We are now coming to the end of the decade which people often term the ‘naughties’ and it seems clear to me that this has been the decade of technology and personal gadgets.  Things have progressed so quickly, that it makes me wonder what technology will be like at the end of the next decade.  This post takes a look through the technology timeline of the naughties.

Back in the year 2000 I had yet to have my first job and the Internet was only really just getting going (hard to believe I know!).  It is strange to look back now at the type of websites that we were viewing back then.  Take a look at the screenshot below of the BBC News website on an article about the Sydney Olympics.

I can’t believe how old this site design looks now as well as thinking about the functionality that the site didn’t have.

I suppose we could also say that this has been the decade of the operating system.  How many of you remember battling with Windows 3.1 and then its successors Windows 95 and 98.  They have primitive graphics and very little in terms of graphical interface.  At the start of the decade saw the release of Windows 2000 in February of that year.  It didn’t take long for the next version, and perhaps the most famous version of Windows yet to be released, Windows XP.  XP was released in 2001 and is still the most used operating system today.  Windows then took a long time to get a refresh.  In fact all the way to 2007 before the much criticised Windows Vista was released and then of course this year (2009) we have had the much improved Windows 7.

But we cannot move away from the computer operating system without mentioning one (or two) others.  Mac OS X first hit the shelves in March 2001, with the first big cat edition.  This development of this operating system has paved the way for Apple to produce a number of successful products, and the latest version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard is and outstanding edition to any computer, providing everything that you want from the operating system of your computer.

2001 was also a very significant year for perhaps the biggest and most desirable gadget of the naughties.  On the 23rd October 2001 the original iPod was launched.  Perhaps little did the world know what a profound impact this product and the music technologies behind it would have on the world today.  Of course the iPod has continued to develop over the course of the decade to provide us with different versions, sizes and functionality.  Eventually this lead to the release of the iPhone.  Another revolutionary product that is changing the way people live their lives.  Many other phones are now using the core ideas behind the iPhone but this product did truly change the way in which people work, communicate and entertain.  Not only that, but it will continue to do so for the coming future at least as the product develops further.

We can’t talk about this decade with remembering storage.  When I first got my first PC back in the mid 1990′s it came with a 100mb hard disc drive.  I then got a newer machine to take to university around 1997/1998 and that machine has a massive 500mb of storage.  To think that these days we are using machines that can hold in excess of 1000gb (or 1Tb) is amazing.  I walk round with my MacBook in my bag, a couple of pen drives and a portable hard drive and I have nearly 600Gb on my person, including my iPhone of course.  If in ten years storage has increased this much, what on earth are our computers going to contain in ten years time.  One thing is for sure is that with our hunger for digital media our storage needs are only going to grow and grow.

We have just come through a decade of technology were communication was through talk and text at the start and now we can have the Internet in our pockets and send digital media around the world at the touch of a button.  The changes that have taken place are rapid and it is going to be exiting to think what changes will take place through the next 10 years in the world of technology.