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russellbeattie

We're definitely overdue for a major consumer tech introduction.

* Late 30s: Radio

* Late 40s: Vinyl Records (Edited: Atomic energy isn't a consumer product)

* Late 50s: TV

* Late 60s: Transistors / rockets

* Late 70s: Microcomputers.

* Late 80s: Desktop publishing

* Late 90s: Internet/Web

* Late 00s: Smartphones/tablets

* Late 10s: VR? Streaming media? Electric cars? Cryptocurrency?

It takes a while for a new technology to spread to widespread adoption. For example, the 2007 launch of the iPhone lead to a decade of mobile adoption a few years later. But it seems there's been no new tech paradigm shift lately that's equivalent to the massive influence of previous innovations. Or at least I'm not seeing it yet.

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Just based on what people I know have in their homes, late 10s is probably Alexa, Google Home, etc. I don't have one, think they're stupid, and don't like the idea of having another internet connected microphone in my home, but other people seem to like them.

Streaming, which you mentioned is a big one too. I know it existed before, but it really took off then. Zoom might fit into that category as well.

Are they really a technological leap like radio, transistors, automobiles, even smartphones? I wouldn't put them in the same category. I'd put them right there next to the walkman.

Cryptocurrency (or more specifically, cryptographically enforced consensus networks) are way more of a technological leap than voice interfaces connected to the internet. If there's a top invention of the 2010s, it's bitcoin.

No, I don't think they're a technological leap either. But we haven't had a real technological leap on the scale of those early inventions in a while. (I don't think smartphones or the internet count... they are commercializations of existing technologies).

Cryptocurrency is actually a technological leap without much precedent (it's sort of similar to bittorrent and some of the ideas were in the air, but no one synthesized them into something useful prior to Satoshi). I think it's still an open question to what extent it matters long-term. It's mainly used for speculation and facilitating illegal transactions currently.

All of these leaps though were commercializations of existing technologies, or they were novel applications of existing technologies. The automobile was a novel use of combustion, radio was being played with and used in military applications.

I agree that they took a while to commercialize, but they were new technologies. Smartphones, streaming, etc. are not new technologies. They are extensions of old ones, or in the case of smartphones, a systems integration problem.

I think we're talking past each other a bit. I think there are technological leaps and sociological leaps. Most new tech is a sociological leap: it changes society but it does not make use of anything radically new.

I think the only real technological leaps in the past twenty years have been maybe crypto, and some things happening in biology. Notably absent is renewable energy, which was largely developed many decades ago but is now being commercialized due to process improvements.

The late 10s should probably have IoT (e.g. Nest thermostats, security systems, etc) and "smart" home assistants like the Amazon Echo Dot, Google Home, etc.

Remember: The S in IoT stands for security.

Radio > IoT

It seems really hard to label exact starting points here. I could see in 2030, we look back and late 10s is clear but we can't find out for late 20s.

Where do we put really good batteries? Lyft? Amazing phone cameras? Quadrotors? Fitness trackers? In ten years it will be clear where to place those.

I think the big one that's shaping up to be a top game changer is space accessibility. None of these technologies listed just pipped up out of nowhere, they matured in each decade, and space is maturing this decade.

"Past performance is no guarantee of future results."

good point, all the above are 'communications'. the question is, what is the next stage of communications.

Virtual Reality made a brief appearance in the 1990s VFX, Nintendo Virtual Boy, and a few others.

Considering atomic energy as somehow a “consumer tech” looks fishy

Oh, huh. Yeah. I actually went back and added the word "consumer" after I made the list to be more specific, then forgot about that.

Vinyl records! That's what should have been there. The LP was introduced in 1948 and the 45 in 1949.

People buy electricity from nuclear power plants.

By that metric then every tech is consumer tech.

Late 10s: Social media. Not all revolutions are good.

Yeah... you might be right. About both points.

social media was prior decade.

SpaceX may be the biggest thing in late 10s?

Well, if you look at all these technologies, they didn't revolutionize when they were created, they took a long time and revolutionized when they matured. Radio exists prior to the 30s but it was experimental and niche, same with networking and computers. I think that the space decade is going to be this one. The last one, the revolutionary things that took hold were social media and cryptocurrency. Social media is shaping up to be a big disappointment, at least in it's current iteration.

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