Has tech hardware really come on in last 10 years?

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  • stator
    stator Posts: 7,441 Forumite
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    Nothing new worth having has been invented in the last 10 years.
    Websites are getting crapper, they take longer to load than they used to, all poorly written using Javascript unecessarily
    Google is a lot worse than it used to be, partly because they try to reinterpret what you type in, instead of giving you the actual results you wanted, and also because of all the SEO most of the top search results are auto-generated rubbish
    Anti-biotics will stop working soon and we'll all die.
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  • RumRat
    RumRat Posts: 4,781 Forumite
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    stator wrote: »
    Nothing new worth having has been invented in the last 10 years.
    Websites are getting crapper, they take longer to load than they used to, all poorly written using Javascript unecessarily
    Google is a lot worse than it used to be, partly because they try to reinterpret what you type in, instead of giving you the actual results you wanted, and also because of all the SEO most of the top search results are auto-generated rubbish
    Anti-biotics will stop working soon and we'll all die.

    Sounds like it may be euthanasia in your case...;)
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    A PIRATE
    Not an Alcoholic...!
  • System
    System Posts: 178,090 Community Admin
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    stator wrote: »
    Nothing new worth having has been invented in the last 10 years.

    Tell that to people who are having operations today as outpatients that would have been weeks in hospital.

    If you don't think there's anything new worthwhile invented in the last 10 years you must be living in a cave.
  • ClarkeKent
    ClarkeKent Posts: 336 Forumite
    Cornucopia wrote: »
    I've worked in IT for 30 years, and the thing that impresses me are the developments in vision and speech-recognition systems. In technical terms, these are both incredibly challenging and their steady development over the past 10 years has been fascinating to watch.

    Neither are yet perfect, but I would expect further steady development and it's only a matter of time before we start to see phone-based and other customer service situations beginning to be staffed by lucid, fluent and adaptable voice-recognition systems.

    In terms of finding viable applications for some of these technologies, I think it will be adoption by businesses rather than consumers that will be key.

    I have been surprised how long voice recognition technology has taken to really get to a decent level. Still a long way off being perfect now as you can see from Live subtitles on TV and from using Alexa.

    Having played back with Dragon Naturally Speaking since 2000, again, surprised it took 18 years to get where we are with voice.
  • Cornucopia
    Cornucopia Posts: 16,153 Forumite
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    edited 5 February 2018 at 10:48AM
    It's one of those things that humans find incredibly easy, but actually require both clever algorithms and massive computing power to emulate. Same with vision. It's the challenge of taking a stream of basic sound or picture data and deriving information from it.

    In the case of voice, there is the added challenge of being able to extract the same information from a speech sample, irrespective of the tone or pitch of the voice, or of an accent. Early systems required "training" to the user's voice and were typically only capable of dealing with one voice at a time. Today's systems are much more flexible and capable.
  • vacheron
    vacheron Posts: 1,600 Forumite
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    A couple of years ago I posted something similar on Facebook regarding the OS UI on most desktop machines.

    I can list a lot of major tech evolutions (especially in PC hardware and software) which I can remember from the 1990's and early 2000's, but since then things really seem to have been a gradual evolution rather than any huge breakthroughs.

    The thing I have really appreciated over the last 10 years however is the development and ease of use of cloud storage apps such as Dropbox etc. Everything I receive digitally is now immediately stored on the cloud meaning it is instantly backed up with revision history and deleted file recovery and is then immediately accessable on every other device I own including my work PC.

    I also now run a Plex media server from home which means I can access all my music and movies on the go so I don't need any physical CD's or DVD's cluttering up the cars or the house.

    Both of the above together means that I have not had to carry any kind of physical storage around with me for at least the last 6 or 7 years.
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  • dealer_wins
    dealer_wins Posts: 7,334 Forumite
    Microsoft operating systems have gone backwards from the good Windows XP and W7, to the horrible W8 and really terrible W10.
  • WobblyDog
    WobblyDog Posts: 512 Forumite
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    I haven't noticed any amazing life-changing sudden improvements. On the other hand, there's a constant stream of minor advances which when added together can be astonishing. I usually only notice them when I decide to replace a gadget, and am surprised by how much better the new one is than the old one.


    I've just bought a running watch which has a built-in GPS receiver and measures my pulse continuously by shining a light into my wrist. It's barely larger than a normal watch, and can run for weeks on a single charge. It's much better than the bulky running watch I bought five years ago, or the clunky GPS receiver I bought 10 years ago.
  • RumRat
    RumRat Posts: 4,781 Forumite
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    dealer_wins wrote: »
    Microsoft operating systems have gone backwards from the good Windows XP and W7, to the horrible W8 and really terrible W10.

    That's just a matter of opinion and not fact.....It's also not correct..:)
    Drinking Rum before 10am makes you
    A PIRATE
    Not an Alcoholic...!
  • Debbie_Savard
    Debbie_Savard Posts: 430 Forumite
    edited 5 February 2018 at 2:58PM
    >What since 2008 has really been life changing, amazing technology?<

    - Mobile phone CPU/display and GSM (4G/LTE), in 2008 playing 'snake' on 256x256 pixel display was the norm
    - Digital assistants in the home that can cope with natural language commands
    - Familial DNA, criminals can be found from matches with DNA of close relative
    - Usable electric vehicles like Tesla, incredible for those of us who remember the Sinclair C5
    - Skype, families can stay in touch globally at minimal cost
    - Amazon, pretty much anything you want can be bought online for delivery next day thanks to automation of supply-chain, robotic pick-n-pack
    - Office 365, for £11/month one women and her dog can have the same business IT as a FTSE100 company from mega data centres.
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