I always find it interesting
to review technology developments at the end of a decade. This week I plan on not only listing, but
talking a little bit about the top new technological developments in the last
decade. The years between 2010 and 2020 brought about some of the most amazing
technology in history.
For the first time in history
we have a generation of people that never knew life without a computer, or the
internet. Everyone under the age of
thirty has probably had access to a computer of some kind for their entire
lives. Over the last decade the computer
has not only been a device that most people have access too, but a device that
most of us depend on for everyday life.
The new technology has been
surprising with advancements in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles,
robotic lawyers, and real time language
translation just to name a few. The
technologies in this article are ones that I feel we will still be using and
talking about well into the next decade.
In the 2000’s Facebook started
the social media trend and held the top
of the social networks until the early 2010’s.
in 2010 Instagram became the most popular among the Gen-Zers, mainly due
to the large influx of the older generation onto Facebook, bringing with them
new media, marketing and politics. Instagram
became the preferred method for sharing personal lives on social networks. In
2012 Facebook purchased Instragram and the network has grown to over a billion
registered users.
In 2011, Spotify took the
market by storm offering the largest collection of music for streaming on
demand. This brought about a massive decline in online music piracy. With free services that stream all your
favorite music and collect revenue through advertising to pay the music
producers, the need to pirate music dropped tremendously.
In 2012, there was the
introduction of the Tesla Model S, electric car. This seemed like a major release in
transportation technology, but the most impactful change wasn’t a new car. It
was car sharing through Uber. Uber
rolled out it’s ride sharing service across every major U.S. city and around
the world. Fundamentally changing how people get around the city. Lyft also
launched their ride-sharing service in 2012, making this the year of shared
transportation.
In 2013, Chromecast came to
the scene, allowing people to stream video services to any device with an HDMI
port. Chromecast is not really all that
useful today as the technology is integrated almost every device with a screen
today, but it was a top selling product in 2013.
2014 was the year of the smart
watch, with the release of the Apple Watch, which in all respects was an iPad
in a tiny watch form factor. This first
model had all kinds of issues, but as Apple worked to resolve them it has become
the best smartwatch on the market today.
Amazon Echo started the smart
speaker trend in 2015 as online voice assistants moved from the phone to the
home. This device incorporated Bluetooth technology as well as machine learning
and speech recognition. The Echo held
the market share in smart speakers until nearly the end of the decade when
Google released a competing device, Google Home.
Airpods came on the scene in
2016 releasing us from wired ear buds and allowing freedom to move away from our
audio devices. There was worry of them getting lost easily when they were first
released in 2016, but the freedom they give to the user has greatly decreased
that fear and they are now nearly as popular was wired ear buds.
The Nintendo Switch changed
the gaming console forever, with the ability to use the system both as a stationary
game system tied to a large screen TV and take it along with you on the
road. The main controller included a
screen that allowed game play to continue on the road. The release of the Switch
in 2017, brought a new approach to gaming hardware.
2018 was the year of the
shareable electric scooters, that have seemed to become a permanent fixture in
many major cities. They have had an
impact of city ordinances and been removed by law in many cities. As a result of this legislation, the
technology has lost any of it’s staying power, but the tech in the vehicle
sharing has spread to the sharing of electric cars in a similar manner across
several U.S. cities.
Last, but not least, is the release
of Tik Tok in 2019. As Gen Z kids break into adulthood, this is the most likely
platform to become the main method of communication among their peers. This short video sharing service is currently
the top contributor to internet content storage and results in close to 15% of
all the data on the internet today. It
is expected to grow beyond 50% of all online data within the next couple of
years.
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