gkefalas

Agreed! Technology has continued to march on, and entirely new product categories have gone from "an idea"to gain popular usage. I mean, even just the advances in pure hardware and technology manufacturing are pretty impressive and have opened up so many more possibilities than what we had a decade ago.

In terms of medical advances, there may not have been any major blockbuster disease cures found, but there were several very important advances & innovations. I'll crib from ABC News and call out a few that I think are impressive as a layperson: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Decade/genome-hormones-top-10-m...

- Heart disease numbers dropped considerably: so many heart-related diseases and emergencies that previously would be fatal or have many more severe consequences are now survivable and livable.

- Stem cell research: even with the lack of US/federal funding, stem cell research started to bear fruit, and looks to only grow from here.

- Improved cancer survival rates for many types of cancers: Huge. We're a long way away from a real cure, but survival rates have never been higher.

- Incredible advances in arthroscopic & noninvasive/outpatient surgery & procedures: In 2004-ish I blew out the "terrible triad" of knee ligaments; my surgery scars are just little dots. My brother had similar surgery just about 6-8 years prior to that, and he bears the ugly long scar over his kneecap.

That's just gleaned from one decade-end retrospective article, and is just focused on medical advances.

But also, stop and think back to the internet in 2000 versus where we are now. There's been a hell of a lot of innovation there, as well; think of all of the things that are now possible or even commonplace to do online that were merely a gleam in our minds a decade ago...

If anything, just thinking about the pieces and foundations that were put in place throughout the 00s excites me for the possibilities of this next decade even more. It should be a very exciting time.

Here's just one of many potential sweet spots: I've been looking for a solution for a portable music reader for some time; the Kindle and Sony Reader's screens are a bit too slow, too dim, too small and are straight PDF readers (meaning, no intelligence around multiple endings, codas, and etc.) and the dedicated solutions out there aren't exactly worth the money as they're one-use devices. There's always the option of getting a used TabletPC and installing some music reading software designed for touchscreen, but I've been avoiding that because we really have no use for the keyboard, and their interfaces were never as snappy as even the iPhone's.

Count me in as pleasantly hopeful that this is a real product, and that I can get sheet music onto it in a way that allows for ease of using it live...

If you've been following this story throughout the day, it's been pretty amusing to see each blogger or news site try to exaggerate what was said more and more. AT&T's CEO made an offhand comment (that may be a trial balloon, may not) that AT&T is going to try and educate consumers about their usage and, if that doesn't help, they'll consider a tiered pricing model. How does that become "AT&T to put a cap on iPhone usage"?

Not to say that I wouldn't drop AT&T like a disease if they did...

True, but Gmail is email, which meant you could still interact with everyone else.