This will be a very quick post, as I don’t have a whole lot to say. However, something I’ve noticed recently is that there are so many new developments in technology every day but they’re not always necessarily a good thing.
Two things that come to mind right away are digital cameras and digital media players.
Digital cameras
Okay, so digital cameras have come a long way in the last 5 or 10 years. However, there are some really fantastic features that are becoming more and more impossible to find in newer cameras. One of those “features” is a viewfinder. The newer a digital camera is, the lower the chance that it actually has a viewfinder. Unfortunately, the newer cameras are getting bigger and more powerful LCD screens, too. Why is that a bad thing? Well, because, frankly, I don’t feel like changing the batteries in my camera every time I take a picture.
Another problem with newer digital cameras is the shutter lag time. My dad’s old Olympus camera was just like a 35-mm camera regarding its shutter lag time. You pressed the button and it took the picture. More and more, you’ll find that the shutter lag time of digital cameras is getting longer and longer. With my mom’s newer digital camera, when you press the button, it is literally close to a second before it actually snaps the photo. If you have red-eye reduction turned on, it is generally longer than a second. That’s fine for taking still-life pictures, but it really sucks when you’re trying to take a picture of someone jumping into a pool or doing a trick or something. You literally have to anticipate every picture you plan on taking, and plan well in advance for it.
Basically, if you want to take a picture of someone in the middle of doing a flip, you have to press the button before giving them the okay to start doing the flip.
Granted, some of the higher-end cameras are now boasting minimal shutter lag times, but you can forget about getting anything like that for less than a few Benjamins.
Digital Media Players
Whatever happened to large-capacity mp3 players? Why is it so hard to find anything that holds more than a couple of gigs? Two years ago, I bought a 40-gigabyte player (which was the mid-size model; with 10-gig, 20-gig and 60-gig models available) for about $200.
When I look at mp3 players now, I see price tags that are the same size, but the hard drives are literally a fraction of that size. I don’t even know if 40-gig players are still available anywhere. I have certainly been hard-pressed to find one, which is why I recently had to perform surgery on my player, which had died. Thankfully I was able to bring it back from the dead by taking it apart, putting it back together and re-installing the operating system.
Comments?
What are some gripes you have about modern technology? What are your thoughts on the gripes I’ve raised?