Leave No Technology Behind

30 IEEE ConsumEr ElECtronICs magazInE ^ JULY 2014 L eave no technology behind— this slight twist on the mantra of the U.S. Armed Forces is a rusting signpost on the highway of consumer electronic innovation. From the DOS prompt to the RS-232 connector, from CTRL-ALT-DEL to the CD drive, there are an amazing number of technologies that are not left behind, even within an industry obsessed with the next big thing. Though, with the persuasive announcement that Moore’s law is dead and buried (see Zvi OrBach’s recent blog in Solid State Technology [1]), the perpetual risk of obsolescence may be reaching its swan song. A very quick side thought: it is thought-provoking to speculate on how the electronics industry will eventually take the form of the automotive industry, a market based on relatively stagnant technology. Because it will. The primary, and often only, justification for older technology is compatibility. We (the corporate “we”) have sold a trillion thing-a-bloops (or the consumer has a trillion thing-a-bloops), and it is very important that the next thing we sell is completely compatible with those thing-a-bloops. Most consumers of electronic devices greatly appreciate this willingness to design to their existing hardware/ software menagerie. And many other industries that extraneously also rely on consumer electronics—think industrial, aviation, and military—are even more grateful of this perpetuation of technology. However, as Apple has demonstrated numerous times, you can avoid being led astray by the ghosts of the past. And when companies continue to integrate older technology into newer designs, there are real risks that are often unknown or overlooked by engineering and management. Two examples of this risk can be found in the slow drip of pronouncements (CNET, The Verge, Yahoo News, etc.) regarding the teething problems of disc drives (CD/DVD/Blu-ray) in the recently launched PS4 and Xbox One [2]– [8]. Now, I should be clear that I know nothing of the actual failure mode and root cause of these problems. And, if one reads the articles in depth, it can be seen that the two devices seem to be having different issues with DVD drives (Xbox One: grinding/clicking noise; PS4: ejection and playback). But having dispensed with these polite caveats, periodic, publicly visible forays into the morass of product failures provide an excellent canvas for engineers and managers to learn the challenges of technology integration.