5 Gadgets That Will Disappear In 2013, According to Geek Experts: Goodbye CDs, Radios, MP3 Players, DVDs, And The Cable Box

Take some time in 2013 to let your favorite electronic gadgets know how much you love them - they may not be around next year. According to a Facebook poll taken by the geeks at IEEE and attendees at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, several electronic devices that are ubiquitous right now will end up in the "Gadget Graveyard" by year's end.

Here's a round-up of the top five voted out of our lives, and why they are on their way out.

The CD-ROM (75%)

This has been a long time coming, if only evidenced by the fact that you haven't gotten 10 AOL Free Trial CD-ROM packages in the mail for several years. Remember a time when you could either download a modestly sized much-needed update to your computer or choose the option to get the CD by mail in 5-to-50 days' time? Now that most of us have moved beyond 56K modems, most of the software we buy, we download in minutes. Helping push the CD-ROM out of our lives are the popular tablets and netbooks like the Macbook Air, which forgo the disc drive in favor of portability. But my, what a reign the CD-ROM had for the decade between Floppy discs and instant downloads!

Radios (58%)

The device, not the medium. We used to listen to radios in the house and definitely in the car. Now we have a billion channels of internet radio available on any number of platforms and podcasts of our favorite radio shows are now available to-go or in our homes on demand. Plus most broadcast radio is simulcast on the internet. Many smartphones incorporate an FM receiver and a radio app, too. You know, just in case an unprecedented hurricane wipes out telecommunication for tens of millions of people.

MP3 Players (55%)

It was like the Walkman all over again when the iPod was invented. Young people walked around with earbuds in and the rest of the world tuned out. And the elders groused about how oblivious the new generation was becoming. Now with the spread of smartphones, if you walk down some streets without sporting the earbuds, you'll be the strange one that sticks out. MP3 players may hit the dust, but not because the public square has been reborn - everyone forgoing their mobile privacy bubbles and talking to each other - but because smartphones now fill our need for alienation.

DVDs (53%)

Did you know that Netflix still rents DVDs by mail? Strange, right? The DVD seems to be going by the wayside for similar reasons that the CD-ROM is disappearing. More and more, you can stream movies instantly using Hulu or Netflix, or download digital copies at places like Amazon and iTunes. (I've also heard some people torrent movies for free - Shame on them!) Digital movies now play on any number of devices, including game consoles, Blu-ray players, tablets, smartphones, computers, and TVs. Oh, and speaking of Blu-ray: if you're going to buy a physical copy of something, you're probably going to want the highest quality picture you can get. And while perhaps DVDs will exist in Blu-ray double-disc-limbo for some time, they're on the way out.

Cable Boxes (51%)

This one was a squeaker, just barely getting consensus as a dying gadget. Now, a lot of new TVs come with a built-in QAM tuner, obviating the need for your basic cable box, but I think the IEEE means the medium is endangered as well. It makes sense, too. There are a lot of trends moving against cable, including cable-cutting youths, on demand video of your favorite TV shows, the above-mentioned movie streaming and download services... the Internet. But something may save cable TV boxes from the Gadget Graveyard this year, as it has every year since broadband hit the United States and it can be summed up in one word: Sports. ESPN and live sports single-handedly make Cable TV worthwhile for subscribers, if only because they cannot find reliable live streams on the Internet. And you won't - as long as Cable companies can manage to make it difficult.