>> I would imagine a lot of people said the same in 1850 about the
>> Industrial Revolution. And look what's changed since then (in terms of
>> manufacturing).
>
> Um... has anything changed? Apart from the invention of plastic, I can't
> really think of anything.

You just need to look at a modern car, building or home appliance to see 
countless things that would simply be impossible to manufacture 100 
years ago even with a limitless amount of money. Not because of the 
reliance on electronics, but because processes and materials simply 
hadn't been developed. Sure plastics have been around for ages, but 
today we take for granted there are plastics that you can leave in 
direct sunlight for decades without fading or going brittle. In another 
decade or two we'll take bio-plastics for granted and they will have the 
same or even better performance than we have today.

Another large part of the change is making things more efficient to 
manufacture, and thus affordable for more people. Food processing and 
transportation has become hugely more efficient over the last few 
decades, just look at the sort of things the average person could afford 
to eat in 1900 or even 1960 compared with today.

> I don't know, man. I think Internet speeds have now reached the point
> where page loading is near-instant, and any further boost is of no real
> benefit.

Who would ever need more than 640KB?

>  From what I've seen, the limitation is that all projectors work at
> 800x600, or if you buy an expensive one, 1024x768. Christ only knows why
> they don't make them in any higher resolutions...

Have you felt the *heat* from a modern portable projector? If they made 
the pixels even smaller, they'd need an even bigger light and a fridge 
to stop the thing melting. There's still a way to go until you have 
something small that can project clearly and sharply on to a big wall 
without filling your room with heat and fan noise.

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