Looking Back: A Decade Full of Amazing Gadgets
The decade is almost over, and wow, what a decade it has been. The technological advancements easily set this decade apart from many others, and a lot of that has to do with Apple and Nintendo.
The world of gaming saw the creation of the motion-controlled Nintendo Wii, X-box 360 and hardware powerhouse PlayStation 3. Everyone was “bowling” with the Wiimote and fighting with light sabers until Microsoft came out with the Kinect for X-box 360 and the game changed. As graphics and sound developed far beyond those of the ’90s, televisions have kept up with them. You can now watch movies and play video games on 3D high-definition televisions and even see them in realistic 3D on the big screen.
This could easily be considered the decade of the smartphone. Perhaps, no other medium has come so far so fast. Blackberry started it all by syncing e-mail and calendar with my computer, and then Apple revolutionized smartphones by adding real Internet browsing and hundreds of thousands of apps for everything from shopping and maps to games and sexy women in bikinis. Just when you thought Apple was going to corner the smartphone market, Android came in, and while it hasn’t overtaken the iPhone yet, it’s gaining a following.
This decade put the final nail on the paperback coffin, with millions of e-readers being sold. Kindle and the like can download books directly to the reader, as well as get the daily New York Times. Entire bookshelves can be downsized to a single tablet reader.














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massive starship. What can I say, I was in high school. Many of the gadgets in the classic and next generation series have come to fruition like the communicator, which is reminiscent of current cell phones. There are still many machines that are far into the future, but I can imagine how life would be much more interesting is some of those gadgets were available for purchase online.
seen the movie “Labyrinth?” Ok, I got few more hands raised on that one.
Zuse, a German engineer. It was the first programmable machine that used Boolean logic & binary floating numbers, and it contained almost all the parts of a modern computer including a control unit and memory. The Z1 was privately financed by Zuse’s family.
household name for several generations. Contestants are posed with questions, frequently worded in idiosyncratic ways intended to trick the players, who must then respond in a question format.
excellent trash-talking calling upon historical dates and long-forgotten wars. And while the excitement on the pitch itself is certainly exciting, the real headline-maker thus far has been in the hands of the excited spectator. Our Gadget of the Week is also the noisiest gadget ever to appear on this blog: the vuvuzela.