The ironic thing was that when I was in school, people were convinced that a Soviet attack was going to happen sooner or later, so the students were given multiplication tables (from 1x1 to 12x12) to memorize, since there might be a time where there isn't anything more complicated than chalk and paper to do stuff with.
As for Apple's announcements, it is what we expected. A plastic iPhone, and an iPhone with a faster processor and a fingerprint scanner.
