SD cards
What has the world come to? When I used to work at my old job at a dentistry, I would clean out some of the stuff in the basement (you'd be surprised at what treasures you can find in the basement of a dentistry). My boss treasured antique things and didn't really like throwing things away, much like my mother. So I wasn't surprised when I came across a gem of a find: a floppy disk! Now see there, most people in my generation think of the small, square, hard black disks that were used in computers circa 1998. I'm not talking about that type of disk. I'm talking about the old disks that were actually floppy and that were almost as big as some of today's laptop computers. It was almost difficult to fathom first how old the disk itself was and second how long it had been lurking in the shadows of the dentistry.
My boss let me take the keepsake home because she saw how entranced I was by it. I was looking at it recently and realized just how obsolete this technology really was. My boss was probably tickled pink at my naïve fascination with it, much like an antiques collector would be mesmerized by the first model camera or the first cell phone (let me tell you, those are mesmerizing too).
I started thinking about all my memory storage devices for my new technology. My cell phone uses one of those SD cards which are almost smaller than a thumbnail. My digital camera uses a memory stick, which looks like one of those memory cards in other cameras so I still haven't quite figured out what the difference is.
How did we somehow move from a world of floppy disks and CDs to jump drives and SD cards? How was the technology developed to transform phones from the weighty, bulky, unsightly laptop sized bricks that they were to the lightweight information powerhouses that they are today? I remember the time before a phone had a camera, when you were lucky to get more than 9 factory ring tones and when you couldn't see who was calling on the front screen before answering (some phones, sadly, are still in this state). I remember when portable tape players were the new thing and then CD players and now MP3 players, which, might I add, aren't even the same as they used to be because now they broadcast photos and videos and store notes and all kinds of cool things. I'm not saying that the advances in technology are bad, because they aren't. I am a fan of making things easier for me, and if you want to make me a phone that will store my favorite music, surf the internet, take pictures and streaming video, AND has a slide out keyboard for when I want to instant message or text my friends, go right ahead. I'll probably buy it. If you want to make me the newest, sleekest digital camera, go ahead. I like my camera now so I can't promise I'll buy that but I'd consider it. If you want to make it much easier and convenient to carry files around with me (and easier to lose them, might I add), then go ahead. I'll buy tons of those because they just make life easier. And isn't that one of the main goals of technology: making people's lives easier?