How has technology changed over the last 5 years?

Answer 1

Touch screens have been around for a long time, but in the last five years, mass production of effective and easy-to-use screens that respond to multiple-points-of-contact have resulted in costs that are affordable to the end user. They are finding use in a range of personal electronic products, facilitating control of a multitude of devices without sacrificing screen-space for external buttons, and innovating the way in which we interact with electronic systems - especially coupled with accelerometers, magnetometers, visual sensors, gravimeters, GPS, etc., etc. ...

Digital media has also been around for quite a while, but only in recent years have the protocols, encoding technologies, and infrastructure been in place to facilitate fast, reliable, high-bandwidth dissemination of said media; with mobile broadband, wireless, and high-bandwidth internetwork connections becoming far more commonplace, it is almost a mundane fact that we receive content in seconds that would once (not so long ago) have taken hours or days to transmit from one location to another.

In some countries (the UK for instance), new, ultra-fast, low-latency optical fibre networks are being deployed that remove many of the restrictions and bottlenecks that plagued previous systems. With better, faster, high-speed routers managing high-bandwidth connections, consumers are not limited by unpredictable contention ratios or proximity to a local exchange. The move from copper wires to optical fibres is as revolutionary as the switch-over from analogue audio modems to DSL routers - internet 'speeds' are increasing by a greater factor, and with margins for much greater improvements in time.

High-definition display systems are also more commonplace, attaining new levels of affordability, and making use of that high-bandwidth information interchange we all seem to take for granted now, with high-resolution video and crystal-clear audio being augmented now with 3D media; with so much bandwidth to play with, technology is finding a multitude of new ways in which to deliver information and entertainment.

Video capture and broadcast has become trivial, with even mobile phones being capable of producing high-definition clips, sending them over the airwaves, uploading to public sites (such as YouTube) in very little time, allowing millions to access to media quickly and freely via any number of internet-connected devices.

On that score, the sheer level of smart, internet-connected technology that consumers have access to is mind-blowing. With smartphones making up more than 30% of mobile ownership in the West and expected to be the majority by the end of 2011, the internet is now almost universally accessible in a pocket-sized package.

...so arguably, the greatest changes in information technology have facilitated- or have been facilitated by- the development of an ever-higher capacity communications infrastructure and the mass-production of advanced technology; the improved capacity to share media globally and (virtually) instantaneously, and the power to connect with it in better, faster, and more intuitive ways.

Answer 2

1. Sony Playstation
2. IBM ThinkPad 701c computer
3. Digital cameras
4. Sony DCR-VX1000 video camera
5. Explosion of the Internet to a wide audience
6. USB data transfer standard for computers
7. Flat screen plasma TV displays
8. eBay
   

Answer 3

Technology over the last five years has advanced on the personal front more than anywhere else. Now, more people than ever before own a cell phone and laptop. There have been to many to count in several fields like batteries, Computer Monitors, microprocessors, software, console gaming, streaming online video and music, 3G web browsing and so much more! We live in a quite exciting time where technology is advancing in several directions all at once.

Answer 4

Technology is always evolving and changing everyday. Since 1995 the internet has changed the way the whole world operates.

Answer 5

We have gotten laptops, ipods, ipads, iphones, anything apple really....

Answer 6

not much but quite a bit