I think for many nerds like myself, Sony gear didn't just contribute to our interest in gadgets, it sort of defined it. I'm a little young to harken all the way back to Sony's classic hi-fi gear, but the Clie, the VAIO UX, MiniDisc, Discman, Memory Stick, and Mavica were all touchstones for me. Sony's devices of decades past were invariably distinctive, often proprietary, and just so darn memorable.
A strange parking lot concept store in Tokyo has started selling various items — mostly zippable pouches —based on some of Sony's classic gadgets. There's a Walkman, of course, a Betamax tape, Sony's classic 3.5-inch blue floppy disk. I kind of want all of them, and I'm not even a zippable pouch sort of person.
But it got me wondering: what modern devices would be worth this sort of treatment 20 years from now? Almost every phone on the market is an undifferentiated slab. I love Kickstarter gadgets, but they're rarely successful or important. Am I missing something obvious here? What iconic device available in the year 2017 will be worth selling in zipper pouch form in an underground Tokyo garage in the year 2037? And will we even have zippers then?