Ten technologies that should be extinct (but aren't)

Some technologies serve their purpose for a while, then either evolve into cheaper, faster, better forms or simply disappear. Yet others - such as fax machines, landline phones and instant cameras - just refuse to die, despite better digital alternatives.

Subsequently, iTelegram took over Western Union's telex network, though you can access it via the Web. To send a first-class priority (same-day) message from New York to Los Angeles now costs $25, plus 88 cents a word. (Plus whatever it costs to refill your meds -because who in their right mind would bother to send a telegram?) Western Union is still around too, though its primary customers appear to be Internet scam artists hoping to dupe suckers into wiring them money.

The age of Web tablets

In the age of Web tablets and smartphones, typewriters are a bit like Fred Flintstone's car - strictly for cave dwellers. Yet people still buy and use them. In 2009, for example, the New York City Police Department made headlines when it spent nearly $1 million on typewriters, mostly so it could continue to use multipart carbon forms for processing evidence.

Despite advances in Internet fax services and the availability of dirt-cheap scanners, this office machine of the 1980s is still with us - more than half a million of them were purchased over the past 12 months, according to the NPD Group, a market research company. It's not just people who still wear shoulder pads and buy Cyndi Lauper albums. These screechy, annoying gadgets continue to attract realtors, lawyers, insurance companies, and others nervous about the authenticity of signed documents without an ink-based John or Jane Hancock on them.

"Fax machines are just so 1980s," he says. "If you're still using one, it's time to put it in the attic next to your legwarmers and that copy of "The Breakfast Club" on VHS and move to an Internet fax service instead."

According to the latest survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly 25 percent of Americans have ditched their landlines for a cell phone. Another 22 million or so Americans pay for a VoIP service like Vonage to reach out and touch. Still, that leaves well over 100 million households firmly tethered to one of Ma Bell's bastard offspring. (No doubt many of these lines are also plugged into fax machines.)

Why? Because nothing says "I've fallen and I can't get up" quite like a landline. Only 5 percent of adults age 65 or older live in wireless-only households, per the NCHS - no doubt in part because mobile E911 emergency services still aren't as reliable as calling for help from your trusty wall-mounted phone. As that population gradually moves toward that great early bird special in the sky, landlines will likely follow.

The first CompuServe chat forum

Geeky graybeards will remember that the first CompuServe chat forum was called "CB Simulator." From there it's easy to draw a direct line to today's chat, IM, and Twitter clients. Still, in the era of ubiquitous 24/7 communication, CB radios are a relic, argues Jim Gardner, president of marketing consultancy Strategy 180, who bought his first Cobra CB radio in 1977. (His handle is "Moonshiner.")

"Although not 10-17 (urgent), my 10-20 (position) on the issue is that given that the peak of CB radios' mainstream adoption coincided with bell bottoms, disco, and orange shag carpeting, the advent of push-to-talk cell phones should have buried this icon of bad Burt Reynolds films years ago," he says. "After all, some conversations are simply better 10-21 (on the phone). 10-4, good buddy?"