A Whole New World, Brought to Us by Gizmos and Gadgets

26 December 2010

Televisions have become flat and high definition, just one example of how consumer electronics have changed

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

As the year comes to an end, we talk about some of the top technology developments of the last ten years. The technological revolution is changing the way we work and play.

Mobile phones became smartphones, with abilities like computers. Many people started reading books on electronic readers. Televisions became high definition and the screens became flat. Digital music players got smaller in size but large enough for people to download their entire music collections.

Worldwide, broadband subscriptions passed five hundred million. And at least two billion people are expected to be online by the end of this year.

An amateur trader, Yan Qin, checks her smartphone for stock reports in New York on December 7

Stephen Baker is the vice president of industry analysis for the consumer electronics market research group NPD. He says the technological developments of the twenty-first century have brought about some historic advances in consumer electronics.

STEPHEN BAKER: “Ten years ago is irrelevant in consumer electronics. Ten years ago might as well be a hundred years. Certainly if you look back at the way people interacted with electronics in two thousand and the way they interact with them today, there is no comparison.