Seven Products, Concepts, and Ideas That Won't Exist by 2025

Motley Fool ^ | 08/21/2012 | Sean Williams

[SeekAndFind]

I'm sort of ashamed to admit that Friday night's baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies is the inspiration for this article. As a sidebar to the actual game itself, the broadcasters noted that someone had built a replica DeLorean hovercraft and was riding it around McCovey Cove in San Francisco, Calif.

This got me thinking (yes, a replica hovercraft DeLorean inspired me; laugh all you want), what if we could travel into the past, or better yet, into the future to see what products, concepts, and ideas survived and which ones drifted away. Back to the Future II wasn't exactly the best predictor of what the future would be like. According to the movie, in three years we're supposed to have flying cars and a Pepsi is expected to cost close to $50. Neither of those predictions looks even remotely feasible, although I will give the movie credit for correctly predicting a baseball team in Miami.

So today, I'm going to give you my best Doc Brown and highlight seven products, concepts, and ideas that won't exist by the year 2025. I could well be wrong, but these seven things are a long way from hitting 88 MPH and sending themselves back to better times.

Products

• Digital cameras: Come on, you knew there was going to be at least one no-brainer in here! Chances are that if you own a smartphone, the camera in your phone has a higher resolution than the digital camera you own. This is one reason Eastman Kodak bit the dust (one of a dozen may I add) and is another reason why it's crucial to pay attention to camera display sensor companies like OmniVision Technologies (Nasdaq: OVTI  ) that are driving camera innovation in devices from both Apple and Samsung. With new smartphones sporting 8MP cameras, and resolutions increasing yearly, why wouldn't digital cameras go extinct?
• 3-D televisions: Personally, I'm surprised 3-D televisions still exist now, just two years after debuting on the market. Of the seven things listed here, this is the fad of all fads, and is one of the primary reasons why Best Buy (NYSE: BBY  ) , which bet big on 3-D TVs, has been in a downward spiral in recent months. There are plenty of reasons that 3-D TVs are staying out of people's homes, including high price points, the need for ridiculous glasses, and frankly, very little content is currently available in 3-D. Lower 3-D set prices could bring a short revival of sales in the future, but the likelihood of 3-D content expanding dramatically amid already tepid sales makes this technology's survival a long shot.
• Energy drinks: I can almost see teenagers across America, as well as white-collar workers on Wall Street, foaming at the mouth because of this statement. I admit, I'm not an energy drink buyer, period, but I can understand their mass appeal now. What I feel will do them in will be the ever-broadening scope of the Food and Drug Administration. At the moment the FDA is working its way under the tobacco industries' skin and could find its way into regulating the certain aspects of energy drinks including safety, ingredients, and manufacturing, within the next decade. That could be a crushing blow for energy drink giant Monster Beverage (Nasdaq: MNST  ) , which generates more than 90% of its sales from its energy drinks.
• Credit cards: Sure, there will be a die-hard few who live in caves and refuse to relinquish their platinum miles card from their wallet, but the trend over the coming decade will be a move from plastic to near-field communication inspired modes of payment using mobile devices. NFC payments are more secure, quicker, and more convenient for users. Two companies that could benefit in a big way from this movement are Dolby Laboratories (NYSE: DLB  ) and NXP Semiconductors (Nasdaq: NXPI  ) . NXP makes the chips used in NFC-enabled mobile devices while Dolby Labs' subsidiary, Via Licensing, owns all NFC patents. This means big royalties anytime NFC technology is used in a mobile device. Keep your eye on these two names.

Concepts

• United States Post Office: Blame email or blame smartphones, but one way or another the post office is on its way out. The USPS defaulted on a required $5.5 billion payment to the postal workers' pension for the first time in its history earlier this month, and for the third quarter, the USPS lost a staggering $5.2 billion, or $57 million per day. That's an unsustainable government loss that's only expected to widen over the coming years and will prompt whichever party finds itself in office over the next decade to give the USPS the ax. FedEx, UPS, and other shippers have a few years to figure out how to pick up the slack before the USPS tips over from a stiff breeze.
• European Union: All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't solve the eurozone debt crisis if they threw everything they've got at it! After years of grossly mismanaging their budgets, Greece has accepted nearly $300 billion in aid from the EU to buoy its collapsing economy, Spain recently accepted $125 billion in aid for its banks, Ireland took $113 billion in aid, and Italy could be on the verge of needing assistance with its lending rates hovering around 6%. EU leaders can continue to sweep these problems further down the road, but at some point these problems are going to flush to the forefront all at once and the EU as we know it will not exist by 2025.

Ideas

• The United States is the pre-eminent superpower: Though some disagree, the United States' days as the world's most important nation are numbered. That doesn't mean the U.S. won't hold its lead in innovation and manufacturing, but China is well on its way to dethroning the U.S. in countless other categories. China already lays claim to the world's leading manufacturing output, energy consumption, and steel usage, and should, based on its current trajectory, easily surpass the U.S. in total GDP, retails sales, and imports by 2025. Simply put, people will be looking toward China to dictate global growth in the future first, not the United States.

Foolish roundup
There you have it -- 1.21 gigawatts of products, concepts, and ideas that are destined for extinction by 2025. Let me and your fellow Fools know your take on the above ideas in the comments section below, as well as other products, concepts, and ideas that could fall by the wayside over the next decade.

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[wally_bert]

Out of what I have in Canon land being the 18-55, 100 macro, 70 300 telephoto and 28-135, the 135 and 100 get the most use and the 100 is my favorite all around when I can use it.

[Carbonsteel]

Pretty much.

Why do you think Japan has been stuck in a perpetual recession for the last 20 years?

Because we stopped buying their crap and started buying Chinese. The rise of China has been financed on the backs of the American consumer base....at least partly. Once that base is gone, China will have to find a new host.

[Chode]

i use the 70-300 the most on mine

[reg45]

One size fits all ... It’s called 0bamacare.

[Chode]

yeah kinda like a one size fits all coffin...

[Paradox]

With a big enough sensor, eventually this will get you to what you can do with a DSLR.

This is true, and like I said, there are lens technologies in the future as well that will flatten things. Another poster referenced the PureView 808 from Nokia. It is nothing short of amazing. With enough pixels, you can do a lot. I'm thinking of something like a phased array sort of thing perhaps.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

“The quantity of things that “should be out in 5 years” for the last 30 or 40 years is epic (cure for cancer, viable solar power, half a dozen replacements for gas). Until it’s actually out I never believe them.”

The predictions were off but the last 30 or 40 years have been pretty amazing. I’m willing to bet the next 30 or 40 will be jaw dropping.

[Secret Agent Man]

In real life much of what you see looks 2D as well.

[publius911]

With new smartphones sporting 8MP cameras, and resolutions increasing yearly, why wouldn't digital cameras go extinct?

Some people just like to hear themselves talk. Being delusional helps them redefine words and concepts.

Cell phones already went extinct. Digital cameras, just got smaller and dumber, and they happen to have an embedded cell phone function.

Make them with decent zoom lenses and automatic stabilization and flash control, and the digital camera lives! with cell phone and gps attached.

Gheeez Louise!

[mwilli20]

Optical lens basics have been unchanged for 500 years but you think that it will all be thrown out in the next 13?

[MrEdd]

Go back and read my actual post.

I am pointing out that we are now seeing mounting systems for lenses that do not require a significant protuberance on the mounting surface - hence we can have full lens sets even for thin camera bodies like those built into cell phones.

I was a 2171 my third tour, I know how lenses work.

[MrEdd]

Go back and read my actual post.

I am pointing out that we are now seeing mounting systems for lenses that do not require a significant protuberance on the mounting surface - hence we can have full lens sets even for thin camera bodies like those built into cell phones.

I was a 2171 my third tour, I know how lenses work.

[Sherman Logan]

Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads".

Does not require that Congress do so.

[discostu]

Oh yeah things have been amazing. Lot of great stuff has been invented/ perfected/ improved. It’s just that almost none of that was ever predicted to happen. Which just makes it all more fun.

[discostu]

Uh yeah it does. If it didn’t that would mean they also aren’t required to provide for the common defense, establish rules of naturalization, establish a court, raise an army, provide a navy, or all the rest of the stuff in Article 1, Section 8. That isn’t a list of suggestions, it’s a list of duties.

[Sherman Logan]

Beg to differ.

“The Congress shall have Power ... To establish Post Offices”

Or disestablish them. The Post Office was a crucial part of the government’s duties in the past.

It is increasingly irrelevant. I call my mailbox the trash delivery device. 95% of the time I drop it all straight into the adjacent trash can.

Congress is also empowered to: “grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water” They don’t do so anymore, indeed have signed treaties outlawing the practice.

Was this unconstitutional?

[discostu]

You can beg all you want, meanwhile out here in reality that’s a list of duties. And the USPS is no where near irrelevant, they deliver more stuff in a week than any of their competitors do all year. It’s not their fault nobody sends you mail you like. If they hadn’t been saddled with a massive pension they wouldn’t even be losing money.

They don’t do letters of marque anymore because the military has grown enough to handle that. The duties that are why they were granted that power (provide for the common defense) still applies, they’re just doing it through a different method in the list. Got some other entry on the list that sends mail? No, thus the PO shall remain.

[Sherman Logan]

If there is a federal agency approximating the present USPS 20 years from now I shall be quite surprised.

[discostu]

Guess you surprise easy. I guarantee there will be a USPS still around as long as there is a US to PS for. As much as people whine and moan about it it’s still a vital part of the nation. Even with volume declined they’re still processing 78 TRILLION pieces of first class mail a year, and that’s just the first class. That need isn’t going to disappear in 20 years. Really what’s killing them is that congress is forcing them to prefund retiree health care for 75 years, nobody can survive that kind outlay. If some grownups wind up in charge again and their pension expenses go back to something normal and real world their finances will be fixed in 10 minutes.

[mwilli20]

The article claims that digital cameras will disappear in 13 years which is a staggeringly ignorant statement. And you wrote “I don’t think he is wrong at all on cameras.”

Having worked in the field you know the difference between a nice German lens like a Leica and a cheap knockoff so you should not be surprised that the flat lenses will probably not provide anywhere the quality of a traditional lens for a very long time.