Looking back at 1999 and the technology we were using it’s amazing to think just how far we’ve come in that time.  I had a slow as hell PC with precious little storage and a CD burner back then.  For mobile computing I was using a Psion series 5 which was cutting edge at the time, especially for its keyboard that would go on to inspire modern laptop keyboards today.  And a mobile phone, didn’t have one, why would I?

In the next ten years everything changed.  Here I’ll look through just ten of the technologies that have changed the way we live and work in the last ten years.

1 - The Internet

It’s hard to believe now but the at end of the nineties huge numbers of people, including myself, we still using dial up internet connections at only 56k.  The advent of broadband and then the speed increases we’ve had have completely changed and revolutionised the way we work and live our lives today.  Just look at what the modern internet has given us.  Cloud computing and web apps, IPTV and services such as the BBC’s iPlayer, social networking and a rich shopping experience nobody could have imagined before.

2 - MP3

There can be no doubt that MP3, an innocuous and initially controversial audio file format, has changed so much about the way we live our lives.  It’s done what no other file format before or since has done and created huge new industries and tens of thousands of jobs around the world.  On top of this, the crowning achievement is the freedom it’s allowed us in having our music, and subsequently, our video collections with us whenever we want.

3 - Digital Cameras

In their infancy at the end of the last century, digital cameras have also revolutionised the way we live and work.  They’re now such an important part of our everyday lives that we tend to forget how special it was, and how difficult it was, getting photographs before.

4 - 3G

Despite the hype surrounding 3G when it launched in 2003 many people failed to conceive how useful it would ultimately turn out to be.  What followed was, much in the same vein as MP3, an explosion of job creation and new innovation that sprung out from this technology.

5 - Flat Screens

Another technology that has changed the way we live and work is flat screens.  In their various guises over the last decade (plasma, LCD, OLED etc.) they’ve helped bring about a freedom to work, watch video or browse the web wherever we are.

6 - DVD & Blu-Ray

Do you still have VHS cassette tapes in your home?  Do you think of them as clunky and embarrassing? You wouldn’t be alone with this.  The manufacturing cost savings of DVD alone meant that huge movie libraries were finally within the reach of the masses, compared to up to £80 for a movie on VHS only a few years before.  What’s more the advent of DVD saw television companies finally able to squeeze more life out of their programming and the box set was born.

7 - GPS

For many GPS is the time-saving technology of the last decade, but it’s been so much more than a way to help us get from A to B and only at the end of the noughties are we really beginning to use it to its full potential.  Geo-tagging and augmented reality have begun to show the way forward, and the future for GPS is very bright indeed.

The final three technologies in my list have all sprung out of the big ones mentioned already.

8 - Laptops & Netbooks

Internet for the masses, wherever and whenever you want.  I would include wi-fi in this list but for laptops and netbooks in recent years 3G has been just as, if not more important, in providing access anywhere for anyone.  The price drops that the technologies of the last ten years have allowed have really brought mobile computing into the mainstream.

9 - Mobile Phones

I can remember the clunky, unreliable, brick phones I had before the advent of the modern mobile.  Just compare what we had then to the mobiles we use today.  Back then I resisted having a mobile because it was only there for calls.  Now however text messaging and the internet mean the mobile is a personal companion and repository of all knowledge from train times and restaurant reviews to maps, and much more.

10 - Touch Screens

Touch screens, once the joke of the computing world, have come of age in the last few years with multi-touch now almost taken for granted by the masses.  In reality this is a massive achievement and one that, like GPS, is only beginning to hint at what its capable of.

One thing that I realised coming out of this is that the general public are significantly more excited and accepting of new technologies than they were only ten years ago.  You only have to look at the speed with which the iPhone took off to see how touch screen technology, once something only used by a few people, came to be accepted into the mainstream so quickly.

Can you think of any more technologies that revolutionised the way we lived and worked in the noughties?