Totally Typed Out

Everyone owns something past its techno prime. If you have got a Smith Corona, it officially counts. Last week the company filed for bankruptcy. Other products whose end is imminent, according to obsolescence expert Bruce Sterling : What Won't Survive Sterling's death-watch includes : VHS tapes (seen "The Matrix" on DVD?) Floppy Disks and other storage devices like microcassette tapes. (They've got about 10 years) Also in trouble : CD-ROMs - "Never really a way to sell encyclopaedias" - and fax machines, a pre-mail transitional concept. Phone Cos. will be eaten by the Net, Cable TV by greed. "Warring Media titans cause people to look askance at what they are told through that medium." And photocopiers ? Start copying your face immediately.   What Will Survive Sterling says to forget the talk about how you'll be your own home office. You'll be sitting in the same chair. But now it'll be part of the PC, alerting you to your ergonomic flaws. Films and, yes, newspapers (in some form) will hang around, too. "People have been writing this stuff for years." Additionally, Sterling says, "body-centric" items, like fountain pens, provide a personal touch in an increasingly impersonal society. Finally, personal digital assistants are sexy - but that yellow round of Rolodex cards never crashes.