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The gadgets that most changed our lives this decade

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The devices that most altered our lifestyle in the 2010s

While the decade is not quite over, ZDNet provides a round up of consumer technologies that had the biggest impact on our lives. 

2010: Apple iPad. Other tablets existed but failed until Apple provide an easy to use interface and many, many available apps.

2011: Chromebook. The browser only computer-like device was a big hit for the educational sector.

2012 Raspberry Pi. This $25 development computer was the basic building block for people to invent connected devices.

2013: Playstation 4 and XBOX One. These consoles are responsible for an entire refresh of game console libraries.

2014: Satya Nadella and Windows 10. Nadella took over a flagging Microsoft from Steve Ballmer and put it back on track.

2015: Amazon Echo and Alexa. Amazon has made Alexa the defacto voice interface for the home and soon, car.

2016: Pokemon Go. This game taught the world what augmented reality is and how it works.

2017: Nintendo Switch. Nintendo showed that it could regain its former stature with a portable game console.

2018: Apple Watch Series 4. This watch includes EKG readings and fall detection.

2019: To be named.

dis-rup-shun: PCs were widely available in the 1980s. The Internet was mainstream after 1995. Smartphones became mainstream after 2007. Uber changed transportation starting in 2009. The pace of technology innovation is increasing each year, making the release cycle between game changers shorter and shorter. In five years we will be talking about how drones changed the delivery business starting in 2020.

Tablets get a new lease on life as second screens

Apple has released an application called Sidecar which turns an iPad into a second monitor for a Mac. Just put the iPad into a stand and the device is a slave to the computer. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: A brilliant move by Apple and a real advantage over PCs. PCs will be quick to emulate this functionality, and maybe even Apple will enable this functionality for PCs in order to sell more iPads, but iPads were falling out of favor to slim laptops and large smartphones. This will keep people buying iPads.

Apple’s serious production woes

Apple contracted with Samsung to build a massive OLED (higher quality display technology) manufacturing plant to handle higher volumes of iPhones. Problem is, iPhone sales are way down, meaning the plant is running at less than 50% of capacity. To address this shortfall and liability to Samsung, Apple has cancelled its 5.8 inch iPhone model and will be adding OLED screens to a larger number of its products (that weren’t originally intended to get the better screens). That means better iPhones are coming in 2020, providing less incentive to upgrade in 2019. Forbes

dis-rup-shun: The economic impact of slowing iPhone sales will hit Apple hard. Its other popular products don’t have nearly the volume of iPhones. A slowing Apple will have a significant impact on a global economy that is appearing fragile. Bumpy road ahead.

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Is your privacy worth paying for?

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Privacy browsers catching a wave

The public is increasingly weary of sharing personal information with the tech giants. Privacy browsers generally don’t allow cookies and provide information on what data is being requested of the user. Wired suggests six privacy browsers or plug-ins to your existing desktop browser that maintain your anonymity, to varying degrees: DuckDuckGo, Ghostery, TOR Browser, Brave, Firefox, Safari.

dis-rup-shun: Thanks to Russia and to Facebook, consumer awareness of personal information sharing is at an all time high. Apple is using privacy as a differentiator, seeking to further engender audiences and shame Google and Facebook for their aggressive harvesting of personal information. The campaign appears to be working. If our society moves to reduce the amount of data we allow tech giants to collect, will we be happy when free services become limited or require payment since maintaining our privacy renders advertising to be less effective?

 

Willo is going to change the way you clean your mouth

Startup Willo has raised $7.5 million from Kleiner Perkins to revolutionize the way you clean your mouth, claiming that the brush is an inferior solution that only cleans 46% of dental plaque. Details are not available, but the picture offered shows a different approach to dental hygiene. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: It is likely that this toothbrush replacement will collect data on our brushing habits and offer weekly emails to rate our dental care performance, because that is what every connected device seems to do, despite the fact that most of us aren’t that interested. What will be helpful, however, is to displace the annoying task of spending an hour with a dental hygienist twice a year. That value proposition will be well received.

 

Samsung Fold foldable phone ship dates undetermined

TechCrunch reports that AT&T and BestBuy have cancelled early orders of Samsung’s huge, foldable, $2000 phone that was originally scheduled for release on April 26th.

dis-rup-shun: The foldable phone will be a big hit among those that are willing to pay $2000 to have something no on else has. Having a device the size of a small tablet that will fit in a pocket will be great for travel, and if Samsung is able to add its latest Galaxy photo technology, it will be an amazing way to share digital photography.

 

Highlights from E3 gaming conference

E3 is the biggest gaming industry conference in existence, and 2019’s event just ended. Here are some highlights:

Microsoft’s next Xbox console will launch for holiday 2020 and will feature 8K games and 120 frames per second. It will be backwards compatible with prior generations, if anyone really wanted to play yesterday’s games.

Steaming services are coming. Physical disks are going the way of the Bluray movie disk…unwanted. A large number of streaming services are vying to do for gaming what Netflix did for movie watchers.

dis-rup-shun: The big three console makers have had an effective lock on the gaming space, but that’s about to change when premium content can be streamed to any connected device. Tether a Bluetooth game controller that is not limited to a console architecture to your iPad, smartphone, PC or smart TV, and high performance gaming breaks its traditional bounds. The Verge

 

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Xbox and Playstation play together

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Xbox and Playstation teaming up

Sony’s and Microsoft’s gaming console divisions have formed an alliance to stream gaming content from the cloud. The alliance will use Microsoft’s Azure cloud services to provide a better gaming experience to users of Xbox and Playstation. TechCrunch

dis-rup-shun: Google has announced its Stadia gaming steaming platform and has the incumbents looking for ways to blunt the new offering. By making certain that the Xbox and Playstation experiences are as good as it gets, the players hope not be displaced by Google. Google, however, has a reputation for providing great experiences at great prices, mostly free. Another example of how competition benefits the consumer, as the gaming experiences, offerings and prices of all providers will be getting better immediately.

Amazon Alexa Guard turns Echo into a security device

Amazon has activated the Alexa Guard service, which listens for sounds of breaking glass, smoke detectors, and carbon monoxide detectors. If detected, Alexa sends an alert to the account holder’s smartphone to tell them of the potential emergency. These features join Alexa’s capabilities of controlling lights and alarm systems. CEPro

dis-rup-shun: Alexa is on its way to running every system in the home and car. Now we know Alexa is not only listening for her name, but is also listening for certain alerts. This could be a path to Alexa offering many home management services, like telling owners that their AC compressor is more noisy than usual and is likely to fail, or that the refrigerator is working harder than normal and a repair person is on their way.

Google terminating Huawei’s Android License

Gizmodo reports that Google is pulling Android from Huawei, making it impossible for the phone maker to continue offering a feature rich smartphone. This move follows Trump’s executive order that banned U.S. companies from buying telecom equipment from companies that pose a threat to the U.S.

dis-rup-shun: This move will hobble Huawei’s race to catch Samsung and LG in the smartphone department and will lead to retribution from China. Expect China to ban sales of something important to U.S. manufacturing, but not labor.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announces purchase of Cray Computers

HPE announced they will acquire Cray supercomputers for $1.3 billion. HPE wants to develop a high-performance computing as a service platform for specialized needs when large volumes of data must be analyzed in the era of AI and machine learning.  ZDNet

dis-rup-shun: This acquisition is an attempt for HP to find some differentiation for its cloud service offerings, given that the lucrative cloud business is hot and Microsoft is offering some features to make its cloud more attractive than Amazon. It seems that HP has a real knack for purchasing companies that have already peaked. Apollo Computer, Compaq, Palm, Snapfish, EDS, are a few companies whose growth was already slowing when HP absorbed them.