Cameras Almost Gone

Chalk up another defeat for those cell phones that drive me crazy. Not only have they killed manners, privacy and loads of technology-calculatiors, word processors, answering machines, land line phones (becoming extinct), the wrist watch etc., but it looks like the old reliable pint and shoot camera is a dying entity. Stores report sales have fallen dramatically and if you check prices for hand held cameras they are bottoming out as demand for them is shrinking to either the expensive high end models or the cheapest ones manufacturers can sell.

The trend now is for consumers to use their phone cameras because it is easier and they are too lazy to take pictures with a camera and then upload the images on their computer or take the camera's card to be developed into hand held prints. I think hand held prints will also be far less common in the near future too. All of this comes at a time when cell phone camera pictures are improving enough to make that device more appealing for many than is carrying about the hand camera.

People who prefer cell cameras say they always have it ready to shoot (and annoy others while doing it) whatever it is they deem shoot able, and that there are many applications on some high end phones that are equal to or superior to what cameras offer. It's interesting that just as the home desktop computer seems to be moving toward a large screen TV like single device that holds all the mediums the person wants to use while in the house. Now the cell phone is taking over photography and pushing aside the reliable old hand held camera. I make no judgment about this as to being a positive or negative trend but just point out this to show the changing nature of technology today.

With so much technology available, and much of it complicated to understand and use, the desire for a single device to display it is the trend today. It amazes me that the next generation to be born may never see devices such as the wrist watch, home phone and personal camera. Haha And I am still heartbroken about the disappearance of 8 track tapes.