It’s the end of another year and the end of a ground-breaking decade. Let’s look back at what’s been accomplished in the years of 2000–2009, focusing on technology.
Technology
Windows has entered a new era
The decade—indeed, the century—began with Windows 2000, which I consider the first great version of the operating system. XP was the version that brought widespread success, and people just seem to refuse to upgrade; even today, almost three quarters of the computers on the net are on XP.
Despite the dismal failure of Windows Vista, it too brought change, which was followed by the enhancements of Windows 7. Compare my desktop today to the ugly screens of a decade ago:
Apple deserves an honourable mention for the ground-breaking work they’ve done on the Mac, elevating it to a newly trendy status.
Portable media players have completely changed
A decade ago, CD players and tape-based Walkmans were still the norm for ‘portable’ audio players. The iPod, launched in 2001, entirely changed the game. (I suppose this and the iPhone were the “comeback of the decade”.) It was no longer a device that played removable media. That was followed by thousands of other portable media players, to which the public generally refers inaccurately as “MP3 players”, reflecting the popularity of the 15-year-old MP3 format that has also been notorious for illegal file sharing (see below).
Cell phones and mobile devices have become ubiquitous
These devices used to be ugly, huge and heavy objects. As we move into 2010, cell phones have become more compact (usually this means thinner and lighter) and more powerful.
In China, about 739 million people have cell phones; that’s more than there are Internet users in China (which is about 360 million).
Mobile devices have become truly powerful. The iPhone, purportedly the most popular cell phone of 2009, is one of the biggest platforms for software development. And it has a touch screen. RIM’s BlackBerry, initially launched in 1999, is the most popular smartphone among business users.
Ordinary people begin to embrace ultra-portable netbooks for lightweight computing. The move to mobile is probably the most noticeable trend in end-user gadgetry in this decade. Continue reading »
Here’s a new picture I posted to Flickr. Click on the picture to see more options, or to comment on the picture!
This was a photo that I took of Richmond Hill High School on March 15, 2008. It was originally meant for my international exchange application, but when I realized how nice it was after getting it (and 94 other photos) developed at Costco, I decided to share it.
The same photo has also been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, with the filename “Richmond Hill High School.jpg”. I’ve also edited the Wikipedia page for the school to add this picture.
You are free to re-use this image however you wish, compliant with the licensing terms I’ve outlined on the page at Wikimedia Commons: if you live anywhere outside of Canada, you are subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are a Canadian resident, you may choose between the terms of that license and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License.
You can find more pictures that I’ve uploaded to Flickr by going to my profile.
