When one door closes, another opens

Many of the early technology products and services have became obsolete and been replaced by other products. In addition to the replaced devices there is still plenty of products that have survived the though test of time.

I've selected VHS as an example of a device that has become almost obsolete and been replaced with modern option. Door is as a perfect example of a device/product that has survived through the decades with only small adjustments to it.

VHS -> DVD -> Netflix and other streaming services

Video Home System (VHS) is an electronic system used for recording and playing video and audio on videocassettes. You are able to view and record VHS by using videocassette recorders (VCR). The first  commercially viable videotape recorder (VCR) was released in 1956 by Ampex company. The VCR was big, expensive and difficult to use.

Video Home System (VHS) tapes became popular in 1980 and almost every household had a VCR to use.

                                                VHS and  VCR (960x0.jpg?fit=scale)

”The heyday came in the 1980s and and ’90s, when VCRs exploded in popularity. The number of households with VCRs climbed from 14 percent in 1985 to 66 percent in 1990, according to Nielsen data. VCR penetration peaked at about 90 percent of households in 2005.” - Overly, The Washington News 2016

VHS tapes started phasing slowly out in 1996 when DVDs were invented and started to take the role of the mainstream choice.

Digital Video Disk (DVD) was introduced to the general public in 1996.

DVD offered optional ads for the interested ones, better quality content, additional content and considerably more storage space than VHS. DVDs are widely used for storing and viewing movies and other data. Biggest manufacturers are Sony and and Philips.

The movie Twister became the first feature film put on DVD on March 25, 1996.

After DVD’s came today’s streaming services where you are able to watch content when and where ever you want. Most of the streaming services are paid subscriptions. Popular streaming services are for example Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO. Before you used to go to a video rental store to choose an evening entertainment, now you can do it instantly from your own couch with a streaming service.

”Netflix introduced streaming services in 2007. In 2013, “House of Cards,” the first Netflix-produced show premiered. Today some of the world's most beloved shows — including "Orange Is the New Black," "Bloodline," "Stranger Things, and "Master of None" — are Netflix productions.” - Lamare, 2018

                                 Online Streaming Service Netflix (photo-1586899028174-e7098604235b)

Online streaming services gives the user the freedom of choice to select the movie or series he wants. Back then it wasn’t a big problem if the quality dropped for a while with VHS, everyone was used to it. Nowadays if the video quality is lower than HD and stops even for a second everything is ruined. People is used for too good.

A Door

”No one knows who invented the door, only that it was first incepted somewhere in central Egypt.” - Medium, 2019

”It is on these tombs that the earliest known doors were installed as far back as 2000 B.C. These ancient tomb doors were made of a single, unframed door slab and engraved with images of what the society then imagined the afterlife to look like.” - Westerman, WCMANET 

                                                 Doors (photo-1506636366880-b083d2cb2f34)

People have always appreciate privacy and safety, luckily doors have always been there for us. They give us security and safety by locking our homes with locking mechanisms, ensuring that only people who has the right key is able to access. Doors saves our private conversations and well everyone know what happens behind locked doors. Nowadays every building has at least one door for entrance, every room has a door/-s and even a place where we keep our foods has a specific door. There are various types of doors and ways they open.

”Doors have been symbolic and evolved stylistically in various cultures for centuries.” - Medium 2019

I believe doors will always be among us in one shape or another. In the future they will be more automated and use more biometric technology and also artificial intelligence to recognize the incoming person.

Sources:

https://medium.com/@sburiek/the-history-of-doors-a-travel-through-time-a058b5fbca66 (published ,accessed 03.02.2021)

https://www.wcmanet.org/history-of-doors/ (published ,accessed 03.02.2021)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/07/22/rip-to-the-vcr/ (published 22.06.2016, accessed 03.02.2021)

https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/d/dvd.htm (published 02.06.2020, accessed 08.02.2021)

https://www.theskimm.com/news/video-streaming-services-history-3fDiXiz45r1eyqQhBNUQo2 (published 22.12.2019, accessed 08.02.2021)

https://www.businessofbusiness.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-video-streaming-by-the-numbers/ (published 31.07.2018, accessed 08.02.2021)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brittanyhodak/2016/07/23/rip-vhs-worlds-last-vcr-to-be-made-this-month/?sh=72c2e5d923da (published 23.07.2016, accessed 08.02.2021)

Week 1: Three IT Failures

This post is about IT failures. I selected to evaluate Lily Camera Drone, Samsung Galaxy Fold-phone and Google Glass.

Lily Camera Drone

Lily Camera drone was published by Lily Robotics in 2015 first with the price of $499 and later $899. The company released a promotional video to it’s social media platforms and got millions of views. Currently it has 12 639 532 views in the end of January 2021.

It had 34 million dollars pre-sales and 15 million dollars in investment.

It was said to be the world’s first self-flying, throw-and-shoot camera/drone, which practically means that you just have to throw the camera to air and it starts working and also filming immediately. It was told that Lily is totally water-proof, works without controller, easy to carry around and takes HD quality material. All you needed was the drone and a bracelet with GPS function. It just sounds too good to true.

   Lily camera Drone (465466-lily-drone.jpg)

After launching, it got millions of dollars worth of preorders and a lot of questions how it is possible to have that kind of camera drone in the market in 2015.

On 12th January 2017 it was announced that the company were shut down because of money problems and not even single product were shipped, no one ever got this miraculous invention.

Lily Robotics managed to get a lawsuit of the device with the reasons of false and misleading promotion video, unkept promises about shipping and delays.

According to the article, ”How the Lily Camera Took the Internet by Storm, Then Imploded” by Joel Hruska in 2017, the founders Balaresque and Bradlow spent money in all the wrong places, underestimated the difficulty of building both the hardware and the software required to turn the Lily Camera into a product.

It was told in the article ”What happened to the Lily camera drone?” Written by April Glaser in 2017,  during the time the promotional video was filmed the company didn’t have a single Lily Camera prototypes ready that had all the functions that was mentioned in the promotional video.

Samsung Galaxy Fold

”The review units that broke, the launch that was delayed, the newly fixed version, the sky-high price — all of it is well-known and well-documented. But Samsung is selling the Fold, albeit in very limited quantities, as though it is perfectly normal and reasonable to stroll into an AT&T store and buy a fragile, experimental device for $1,980.” - Dieter Bohn, The Verge 2019

Samsung Galaxy Fold (CGmFQfe62Li6XE5z6EGox6-1024-80.jpg)

The Samsung Galaxy Fold, the first folding phone released by Samsung looks handy with the new folding function with 2000 dollar price tag included. Phone and a mini-tablet together.

The phone was said to be world changing product but in the end it was just a big flop. 

One of the down sides of the phone is also that the screen breaks after over 100,000 folds. When Fold was announced, Samsung claimed that the phone should hold at least 200,000 folding times. #fakenews.

According to the review article by Lauren Goode in 2019, at the beginning many users reported that they had several issues with the screen, it was flickering, crashing and also breaking when using the phone. It wasn’t ready phone to sell for the general public. After these reports Samsung postponed the official release date to fix these screen problems but it didn’t change the situation much. It removed the screen issues but came back with punch of warnings and that got people to be afraid to buy the phone anymore.

”Samsung couldn’t exactly reinvent the folding phone wheel at that point. This OLED display and its flexible polymer layers had been in the works for years, and Samsung wasn’t about to start from scratch. But it did shrink the gap between the phone’s hinge and its two halves and added additional metal layers beneath the bendy display to make it stronger” -peopleandtech.org

According to the Lauren Goode's review again, after the fixing the biggest screen issues the phone worked properly and was nice to use even to it was big, heavy and sometimes awkward to use.

Google Glass

Google Glass or the "future glasses" meant to be a fashion thing that we couldn't leave the house with. Google Glass is wearable pair of glasses, which has various functions inside it. The glasses will work with using voice commands and eye gestures by tracking eye movement of the user. They were published to the general public in 2014 with a price of $1500. Google also offered an compatible application for the glasses. 

Google Glass (_96985515_mediaitem96985508.jpg)

Functions that the device:

• touch pad, which helps to control the device and choose a functions.
• camera, with 5 megapixel still/720p video.
• display, which allows user to check the weather, make phone calls, see photos/videos and check social media notifications.

"Google Glass did not provide enough advancement for users compared to older technologies making the product a useless supplementation to their daily lives." - Crala Yoon, Medium 2018.

The Google Glasses has/had several problems with it. Not all users are happy to wear them all day and they don't feel so comfortable for everyone to wear. Also what comes to the possible health problems that may occur when you are just staring the small screen just a front of your eyes the whole day.

Other critical concerns that was early raised was the high price, safety, and privacy. People caused accidents because of using the glasses and filmed improper places like in cinemas. Then came the problem with poor battery life. The device was intended to be worn all day long but the battery life could hold up only 3-5 hours. Not a good combination.

Luckily you are still able to buy this magnificent device to yourself from at least from eBay and Amazon, also In 2017 Google announced next version of Google Glass which hold a name of Google Glass Enterprise Edition.

With the glasses the user is able to see internet and messages front of his eyes, film and take pictures just with a specific voice command. This like previously introduced Lily drone sounds just too good to be true. Maybe we are just not ready for this kind of futuristic technology....yet.

Sources: 

https://www.vox.com/2017/1/16/14274254/lily-drone-lawsuit-refunds (published 16.01.2017, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/253265-lily-camera-took-internet-storm-imploded (published 28.07.2017, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vGcH0Bk3hg (published 12.05.2015, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.wired.com/review/samsung-galaxy-fold/ (published 24.10.2019, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/4/20898484/samsung-galaxy-fold-folding-test-failure-durability (published 04.10.2019, accessed 27.01.2021)

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/30/20938653/samsung-galaxy-fold-review-updated-android-price-specs-features-hinge (published 30.10.2019 ,accessed 27.01.2021)

https://peopleandtech.org/samsung-galaxy-fold-review-the-future-wont-fit-in-your-pants/ 

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/052115/how-why-google-glass-failed.asp (published 08.03.2020 ,accessed 02.02.2021)

https://medium.com/nyc-design/the-assumptions-that-led-to-failures-of-google-glass-8b40a07cfa1e (published 03.08.2018 ,accessed 02.02.2021)

https://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/5-reasons-google-glass-miserable-failure-01462398  (published 28.02.2016 ,accessed 02.02.2021)