'Classic' technological limitations have no solution

Blue screen of death, lost connection, low battery... are problems that have been familiar to mobile device users for the past 20 years, but have not been improved.

According to XDR , technological advances have changed people's lives, but there are still limitations that appeared two decades ago that have not been overcome by developers. There are objective errors, but there are also problems that are intentionally created.

Battery life

While smartphones and other electronic devices have been constantly evolving, battery technology has barely improved in the past few decades. In the early days, batteries in phones and laptops were not a big problem, as with the "brick" phones from Nokia and Motorola that lasted for a week.

Over time, more and more features are integrated, devices are thinner while screens are larger, requiring more power, but battery technology has not kept up with the pace of development of the industry as a whole. Users have to charge daily and batteries often fail after a few years.

The battery capacity on the iPhone 14 Pro Max is only 92% after 10 months of use. Photo: Ngoc Trung

What mobile manufacturers are doing is optimizing performance to extend battery life. But the real question is what technology will make the battery last all week. Some solutions have been announced but they are still behind the lab doors.

"Shark bites cable"

The internet has become ubiquitous, from wifi to high-speed 5G. But internet connectivity is still heavily dependent on fragile fiber optic cables under the sea. The submarine cables, dubbed the “world’s information superhighway,” are responsible for carrying more than 90% of internet traffic.

According to TeleGeography , there are an average of more than 100 submarine cable breaks each year. That means there is a cable break somewhere in the world every three days, giving rise to the “shark bite” myth. The problem is that despite advances in technology, the process of repairing submarine cables remains extremely difficult.

Also, not everyone has internet access. There are still many places that are Internet “dead ends” because it is too expensive to run cables there. Satellite internet could solve the problem, but the cost of using this technology is a big challenge for users in remote areas.

Calling but can't connect

Two people calling each other at the same time and both lines getting busy is so common that it’s taken for granted. But experts say this is a major flaw that technology hasn’t solved. If one person is trying to call the other and vice versa, why doesn’t the call always connect?

It is not uncommon for someone to see an incoming call but not be able to answer it and call back, only to have the line on the other end say busy because the person on the other end was also trying to reach you. However, network operators have yet to find a suitable solution to this age-old problem.

Overheating device

Manufacturers are trying to cram more and more features and technologies into a small design, making them prone to overheating. This is a big challenge that users of smartphones, tablets, and high-end PCs cannot avoid. As a result, the device often freezes, and even more dangerously, it can cause fires and explosions.

"Blue Screen of Death"

Windows users are no strangers to the "blue screen of death" interface whenever their device has hardware and memory errors. In Windows 10, this situation has not been fixed, it has simply been renamed "Black Screen of Death" (BSOD), meaning only the background color is different. In Windows 11, Microsoft changed it to green. This means that the error has been persistent since Windows 3 and has only been recolored to look different.

The "blue screen of death" interface on Windows operating system. Photo: Unsplash

Difficult to repair

The paradox is that as technology advances, the lifespan of modern devices becomes shorter and the ability to repair becomes more and more difficult, with almost no products that "still work well after 10 years" left. There are both objective and subjective reasons for this. First, the more advanced the processors, the more complicated the repair will be. But there is also the fact that manufacturers are making the cost of repairing devices too high. Warranty is time-consuming and has to meet many complex standards, making many people think of buying new rather than having damaged hardware repaired.

The cables

When needing to borrow a cable to charge the battery or connect to transfer data, users will have to ask each other what port the device uses such as USB, microUSB, USB-C, Lightning... USB-C is gradually becoming the common standard for transmitting power, data, display and audio connection. However, the number of different USB-C standards is also creating a lot of trouble for users. Although it is possible to charge a phone or laptop with any USB-C cable, users still do not get the standard speed because it depends on the rating, length and quality of the cable.