Hey Pandas, What's Your Favorite Technology-Related Advancement That Serves No Real Purpose? (Closed)

It's not a huge technological breakthrough, but when my Washer or Dryer are done, they play a happy little tune. It makes me smile.

Honestly the Nintendo Wii motion controls. It absolutely changed my life. Playing Wii sports Baseball taught me skill, boxing taught me strength, tennis taught me fortitude, and bowling taught me how funny it is to terrorize the Miis by throwing by ball at them.

with the development of smart watches, im glad someone made an omnitrix interface mod for them.

Bored Panda

Planned obsolescence

To have that clear - I'm a somewhat petrolhead, and engine development was my profession for the most fun times I've worked anywhere. But - a power density exceeding 150 kW/l always will come with side effects you don't want, compared to engines in the 100 kw/l range, which was near unthinkable in series production not that long ago. Today, a single-stage turbo gasoline engine can achieve that, some 200...300 Nm per liter as well, starting with that, plateu'ishly curved, high, torque below 2000 RPM, without ANY rich mixture being needed whatsoever. Throttling can be beat by other, and even better, means than just downsizing. The current top AMG C-class has an inline four of two liters displacement, throwing off 350 kW. The current straight six, the nicest gasoline engine Mercedes ever built, can deliver 330 kW in the stronger, but still standard, version, and shares a bunch of properties and internal sizes, depending on model in question even parts (such as valves, pistons, rods and many of their surrounding machinery parts that drive those - valvetrain parts, ...). I know that no C-class can use up 350 kW constantly, so likely won't have rich mixture or any other poor method applied in steady operation in reality, but still - it's overkill. Some decades ago, the engines that were stronger in relation to size were also less consuming in relation to power, a reasonable tad more complex and lasted forever (think Alfa Romeo's classic straight four all-aluminum DOHC). But, these times, with CAFE-criteria made into actual law and people's criteria taking the thirst for fuel into account way more prominent than before, are over. Today's high-performance engines just exceed not only what anybody needs, but also what can, with current means, be made well for multiple criteria without compromising them.

Apple's VR headset. I mean, it's cool and all but with a cable and a big battery, no one is going to use it seriously.

Social Media

ukulele tuners

I finally got a digital cat. The last one had ticks.

Wifi Controlled Light Switches - I'm not lazy, but the fact that I can both schedule lights to turn on and off remotely, as well as tell them to turn on with voice commands when my hands are full with the shopping, or I'm unable to find the wall switch.

Roombas and other "cleaners". Are people THAT lazy about sweeping their own floors? Those things don't work on rugs. And their purpose isn't cleaning, it's about building maps of people's houses and what sort of furniture you have.