What modern technology amazes you?

With all this new technology, I am often in awe at some of the achievements that were made without the benefit of all the technology that we have now. The moon landings were the greatest example of this.

I watched "The Imitation Game" again yesterday (about Alan Turing) and the fact that he effectively built a mechanical computer from scratch, to decipher the Enigma codes, was truly amazing.

I still have on my desk a mechanical calculator, from my early days at work. It's a great piece of engineering. Here's one.

I have my Dad's Otis King basically a cylindrical slide rule ..... I've no idea now how to use it.

Interesting device Ian, I noted that it cost £37 10 shillings new in 1957. that's the equivalent of £846.40 today. The one at £47 10  is now £1017.10.  

They sell for those sort of figures on ebay and the like.

This was similar to my first calculator here It was a Rockwell but had green digits display.  I bought it from Rediffusion tv shop which was the only shop in Derby to stock them in about 1976.

For younger readers Rediffusion hired out televisons, yes you hired them.

ATM's amaze me, although I'm willing to believe that there is a little person sitting in a box behind it quickly counting out the money.

The OS Road map.  Forget your SatNav and your "smart" phone.  Give me a good OS map so that I can see the big picture.

Apart from that, I think the cordless drill is one of the best bits of technology.

I grew up during the home computer revolution in the late 70's and 80's.

I was a geek and intuitively knew how to use them and learnt how they worked.  I was truly excited about technology and what it could achieve.

I was there in the early days of the internet when it was just a bunch of universities and research labs, well before the "web" was born, that too filled me with excitement and joy of what would come.

I'm afraid that recently I've become disenchanted with technology on the whole, it's useful but not as exciting for me as it once was. 

Yes, I have a supercomputer phone that wouldn't have fit in a warehouse 30 years ago. Yes, I can broadcast to the world from the middle of a field.  Yet something has gone from modern machines, maybe the soul.

Modern technology doesn't amaze me, it's just the accumulation of the "smaller and faster" incremental changes that've been going on since the electronics age began. 

Whilst I would champion almost all Technical achievements, for me, it is Face time or similar. When my terminally ill mother went into hospital and then on to a Hospice, she was able to make contact with all her family and friends - some in America. This allowed those, too far away to go to see her, to chat and share their thoughts with her (almost in person). And by the way mum was 101. Without video conferencing she would not have enjoyed her last weeks as much as she did.

Facetime (or any smartphone video calling)

Incredible - chat to people across the globe with no lag, no pixilation

Amazing