I agree this is a big concern, however the primary issue is not landfill, but the enormous amount of embodied (CO2) energy that is wrapped up in all this rapidly obsolete stuff.

Technological innovation is not limited to non-durables. Increases in speed and memory have pushed capabilities way beyond the average user's requirements that, in turn, become part of the upgrade/obsolecence upward spiral of 'durables'. Just how fast is fast enough? How much memory is memory enough? I think I reached my level of needs with broadband and a memory stick of one gigabyte! I doubt I can go much faster or need to 'remember' much more. What are the ceilings? When do we reach the pinnacle of need? Am I becoming a neo-Luddite or am I a discerning consumer, with knowledge that my screen is big enough, my pixelation is sharp enough, my whistels and bells are musical enough and that my system security is secure enough?

The article picked the wrong target. If you are going to attack something as try to pick a target that creates more waste as it evolves, not less.

In mobile phones the life span of the most environmentally obnoxious part of them, the battery, is two years. As battery is worth around 1/3 of the cost of a cheap phone it determines the phones life.

Yes, the manufacturers take the opportunity to upgrade the phones capabilities each time through the life cycle. It is happening because the computers inside are getting smaller and less power hungry, not because the phones are getting bigger or use more resources. In fact the reverse is true - they are shrinking. So at worst environmentally this costs us nothing. At best the newer phones replace other gadgets we might have on us - cameras, PDA's, radio's, torches, music players, CB radios, calculators, address books - it is a big list. And it hasn't stopped growing. In the future it will be credit cards, keys, licenses, passports, keys, GPS, street directories, newspapers, magazines, books, and god knows what else - my old mind isn't flexible enough to see.

If you want to pick on a technological sector gone mad, why not try home entertainment? Most people can still pick up any mobile phone and dial a number or answer a call. Compare that you your TV/VCR/DVD/Cable player. It is a rare person indeed who can operate new home entertainment system without referring to the manual. Not too many years ago it was just a case of turning the thing or and flipping to the right channel - grandma could of done it. Is this progress?

Yes, we have bigger screens and louder sound, but the things are also 10 times the size and consume power like a bar heater when in full flight. And for what? They still do the same thing - allow us to see the news presenter at 7. The major difference is we can see their freckles now, so they have to use a lot more makeup.

It's a fair point - but the waste is not limited to technology. The same occurs in cars (SUVs?), boats, fashion/clothes, medicine and consulting services.

At the end of the day, people simply have too much money to buy crap with. Many of us drive to work in newish cars in order to work on projects that have been sold to clients for millions and which will be tossed out (I'm thinking IT now) or irrelevant in a couple of years.

But we cannot stop the waste of others. Maybe the best we can do is to put our own money to good use.

I support James Massola's call to 'step outside of the upgrade cycle', think i've saved considerable time and money to extent have done so. Thats heartwarming for me, but wont ever over-ride price or shiny-pretty-bundled-no-money-down marketing for majority of consumers.

Planned obsolescence and consumerism are not accidental side effects of growth-dependant economics, they're essential, and they wont ever be fixed by the econ.rationalist robots who rule. The market failure could be eased by pricing in the uncosted externalities (embodied energy, emissions, toxic waste to landfill, depletion of metal reserves, opportunity cost), but most likely this phenomenon of privelidge will be snuffed out by scarcity as energy supply declines. In twenty years we'll all be keeping quiet about current excesses, lest our considerably poorer descendants decide euthanasia needn't be voluntary.

I am currently typing this on an 8-year-old laptop, connected wirelessly (802.11G) to my router. Another 8-year-old laptop (bought second-hand on eBay for $200.00) is playing music through my stereo. I don't play CDs any more as I have ripped them all as MP3s and find computer access much easier.

Mind you, these 350 and 400 Mhz machines are too slow for Photoshop (or ripping CDs), so I use my 3-year-old 1.8 Ghz desktop machine (bought second-hand) for that. I upgrade when I have to, generally because of software I need to run. I retired a 9-year-old machine last year and gave it to my sister. Sadly it suffered a catastophic logic-board falure soon after, and the gutted hulk is sitting in my shed. I removed the ram, hard drive and network card whcih are waiting for a new home and may replace an even older machine I have farmed out elswhere.

Much of my gear is obsolescent, or obsolete, but still renders good service for word-processing, web-browsing and music. Oh, and it is 100% Apple Macintosh. I have found Macs to be tough, long-lasting machines. I suppose that must make me a "chic designer, pedantic publisher or posing puss"?