We all love our gadgets. And when new ones emerge, we can’t envision how we lived without them. However, there’s an ugly truth to the world of technology: Much of what’s hot today becomes outdated tomorrow. Just consider the humble landline telephone. Sure, many households still have them, but a large number of people are relying solely on cell phones and ditching the expense of operating a landline. It’s not hard to imagine a future in which landline telephones are no longer attached to our kitchen walls but are instead filling our landfills.

Here’s a look at various other key pieces of technology that were once significant and are now on their way to becoming obsolete. In fact, many of these gizmos might become useless during the next 10 years.

Fax Machines: Don’t you hate receiving or sending faxes? You’re not alone. The fax machine, once the height of gee-whiz technology, is now a pain in the posterior. Don’t be shocked if all our “faxing” in the future is done completely through e-mail.

Newspaper Classified Ads: The Huffington Post recently listed newspaper classified ads as an endangered species. That’s primarily due to the online garage sale that is Craigslist. By providing people the ability to advertise their used futons for free, Craigslist provided a fatal body blow to newspaper-classified sections across the nation.

Film-Based Cameras: It seems like film-based cameras are on their way out as well. People have a deep love for traditional film so it has taken a while for people to fully transition to digital. But with digital cameras, you can save all your pictures digitally and easily distribute them over the Internet without needing to save negatives. Even Kodak has seen the consequences of this change. There is no arguing that in general we are going to bid farewell to film-based cameras.

The Calculator Watch: In its short-lived life; the calculator watch was a well-loved item. It made it easy to always have a calculator handy when you needed one. When cell phones with built in calculators came into existence, the calculator watch went out the window. It’s pretty obvious why PCWorld listed it as an obsolete technology.

The Video Arcade: Many people grew up playing games in their local arcade so it’s unfortunate that these may be on their way out as well. But with the frequency that game systems improve and the inherent expense that it takes to operate an arcade, most gamers just go with their home systems where they can play in comfort.

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