planned obsolescence

The day the iPhone 5 goes on sale, millions of people will happily line up to buy Apple's latest marvel. How could they resist? What with the temptations of the iPhone 5's rumored smaller 19-pin dock connector, in-cell technology that enables the screen's touch sensors and LCD to be consolidated into a single layer, global LTE networks, and oodles of other goodies, it's no wonder Americans on average replace their cell phones every 21.7 months. Computers, digital cameras, tablets, and other gizmos have somewhat longer useful lives, but their owners never develop long-term, decade or … Read more

CNET is all about the newest gadgets around, but looking around my home office, one beloved dinosaur stands out among the new devices. I still use the first laser printer I ever bought, a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5MP. I remember studying reviews in the spring of 1996 and sweating the extra $100 I kicked in to buy the HP printer rather than the slightly less fancy Apple model I was considering. That was an investment that was well-worth the marginal cost.

It's been almost 12 years and that HP LaserJet has produced all the drafts needed for one Ph. D. … Read more

This post isn't about digital audio, but rather about a topic that pertains to the entire consumer technology industry. When I got to CES, I realized that I'd brought the wrong USB connector for my digital camera, a Kodak EasyShare DX4530. (Guilty: I didn't read the CNET review, but I've liked it better than the 6.8 rating might suggest. Although I'm not a fan of the integrated EasyShare software, which tries to hide the file system and in the process makes it really hard to use anything but EasyShare!) It's about four years … Read more