JONATHAN DREW reports from inside the meteor that's going to snuff out your favorite products and services.
Majestic, chrome, forlorn: Pay phones are dwindling. (AP Photo/Lou Krasky)
Observers say manned toll booths are going the way of the manned elevator. (AP Photo)
Logging, dam-building and civil wars threaten the survival of the lovable panda and charismatic gorilla.
But not every endangered species munches bamboo shoots on a misty mountain peak. Some are covered in spilled coffee, dangling by a silver cord or emitting a plaintive busy signal in the JetBlue terminal.
Much like our majestic mammal friends, many consumer products are in danger of going extinct because of human progress. Technology makes our lives easier and provides us with an array of flashy products that dazzle the opposite sex at bars. But as the newer and better is widely adopted, we lose some of the items that are ingrained in our daily lives.
Here's a look at some species that are slowly disappearing from your briefcase, coffee table and back pocket.
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1. PAY PHONES
HABITAT: City streets, airports, Circle-K parking lots.
THREATS TO SURVIVAL: Cell phones, knocked-over sodas.
PROGNOSIS: The number of payphones nationwide has been cut in half in the last decade to about 1 million in 2006, largely due to increased cell phone use, according to pay phone operator trade group American Public Communications Council. However, plenty of people still use the devices -- to the tune of 4 million calls per day. And many people can't afford cell phones or landlines at all.
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2. TOLL BOOTHS
HABITAT: Highways, bridges.
THREATS TO SURVIVAL: Prepaid accounts, transponders, antennae.
PROGNOSIS: Transportation officials and observers say electronic money collection systems such as E-ZPass are increasingly replacing the guy taking cash in a booth. While the Department of Transportation didn't have hard numbers on manned toll lanes, the editor of the Toll Roads News Web site says he envisions the toll booth operator's job going the way of the elevator attendant's.
"I suspect in the next ten years toll collectors jobs will disappear like that," Peter Samuel said in an e-mail.
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3. FILM CAMERAS
HABITAT: Journalists' vests, tourists' fanny packs.
THREATS TO SURVIVAL: Digital cameras.
PROGNOSIS: Think dodo bird. Ed Lee, a digital photography analyst with market researcher Infotrends, says 99 percent of cameras currently sold in the U.S. are digital, up from 55 percent in 2002. (The sales figures exclude disposable cameras.) Meanwhile, about 9 in 10 professionally taken photos are digital, the firm said.
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4. PRINTED NEWSPAPERS
HABITAT: Starbucks tables, wrapped around fish.
THREATS TO SURVIVAL: The Internet, "The Daily Show," apathy.
PROGNOSIS: People are trading newsprint-stained hands for carpal tunnel syndrome: Numbers of newspapers sold have been inching downward while online readership is growing. Daily paid circulation, which was 62.8 million in 1987, dropped to 52.3 million in 2006.
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5. PAPER AIRLINE TICKETS
HABITAT: Back pocket of jeans, between pages of Nicholas Sparks novel.
THREATS: Online check-ins; sitting down.
PROGNOSIS: With most people already opting for e-tickets, the paper versions were increasingly scarce. But they got a shove over the cliff with the announcement that the industry group that handles ticketing for most major airlines, the International Air Transport Association, will stop issuing paper tickets altogether in June. Some small or regional airlines will continue to use hard copies.
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6. TRANS FATS
HABITAT: The tastiest of french fries, doughnuts and spreadable condiments.
THREATS TO SURVIVAL: Cottonseed oil, city boards of health, people who don't want heart disease.
PROGNOSIS: Partially hydrogenated oils and other sources of artery-clogging trans-fats are slowly being replaced with healthier alternatives. New York City's ban on trans fats in restaurants took effect this year, and Philadelphia passed a similar measure. Several other cities and states are considering following suit. Meanwhile, McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's are among the restaurant chains phasing out the oils nationwide.
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This may be the last tagline Jonathan Drew will ever write.
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