecast is over. No more 35 dollar add on to your TV to watch YT from your laptop/phone.

 

[Señora Airi]

I hate chips in debit and credit cards. Swiping was always better

Especially when the chip reader is jank and you end up having to swipe anyway

Speaking of microwaves, I do not like how one cannot set exact times anymore. Press "3" and it starts for 3 minutes? I like the analog dial with a real bell when it hits 0.

It's only that or a button for 30 second increments. But God forbid you wanna heat something up with an exact time.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I hate chips in debit and credit cards. Swiping was always better

Especially when the chip reader is jank and you end up having to swipe anyway

Why didn't they go with something optical, like a barcode? No strip vulnerable to magnetic damage. Also no chip that can fail either.

 

[greenthrowaway]

Why didn't they go with something optical, like a barcode? No strip vulnerable to magnetic damage. Also no chip that can fail either.

Less secure. The chip never reveals its identity, it’s more of a public key private key system where it generates a response to be verified by the credit card company without letting the reader know the customer, so it can’t be skimmed or unsafely stored by the vendor.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Hey guys, are you ready for the next step of owning nothing and being happy?

A TL;DW breakdown: Basically the TV has a secondary screen whose purpose is to display ads, and comes with a sensor that can detect when people are in front of it. Now, I don't know what kind of niggercattle is out there watching cable TV and thinking "Gee, I sure wish there were more ads on this thing," but it gets fucking worse. See, being in possession of this TV means signing off on a draconian TOS document that includes demanding that the TV be the "primary television in your household," so no tucking thing this in your kid's bedroom or something (not that I think putting a TV that can spy on you in your kid's bedroom is a good idea, but I digress). On top of that, the TOS require you to have an internet connection at all times, and forbid the use of ad blocking software, as well as any "unauthorized peripherals" or tampering with the internals. If you break their TOS, they will demand that you return the TV back to them, or else they will charge you $1,000 on your credit card.

Great. Fucking great. I can't wait for tech like this to advance even further so that not only do I not own any of the appliances in my home, but every appliance in my home is spying on me and comes packaged with some voice recognition software that'll brick the appliance, freeze my bank accounts, and send the police to arrest me if I commit the heinous crime of saying "nigger," "tranny," or "faggot" in the privacy of my own home. Gotta get those sheep in line, right? What better way than to get AI language learning models built into everyone's fridge to be your Gestapo?

I hate these "rent devices" models because I owned a rent-a-scooter and it was absolute trash! The original that came was poor quality and broke within half an year. The replacements were slow and in various stages of broken. They raised their prices and their support was shit.

How are they gonna enforce the "must be your main device" and "must not obstruct ads" clause of your TNA? Looks like it will set up a draconian/dystopian trend of "free" devices that control you. Which is a good thing. We're inching towards the "confirmation can" scenario.

PC Cases. They're all shit now. Why the everloving fuck would I want a glass side on my case. Ain't nobody going to be seeing that shit, and the EMI/RF shielding of glass is non-existent, not that things these days really need it. Then the total lack of desktop cases.

I like them. No need to open casis to diagnose...

I recently bought a new microwave and I noticed a bunch of them advertised internet connectivity.

I didn't research what it would be for, but now I'm curious - what exactly does an internet-connected microwave do that a regular microwave doesn't do?

It's not like I need to be notified on my phone when my burrito is done. It's not like there'd be utility in using my phone to turn the microwave on. It's not like the internet is needed to set the clock. It's not like I need downloadable system updates, because there's no new feature you could possibly add to a microwave (has anyone ever even used that popcorn button??)

Probably comes with a shitty chinese spyware app that will become unsupported in 2 years and most of the features advertised will no longer work, leaving you with a sub-par microwave that nags you to log in and displays ads.

Oled lights I bought off Amazon had this...

 

[Lapsus of the bepsus]

yet there is this obsession with fit bits and activity trackers

i have family obsessed with activity trackers. they actually get disappointed and sad when they realize they forgot to tell their personal corporate tracking device that theyre about to go on a walk or cycling or whatever. they were ecstatic when the corporation introduced a feature which permanently tracks what theyre doing but now it can tell by itself when they begin exercising, so now they only get sad on the odd occasion the corporation momentarily fails to track them and the number on the screen is slightly inaccurate. still all it fucking ever gets them is DISAPPOINTMENT and SADNESS in exchange for a less than split second dopamine hit when they see a number on their screen, whatever the fuck it means.
nigga... i hate sports but sometimes i still feel like the healthier one.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I hate that few companies have phone lines anymore. It's either an AI chatbot that basically redirects you to useless pages, a "chat" where you get no response, or 'tickets' that reply to you via email in weeks.

 

[Elysian]

It's almost as if they want real life to be like vidya...

The best pedometer ever created was the Nintendo 3DS because of the vidya integration. Imagine not being able to use your arbitrary exercise numbers to buy furniture in Animal Crossing or gifts for your Nintendogs, smh.

I remember when I realised you could shake the 3DS like the shake weight to make number go up lmao

 

[Anteater Alien]

Why is every "Dark mode" always some light-colored gray? I swear to god every single dark mode option for anything, whether it be a website or dedicated piece of software, is light gray. At least use a dark gray like the older UI for Steam. Why must I be forced to see this awful fucking color? Even the Farms has this problem.

Most of it is for softer contrast. While I agree that it should be a LOT darker, having darker blacks on white is a much harsher contrast and would just be unpleasant to look at. Also just general color scheming. If the kiwifarms green was a little less mossy looking maybe I could see a darker, less blue-grey color working out, but for this site it seems to work fine.

 

[Instant_Pot_User]

Speaking of dark mode, I miss the windows phone so much. It had the best dark mode and light mode wasn’t even an option until later.

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

Speaking of dark mode, I miss the windows phone so much. It had the best dark mode and light mode wasn’t even an option until later.

View attachment 7033316

Never had a Windows phone but wanted one when W10 came out.

 

[Sharpeteer]

There's gotta be at least a couple people that remember these things. This isn't really hating on a new tech thing, but being nostalgic for an old thing - these emulator handhelds for playing roms of retro games on, they are a dime a dozen now coming out of China.

But back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, they were something special. You had the Dingoo, the GCW Zero, the early GPH Gamepark handhelds, and eventually they released the GP2X Wiz, which was the first open source emulator handheld I ever bought with my own money, got it when I was in college. Looks like this:



I remember being so happy that it was capable of playing Super Mario RPG with some overclocking, and I actually beat the whole game on it. But the one a lot of people really wanted was the OpenPandora, including myself. It was a mini Linux handheld PC that had a gamepad on it, and a whole roster of open source emulators and applications for it. You had to pre-order, and wait for literally years in the late 2000s and early 2010s as they ran into so many production problems - if you were on the OpenPandora forums back in the day, and were waiting on your unit, you probably remember. After years of waiting, I finally got mine, and it immediately became my favorite. Played all my SNES roms and some N64 roms really well. The Pandora looked like this:



Of course now you got a ton of options if you want a handheld that plays roms (or just play them on your phone), but man, these two were all the rage many years ago, along with some others like the GPH Caanoo, etc, they had their place during that time. I don't have my original units anymore, but I do have another Pandora that I bought on eBay later on, and it's one of my favorite things in my collection, and I still play it from time to time.

 

[WULULULULU]

I hate new PCs, the way that they look. I don't know if this makes me sound retarded and frankly I don't care but I think most people are blinded by baby sensory RGB lighting than the actual capabilities of the computer they're buying.

No, you don't need a living aquarium and 46 epilepsy strobing lights inside of your PC build in order to run Minecraft or whatever. Your fish are hoping you pull the plug and end their light pollution filled suffering.

You don't need to spend extra money on animated tranime decals spinning inside of your PC. Nobody cares, nobody will care, and nobody has cared. You're dealing with severe male patterned baldness and instead of prioritizing your physical wellbeing you want everyone in a 50 mile radius to know you jerk off to barely legal hentai waifus.

PCs never needed any of these modifications. They all run the same. Nobody's looking at your PC for more than a minute. You don't need any of these upgrades. It drives me up the damn wall.

My PC is close to perfect. The 4000D matches the sleek, black stealthy blackbox approach (minus the glass but I like looking at my build from time to time). Unfortunately, the GPU is the only one with "RGB" (or rather, it just displaces a purple color).

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

New flagship products lacking features previous flagships had. For example, $1000+ smart phones lacking headphone jacks and SD card slots. Why the fuck would I pay that much for something that's functionally shittier than a low end phone? Low end phones often have these features still for some reason.

The best pedometer ever created was the Nintendo 3DS because of the vidya integration. Imagine not being able to use your arbitrary exercise numbers to buy furniture in Animal Crossing or gifts for your Nintendogs, smh.

I remember when I realised you could shake the 3DS like the shake weight to make number go up lmao

Best pedometer was the Pokewalker. It was the most accurate one of its time. Might still be.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I always felt like everyone else was busy non-stop and I wasn't worthy of their time, so seeing them being in-game gave me enough relief that I'd talk to them. Now, everyone is set to invisible or offline. Tens of years with no issues and suddenly it's "muh privacy" this and that.

It has rotten me so bad I'll see a gathering of celebrities who literally make a living being at the Oscars etc and think "don't they got places to be?".

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

New flagship products lacking features previous flagships had. For example, $1000+ smart phones lacking headphone jacks and SD card slots. Why the fuck would I pay that much for something that's functionally shittier than a low end phone? Low end phones often have these features still for some reason.

Cool thing about discounts from my carrier is that they cover most of the price of the phone. However I wouldn’t pay near half of what the phone cost out of pocket

 

[Sharpeteer]

Remember Fry's? Obviously before their closure, but specifically before they completely lost their ability to get inventory and had giant stores full of empty shelves. I loved going there since the closest Micro Center is a state away. I would go there and buy everything I needed to build a desktop tower, and they had every single part I needed no problem. Even if it was a random adapter or set of computer accessories they were almost guaranteed to have what I wanted.

Well they're gone, and there's no Micro Center anywhere remotely close to me, so my only option is Best Buy.

Best Buy's in-store computer parts selection sucks - you want a computer case? You got Corsair, or NZXT. That's it. You want a liquid cooler? You got Corsair or NZXT, and that's it. Power supply? Corsair or NZXT. Air cooler? Corsair.

So basically you want an all Corsair or NZXT build? Best Buy.

I get to go to a Micro Center once a year when I go on vacation, and I absolutely love the selection, reminds me of old school Fry's.

I miss when electronics stores that didn't suck were around. I know the answer to all of this to buy online, and since Best Buy doesn't even remotely give a shit, it's no surprise at all they're circling the bowl.

New flagship products lacking features previous flagships had. For example, $1000+ smart phones lacking headphone jacks and SD card slots. Why the fuck would I pay that much for something that's functionally shittier than a low end phone? Low end phones often have these features still for some reason.

I cannot fathom paying more than like... $500 tops for a phone, and for that price it better be at the very least the flagship from within the last few gens. All these phones that are $1K+ now, it seems absurd to pay that kind of money for a phone where most normal people aren't going to notice their apps opening a fraction of a second faster. I truly think if most normal average consumers were honest with themselves, they don't really need or will ever make use of all these things that marketing claims makes these things worth $1K+. Also these flagship phones lose their value rapidly, and as soon as the new model comes out, the previous model immediately tanks in value, so just get the one from a couple gens ago.

I finally upgraded from my 2019 Pixel 4 to the Pixel 7a. Don't like that it's bigger and bulkier, but GrapheneOS on the P4 is out of support now. Sure enough, app performance feels exactly the same, seven hardware releases later. Only cost me $180 on Craigslist though.

Best pedometer was the Pokewalker. It was the most accurate one of its time. Might still be.

I need two Pokewalkers to complete my copies of HeartGold and SoulSilver.

 

[WULULULULU]

Remember Fry's? Obviously before their closure, but specifically before they completely lost their ability to get inventory and had giant stores full of empty shelves. I loved going there since the closest Micro Center is a state away. I would go there and buy everything I needed to build a desktop tower, and they had every single part I needed no problem. Even if it was a random adapter or set of computer accessories they were almost guaranteed to have what I wanted.

Well they're gone, and there's no Micro Center anywhere remotely close to me, so my only option is Best Buy.

Best Buy's in-store computer parts selection sucks - you want a computer case? You got Corsair, or NZXT. That's it. You want a liquid cooler? You got Corsair or NZXT, and that's it. Power supply? Corsair or NZXT. Air cooler? Corsair.

So basically you want an all Corsair or NZXT build? Best Buy.

I get to go to a Micro Center once a year when I go on vacation, and I absolutely love the selection, reminds me of old school Fry's.

I miss when electronics stores that didn't suck were around. I know the answer to all of this to buy online, and since Best Buy doesn't even remotely give a shit, it's no surprise at all they're circling the bowl.

lol. I don't even have Best Buy but they don't have the cool shit in here (Lian Li, Thermalright, Fractal) so online is the best bet (which includes delivery fees).

 

[Sharpeteer]

lol. I don't even have Best Buy but they don't have the cool shit in here (Lian Li, Thermalright, Fractal) so online is the best bet (which includes delivery fees).

I love Lian Li and Fractal stuff. Also Arctic makes great CPU coolers.

I'm not saying there's necessarily anything wrong with Corsair or NZXT parts, but when that's ALL you have in your store, that's fucking boring.

Idk if you've ever been to Fry's back in the day, or a Micro Center, but they are/were amazing experiences if you like computer stuff.