4 ms·

Over the last decade we have made absolutely incredible leaps in technology by any standard. I don't think things are really that much different now compared t

Over the last decade we have made absolutely incredible leaps in technology by any standard. I don't think things are really that much different now compared to late 2011. At least not different enough to be considered an "absolutely incredible leap"

curioushacking 5y ago
I think it may be hard to see technology changes in the moment, but over the last decade alone I think we've had a number of large changes that are starting to be taken for granted. We have the proliferation of electric vehicles and (at least in the US) a large charging network. There is also a massive difference in the wearable markets. The watches are getting so good that health monitoring and early warning signs are either already here or on the horizon. Cell phones are significantly better. A decade ago a video call would be a novelty and now it is done without a second thought. We finally have the futuristic edge to edge screens and foldables are now on the market. There are others but they may not fall into the technology that we interact with daily. Things such as the drug technology used to make the covid vaccine. There are also changes in ML with the significant improvements in deep learning and model training. I'm not sure if any of those count as an incredible leap, I think each one was developed incrementally, but when looking over the course of a decade it feels like a large leap to me.
- f6v 5y ago
  Changing a feature phone for smartphone with two cameras(front and back), internet, and general computing capacity was a leap(circa 2009). Having a better camera, faster CPU, bigger screen - doesn’t feel like much. I haven’t had a desire to get a new one in half a decade(I’d keep my iPhone 7 if it wasn’t suffocating thanks to megabytes for JS on every page).
headShrinker 5y ago
Good technology is transparent. If advancements are done right, you would notice much difference. The truth is, not that much was different between 2000 and 2010 or 1990 and 2000. But 2010 and 2020? This last decade has marked such massive improvements in ways we aren't noticing, and in things we aren't using. Everything from cameras with resolutions and ISOs that are off the charts, OLED, LiPo Battery density, robotics with walking and flight, guidance, wireless transmission and encoding/decoding, Machine learning in everything including your phone, and our phones... they are amazing pieces of kit. Oh, reusable rockets that land themselves! Cars that literally drive themselves. Spot, the robot dog? Right in my office right now, ultra-thin laptops, compact high quality microphones, headphones with unbelievable noise-canceling, 3-axis gimbals, 10-bit n-log external recorders, wireless solar powered remote security cameras, drones with amazing stabilized video quality that you used to need a helicopter to shoot, and on and on and on. The last decade has been insane, turning future dream tech in to Walmart black-friday super sale items. You may not appreciate or even notice the tech advancements in the last 10 years but they have been monstrous compared to any other decade.
- thriftwy 5y ago
  1990 had neither GUI nor sound nor network on consumer devices. 2000 consumer device did not have video input and could not playback video even of standard TV quality. 2010 basically had all that even on mobile but lacked fast cellular data.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- po1nt 5y ago
  Machine learning, cryptography and decentralized communications. That's about it. Nothing else really improved that much in the last 10 years, we can just make some 2010's technology cheaper.
  - Hoasi 5y ago
    > Machine learning, cryptography and decentralized communications. Those alone have the potential for incredible changes.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Potential, they haven't changed important anything yet.
  - tanzann 5y ago
    Probably not cheaper anymore, considering this year's supply chain faults.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    We didn't have smartphones little over a decade ago.
    - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
      Yes the difference between 15 years ago and now is noticable, but not so much in the last 10.
reaperducer 5y ago
I was thinking about this the other day. Its been a long time since anything meaningful was invented. The last thing i can think of was the internet. Maybe cell phones. There's probably a bunch of medical stuff, but I'm not well versed in that area. I mean real inventions. Things that didn't exist. Like light bulbs, or automobiles, or steam engines, or rockets, or jet travel. It seems like the era of real invention petered out in the 1950's to 1970's. Now things like social media and ad targeting and viral videos are somehow considered innovation. Even the one recent thing I'm impressed by - commercial space flight - is just an iteration of something that already existed.
- dec0dedab0de 5y ago
  I think Augmented Reality could be a big one, but it's being wasted on nonsense and filling in short term engagement targets.
airstrike 5y ago
That's an interesting sidebar... I generally agree with the sentiment, but GPT(-1) came out in 2018. I don't think SoCs weren't nearly as powerful as they are today and GPGPUs were still somewhat nascent, I believe. In 2011 people were still buying PlayStation 3s

curioushacking 5y ago

I think it may be hard to see technology changes in the moment, but over the last decade alone I think we've had a number of large changes that are starting to be taken for granted. We have the proliferation of electric vehicles and (at least in the US) a large charging network. There is also a massive difference in the wearable markets. The watches are getting so good that health monitoring and early warning signs are either already here or on the horizon. Cell phones are significantly better. A decade ago a video call would be a novelty and now it is done without a second thought. We finally have the futuristic edge to edge screens and foldables are now on the market. There are others but they may not fall into the technology that we interact with daily. Things such as the drug technology used to make the covid vaccine. There are also changes in ML with the significant improvements in deep learning and model training. I'm not sure if any of those count as an incredible leap, I think each one was developed incrementally, but when looking over the course of a decade it feels like a large leap to me.

f6v 5y ago
Changing a feature phone for smartphone with two cameras(front and back), internet, and general computing capacity was a leap(circa 2009). Having a better camera, faster CPU, bigger screen - doesn’t feel like much. I haven’t had a desire to get a new one in half a decade(I’d keep my iPhone 7 if it wasn’t suffocating thanks to megabytes for JS on every page).

headShrinker 5y ago

Good technology is transparent. If advancements are done right, you would notice much difference. The truth is, not that much was different between 2000 and 2010 or 1990 and 2000. But 2010 and 2020? This last decade has marked such massive improvements in ways we aren't noticing, and in things we aren't using. Everything from cameras with resolutions and ISOs that are off the charts, OLED, LiPo Battery density, robotics with walking and flight, guidance, wireless transmission and encoding/decoding, Machine learning in everything including your phone, and our phones... they are amazing pieces of kit. Oh, reusable rockets that land themselves! Cars that literally drive themselves. Spot, the robot dog? Right in my office right now, ultra-thin laptops, compact high quality microphones, headphones with unbelievable noise-canceling, 3-axis gimbals, 10-bit n-log external recorders, wireless solar powered remote security cameras, drones with amazing stabilized video quality that you used to need a helicopter to shoot, and on and on and on. The last decade has been insane, turning future dream tech in to Walmart black-friday super sale items. You may not appreciate or even notice the tech advancements in the last 10 years but they have been monstrous compared to any other decade.

thriftwy 5y ago
1990 had neither GUI nor sound nor network on consumer devices. 2000 consumer device did not have video input and could not playback video even of standard TV quality. 2010 basically had all that even on mobile but lacked fast cellular data.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
po1nt 5y ago
Machine learning, cryptography and decentralized communications. That's about it. Nothing else really improved that much in the last 10 years, we can just make some 2010's technology cheaper.
- Hoasi 5y ago
  > Machine learning, cryptography and decentralized communications. Those alone have the potential for incredible changes.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Potential, they haven't changed important anything yet.
- tanzann 5y ago
  Probably not cheaper anymore, considering this year's supply chain faults.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  We didn't have smartphones little over a decade ago.
  - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
    Yes the difference between 15 years ago and now is noticable, but not so much in the last 10.

reaperducer 5y ago

I was thinking about this the other day. Its been a long time since anything meaningful was invented. The last thing i can think of was the internet. Maybe cell phones. There's probably a bunch of medical stuff, but I'm not well versed in that area. I mean real inventions. Things that didn't exist. Like light bulbs, or automobiles, or steam engines, or rockets, or jet travel. It seems like the era of real invention petered out in the 1950's to 1970's. Now things like social media and ad targeting and viral videos are somehow considered innovation. Even the one recent thing I'm impressed by - commercial space flight - is just an iteration of something that already existed.

dec0dedab0de 5y ago
I think Augmented Reality could be a big one, but it's being wasted on nonsense and filling in short term engagement targets.

airstrike 5y ago

That's an interesting sidebar... I generally agree with the sentiment, but GPT(-1) came out in 2018. I don't think SoCs weren't nearly as powerful as they are today and GPGPUs were still somewhat nascent, I believe. In 2011 people were still buying PlayStation 3s