Technology Through the Years: How Much Has Technology Changed in the last 20 years?

Technology has advanced in numerous ways throughout the 21st Century, with massive leaps since the century started 25 years ago.

While video tapes were still being sold and recorded onto in the 2000s, it wasn’t long before the DVD became more popular, and we’re now living in an era where streaming is ultimately more popular than owning physical versions of media. Likewise, we’ve witnessed a move towards digital books, with apps such as Kindle and Apple Books leading to authors releasing books in multiple formats, and now, even newspapers are digitised.

So whether you’re someone who is excited about the rising amount of technology we have access to now or someone who is increasingly worried about it, in this blog, I’m going to summarise how technology has changed from 2005-2025, while also looking at what we’ve seen already this year and what the rest of 2025 has in store for us.

2005: When social media expanded and sOME items began to get digitised

A year after the birth of Facebook, the rise of Skype and blogging, and an ongoing shift to change the way mobile phones looked, 2005 was a year when technology was advancing to an extent that it changed the way we lived, whether with new hardware or more new social media sites.

Yes, we were still used to entertaining ourselves outside (SHOCK HORROR) and with other activities that didn’t require a screen, but it was still obvious that the newest technology of the day was slowly convincing us to spend more time inside. With mobile phones, the Apple iPod, an expanding video game market, new social media sites and new game consoles selling in millions over the first five years, the entire tech industry was worth $624, paving the way for a massive amount of technological change.

But one thing that it wasn’t as easy to do in 2005 was to share videos online, until a little site called YouTube was registered on Valentine’s Day that year.

Some young people might find this hard to believe, but if you wanted to make your own films and share them with your friends and family before 2005, your easiest option was to burn your content to a disc. Furthermore, if you found some videos or films someone had managed to upload to the internet, you would have to wait for ages for your broadband to load up, and once that was done, you sometimes even had to download software that enabled you to watch the video.

That all changed, however, after Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim created YouTube, which, unless you’re living under a rock, we now recognise as the world’s largest video sharing site. But although they always had the idea for it to be a video sharing site of some sort, the original version of the site looked nothing like what it eventually turned out to be, as it was originally designed to be a dating website, or to be more specific, according to Steve Chen, “a video version of hotornot.com”.

Equipped with not only a username and password box to add in your login details, but also a Favourites; Messages; Videos and My Profile buttons, there were also drop down menus to select which sex you were, what type of person you were seeking and between what ages you would prefer them to be. Not only that, but at one point, the co-founder even considered paying women $20 to upload dating videos, then, when that didn’t catch on, the site was redesigned as a free video hosting site, which is roughly the same as what it remains as today.

The official first video, ‘Me at the Zoo’ was posted on the 23rd of April 2005, and ever since then, more videos keep on getting added. It is expected that, as of 2025, 2.6 million videos are posted a day, and that number can climb to way over that all the time.

Yet, 2005 wasn’t only the year when social media as we knew it expanded even further and it became even easier to view videos, because it was also that year when we continued to witness the rise of digital maps.

Although Yahoo had been ahead in the game, having launched they their own digital map three years previously in March 2002, digital maps weren’t that widely used in 2005. If you were travelling anywhere at the time, you would have likely had to print out travelling instructions, which you would have then put into your car, along with everyone else you would have been travelling with, and of course possible an old paper map, but that didn’t scare Google away from launching their own digital map service on 8th February 2005 that Google launched their own online map service, which has since became the most popular map service in the world. But with the advancement of digital maps, how did we use them? Through a little thing called a satnav, which absolutely everyone rushed out to get, because smartphones didn’t exist until another two years into the future.

In computer world, meanwhile, Apple introduced an accessibility feature called VoiceOver on their Macs for the first time, and elsewhere, they also introduced Spotlight to their MacBook computers, which proved to be their equivalent of the Windows Search feature.

But not every technology company had good luck in 2005, which was unfortunately the case for Microsoft after the launch of their Xbox 360.

Having only launched their own games console in 2001, it was very important for Microsoft to have a successful second console. It had been a slow uphill battle for them to initially sell enough Xbox consoles, with the console having to compete with Sony’s PS2 and Nintendo’s Gamecube when it first came out, and with new PlayStation and Nintendo consoles on the horizon, they had their eyes set on getting their new console out before the competition.

But of course, it’s often better to not get too far ahead of yourself that you start making major mistakes, which is something Microsoft learned the hard way.

Smaller and slightly concave compared to the original Xbox, the Xbox 360 could be placed horizontally or vertically, much like the PS2. It also came with customisable removable faceplates, 4 wireless frequency hopping controllers, a removable 20GB hard drive, as well as ports for 64-512 MB memory cards, an optical remote controller and a ring of 4 green lights surrounding the power button, which would symbolise what player you were in a game.

But what could go wrong?

Well, unfortunately, as the developers had been so excited to get the console out, they’d only been able to fix a couple of its technical problems, and it wasn’t until the console got out to gamers that they started to hear about the Red Ring of Death, a fault that no one had caught onto beforehand.

Caused by connectors inside the components of the Xbox 360, the Red Ring of Death, in short, stopped the 360 from turning on, and would occur when the temperature of the components would go hot and cold too rapidly.

By the time the console was 9 months into its life cycle, around 30 – 40 percent of consoles were being returned, in something commonly referred to as a ‘cardboard coffin’, until Microsoft were eventually able to figure out what was wrong and sent out replacement versions which weren’t plagued with the fault anymore.

2006: when games consoles and social Media fought for attention

If you ask nerds who were alive in 2006 how fondly they look back on the tech industry of the time, you’ll likely be told it was an amazing time.

Not only was it the year when YouTube was bought by Google, but it was also the year when Facebook grew beyond a Harvard dorm room and began to expand outwards to the world.

In the computer world, Apple updated their MacBook laptops to run off the Intel chip, and as if that weren’t mind-blowing enough, it was also the year when Widgets began to get used on computers (something that then returned as an interactive feature many years later, after Apple reintroduced them to their computers in 2023).

But if you’re interested in technology and social networks that were introduced to the world that year instead of advancements to sites and devices that already existed, it’s worth remembering that 2006 was also the year when a new social media site called Twitter appeared on the internet (originally spelled as Twttr due to a trend at the time where developers would drop vowels from the names of brands and words).

The brain child of Jack Dorsey while he was an employee at the podcasting company, Odeo, the social media site that is now known as X was originally meant to be an SMS communications platform to help groups of friends stay on top of what they were all doing. That was still the plan when he proposed it to Evan Williams and Biz Stone, who originally gave him the go ahead to create it, and on 21st March 2006, Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet.

Throughout the next few years, the social network began to grow in popularity, and by 2007, it gained attention while serving as a communication tool for attendees at the South by Southwest festival. But it wasn’t until 2009 that it eventually reached its peek, after features such as hashtags, which enabled users to create categories for topics that interested them, were introduced, followed by an appearance of Evan Williams on the Oprah Winfrey show. This was enough to make it even more popular among the celebrity class, as well as those in other areas of the media, and by 2012, it was being used by multiple people worldwide, even politicians. After the US Presidential Election of that year, Barack Obama used Twitter to declare victory, and since then, it’s gained a huge membership by people who are more politically minded.

Although it has been rebranded to X today, it is still a largely popular social network, or at least if you’re the type of person interested in celebrity culture, big business and various areas of politics. However, it isn’t exactly a social network you’ll find your everyday person going on, who, as much as they enjoy sharing stuff on social media, still value a more private social networking experience.

But while 2006 was the year of new and advancing social networking, it was also the year of another major console war.

With the bad luck Microsoft had after launching their Xbox 360 the year before, Nintendo and PlayStation were playing it cool as they set their sights on winning the Console War of 2006.

But while the PS3 did come out in November 2006, and was a relevantly popular console for the time, which not only offered remote connectivity with the PSP and PS Vita, but also introduced the PlayStation Network (enabling gamers to communicate and play with other gamers worldwide) and the ability to play Blu-ray disks, it was the Nintendo Wii which ultimately influenced a bigger change in the tech industry and society and which ultimately won overall.

Launched by Nintendo in 2006, the Nintendo Wii may arguably be the first technological device in history that led in some way towards the technologies that digitise exercise today.

Coming with a wireless controller that could fit into your hand and sense motion, you would use that controller to play through a wide series of engrossing games, which, in most cases, required only your movement to play. And while this did create an inaccessible console that disabled people couldn’t really play, unless they stuck to games such as Singstar, it still sold over 101 million units, compared to 87.4 million for the PS3 and 85.7 million for the Xbox 360.

2007: when touch hit the mainstream and MORE real-world items were digitised

There was already a vast amount of technology before the year 2007 began, but if there is one thing that was still lacking, it was the touch interface on a screen. Yes; there was the Nintendo DS, which played a major part in making it popular, and it had been dappled in elsewhere for years before this, but it wasn’t until this year when it was clear that things were going to change.

Enter the first iPhone.

Announced by Steve Jobs on 9th January 2007 while he was on stage at the Macworld conference, the iPhone completely changed the mobile phone industry.

It came with a 3.5 inch touchscreen, a 2-megapixel camera, as well as multitouch features, which came in handy when opening apps. Beyond this, you also got access to your iTunes library (for young people who might be reading, this was the ancient version of Apple Music), email, phone, text and voicemail, as well as a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard and a range of applications.

By the end of the year, Apple had sold 1.4 million iPhones, proving that it was a massive success and paving the way for the various models we’ve seen since.

But it wasn’t only the iPhone that changed the way we used products in 2007, as that was also the year when books began to get digitised, with the introduction of an e-reader called Kindle.

Developed by Amazon, the original Kindle was able to download books, blogs, magazines and newspapers.

Featuring a high-resolution electronic display that symbolised real paper, users were instantly able to enjoy 90,000 books as soon as it launched, and it’s therefore not surprising that it sold out within 5 and a half hours of its release on 19th November that year.

However, non-like the iPhone, it didn’t come with a touchscreen, instead offering a keyboard that helped you interact with it, even if it did make it very inaccessible for disabled people. But nevertheless, it did also offer a headphone socket and expandable SD card storage.

These features remained pretty usual until September 2011, when Kindle Touch was released as part of the fourth-generation Kindle, which made the device slightly more accessible for physically disabled people, but as a Kindle that could read to you was released in February 2009, it was clear that some features were being introduced which would make the kindle accessible for some disabled people long before then, as well as others who picked the Kindle 2 up.

However, after the Kindle app became compatible with a range of different devices, it became easier for various people to use them.

Kindle still remains a very popular e-reader today, whether you use a Kindle device to read your books or an app. It also inspired a massive change in the e-reading market, with Apple creating their own e-reader and numerous newspapers developing their own.

Other noticeable technologies that came out in 2007 were:

• The ZPrinter 450, which was an early 3D printing device that could transform electronic 3D data into colourful, handheld physical models.
• The iRobot Looj Gutter Cleaning Robot, which was an early smart cleaning robot, except it was controlled by a wireless remote controller that doubled as a detachable handle.
• And the WildCharger Charging Pad, which was an early multi charge pad that let you charge multiple devices at the one time. Of course, this was later advanced through multiple magnetic charger options, but yes, this is when it originated.

2008: a year that expanded the capabilities we had with technology

While it wasn’t a year of a lot of new technology or technology services, 2008 was still a year when some devices were improved, when some new services came out and when some companies entered the smartphone race.

But if there’s one thing that the year is mostly memorable for, it’s for Android entering the smartphone market, with their T-Mobile HTC G1 phone.

Known as the HTC Dream, the T-Mobile G1 was announced on 23rd September 2008, with it officially releasing in October of that year.

Equipped with a 117mm tall by 53mm wide and 15 mm deep display; an internal MicroSD card slot which could read cards from 192MB-256MB; Mini-SIM; a Trackball which acted as an alternative for using the touchscreen and a physical keyboard which could be collapsed into the phone and out, the HTC Dream / T Mobile G1 was met with mixed reviews.

The competitor of the iPhone, many users found it clunky, clumsy, and small, and many reviewers definitely didn’t find it sexy. While many did describe it as “interesting”, others also described it as “weird”, which they most commonly used as words to describe the bottom section of the phone, which was the bit that had the Trackball, as well as other features.

But with that said, some reviewers did describe the G1 as having a solid construction and featuring a soft-touch finish, as well as featuring a rubberish texture which made the phone comfortable to hold. They also seemed to like the QWERTY keyboard, as well as the touchscreen.

By the end of its first year, the HTC Dream / T Mobile G1 sold 1 million units, but with the return of retro technology as a trend, who knows if it will make a comeback?

However, something else that didn’t exist before 2008 was the Apple App Store, as much as young people may find that difficult to imagine.

If you were a Developer in 2008, the likelihood is it would have been extremely difficult to get your software or game in front of everyone. While there were ways to share the software or game you had been working on with others, it was a lot more difficult to do this back in the day, and it was common for your software or game to only be discovered once it landed with whichever big brand you were designing it for.

However, that all changed after Apple’s App Store was launched.

Launched on 10th July 2008, the Apple App Store originally only had 500 apps. But while it didn’t have as many apps as it has now when it first appeared on our iPhones, it did have a very professional layout, with a Featured tab; Categories tab; Top 50 tab; a Search tab and an Updates tab, all lined up beside each other at the bottom.

As of 2025, there are 1.96 million apps available on the App Store, and as with other services, this number can rise at any time.

Other noticeable technology inventions from 2008 include:

• Experiments with Flexible Display technology, paving the way for foldable devices, including phones, and devices that let you write on them like you would do with a pen.
• Flash Memory expanding to numerous devices.
• GPS expanding to numerous other devices such as mobile phones, transforming us into a completely new era.

2009: the eve of a new era with technology

2009 wasn’t exactly the start of a new dawn in technology, but it was when we witnessed technology closing the curtain on one decade and preparing us for a decade of change.

But one thing we did get to see in 2009 was a smart thermostat, or in case anyone reading this is getting their hopes up, a very 2009 version of a smart thermostat.

Inspired by a 2000s Toyota Prius which came with a little screen on the dashboard, capable of telling you what gas mileage you’re getting as you continued to drive, it was this car which inspired the EnergyHub Dashboard, which is the closest thing that we can compare to a modern smart thermostat of today.

Designed by Seth Frader-Thompson (a driver of the Priuses), the EnergyHub Dashboard was made of plastic, with a screen in the middle of the device that was capable of wirelessly talking to your furnace, along with various other appliances, while letting you know how much electricity or gas each one was using, as well as how much it cost you. But, while it was designed to only relay information about how much energy was being used to you and finances relating to it, you could also turn appliances on and off with it, so while truly smart technology devices wouldn’t exist for at least another few years into the future, it was impressive for the time.

But something else that didn’t exist before 2009 was WhatsApp, which is widely regarded as the world’s most popular messaging app.

Founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, WhatsApp was launched as an alternative to SMS messaging, which often cost users money depending on what type of content they wanted to message friends or family and wasn’t that great for security. Beyond this, it also began with a simple yet revolutionary idea, meaning users were able to communicate with others, no matter their geographical location, whilst also being able to work over the internet.

Between 2010-2014, WhatsApp was widely respected for its simple yet user friendly interface, as well as its cross-platform capabilities and free features, such as group chats; voice messaging and read receipts.

As of 2025, it has 2 billion users, including 2 billion monthly users, with the app still remaining the most popular messaging app in the world.

Some noticeable other technology inventions from 2009 include:

• The Samsung Galaxy smartphone, which was released on the 29th of June 2009 and marked Samsung’s move into the smartphone marketplace.
• The invention of software developed by a University of Wisconsin doctoral student, Adam Wilson, who, along with advisor, Justin Williams, developed software that enabled people to tweet by thinking.
• FujiFilm’s FinePix Real 3D W1 camera, otherwise known as the world’s first digital camera capable of shooting in 3D.

2010: the year of new educational, relaxing and work technology as well as controller free gaming

As we entered the 2010s and the 2000s became a distant memory, people began reminiscing about how technology had changed in the 10 years that had gone by and how much they would continue to change in the future.

Rumours had already spread about a long awaited item that was apparently capable of changing the way we worked. However, it wasn’t until the 27th of January that year that we got to see the iPad for the first time, after Steve Jobs introduced it in San Francisco.

The first version of a tablet of its kind, the original iPad came with 12 apps already built in, including Safari; Mail; Photos; Video; iPod; iTunes Store; App Store; Maps; Notes; Calendar and Contacts, and was 243mm high by 190mm wide, with a weight of 1.5 pounds. However, it unfortunately didn’t come with a camera, if that helps answer young people who will be asking how you got photos onto it, and the only way you could import photos was by importing them from a Mac, PC or a digital camera. But nevertheless, most apps were able to be used in both portrait and landscape mode, and could also be opened with multi-touch, as well as just a normal tap.

On the first day it went on sale, Apple sold over three hundred thousand iPads, and by the year after, they had 32 million units. Today, the iPad brand still remains popular, with various models selling in high quantities, and there even seem to be more iPads sold than other tablets by competing companies, with critics sometimes preferring the iPad’s sleek design and more powerful interface.

However, it wasn’t only the iPad that changed the way we worked or used technology in 2010, because that was also the year we were introduced to controller free gaming with the launch of the Xbox 360 Kinect, which further encouraged exercise through technology.

Announced by Microsoft in June 2009 although it wasn’t officially launched until November 2010, the Kinect (which was originally referred to as “Project Natal” until June 2010) was basically designed to be Microsoft’s answer to the Nintendo Wii.

Coming with a colour camera accessory that used the depth sensor and a microphone array to track body movements, recognise faces and to listen to voice commands, the Xbox Kinect required only your body movement to work. Launching with games such as Kinect Adventures, Kinect Sports and Zumba Fitness Party, you could operate games by only moving your arms or feet, as well as other parts of your body, which was simple and fun enough for most people to do but not for others.

Within eleven days of launching, Microsoft had sold 1 million Kinects, and by March 2011, this figure jumped to 10 million. Overall, the Kinect sold 24 million units, a lot less than the Wii controller it was trying to recreate, but more than the PlayStation Move, which came with a motion control controller and a camera and launched in September 2010 ,which sold 15 million units.

Elsewhere, although it had been happening for a few years beforehand, we started witnessing Streaming starting to take off, after Netflix — which was originally a DVD rental company — gained a larger amount of subscribers who joined only to stream content, and in the social media world, a new social media site called Instagram was launched on the Apple App Store in October 2010, which reached 25,000 users on its first day.

However, in accessibility world, an accessibility tool called The EyeWriter, was launched, with the aim of helping paralysed artists who can’t use any part of their body to draw using only their eyes, and in the network industry, we saw the dawn of 4G networks, setting the way for better connectivity.

2011: the year when science fiction began to become a reality and futuristic technology you’d notice outside became usable at home

By 2011, we were being introduced to technologies that were ready to transform us into a new reality, whilst also expanding the capabilities of some tech as they moved beyond local cinema screens and into home appliances and game consoles.

But if you’re interested in health technology, 2011 was a year when facial recognition and healthcare technology clashed together, in an attempt to invent a truly futuristic device that sounds like it should come straight out of science fiction.

Developed at the MIT Media Lab by students, the Cardiocam medical mirror was able to detect your heart rate, blood pressure and other health issues, while only requiring you to stare into its screen.

With a webcam built in to record the changes in skin tone people will experience over time, a computer connected to the device was able to analyse the facial colour change, before displaying the user’s heart rate on the mirror. Furthermore, the mirror was also able to establish a baseline resting heart rate, enabling the user to monitor changes to their cardiac health over time, including blood pressure.

But as your average person in 2011 was a bit more skeptical about facial recognition, the Cardiocam mirror didn’t achieve widespread adoption into peoples’ homes. While there were nerds who would have viewed it as game changing, the average person would have viewed it as technology being trusted to do too much, which is why it never moved into worldwide production.

However, there was still technology that did catch on in 2011, as 3D technologies we had only been able to see on cinema screens began making their way to game consoles, or as I should say, a game console, as 2011 was the year when the Nintendo 3DS came out.

Debuted by Nintendo in 2010, the Nintendo 3DS was officially launched in 2011, with fans finally getting hold of it by February and March that year.

Equipped with the usual two screens we were used to seeing on previous Nintendo DS systems, the top screen was capable of displaying 3D visuals, which you could also change the intensity of by using the 3D Depth slider at the right side of the DS by sliding it up or down, whether you found it easier to tolerate the 3D effect at the highest level, the moderate level, or just completely off. Beyond this, this console was also the first to include a Circle Pad as well as a d-pad, giving the user two ways to control games, and there was also a built-in motion and gyro sensor, though it wasn’t always necessary to play games.

Within two days of launching in the UK, the Nintendo 3DS sold over 113,000 units, and by the end of its first year, it sold 3.61 units. However, since the 3DS e-store shut down in 2023, it has sold 75.95 million units worldwide and counting.

Lastly, something else that was introduced in 2011 was Siri, with the iPhone 4S being the first iPhone to fully include it. This made it fully accessible for every iPhone user, not just developers who had previously been able to access it on the Apple’s App Store since February 2010.

Other noticeable technology inventions from 2011 include:

• The advancement of touchscreen tables, after the announcement of the Samsung SUR40 touchscreen table.
• The expansion of glasses free 3D TVs, with the launch of the Toshiba 55ZL2.

2012: the year that expanded tablets, AR and other smart technology

By 2012, people were slowly becoming used to technology taking over more of our lives, while still dreaming of the day when their own favourite technology brand would finally join the tablet race.

But while people who were not Apple fans did have a good choice of Android tablets to choose from, with Dell; Samsung; Google and Amazon having already introduced tablets of their own, many were still found themselves wishing for a tablet powered by Windows, until Microsoft finally answered their prayers in October 2012, with the launch of their Microsoft Surface tablet.

Conceived, designed and engineered by Microsoft, the original Microsoft Surface tablet included a USB port and a built in kickstand, which offered something that many tablet technologies of the time didn’t offer. Beyond this, the original model also came with 16:9 aspect ratio – the industry standard for HD of the time – and had edges angled at 22 degrees. But what really made this tablet unique was that it was the first to offer a touch cover with a keyboard and trackpad, which made it the first to enable users to fully turn their tablets into laptops, as well as offering Windows 8.

Despite the fact that it wasn’t capable of running all Windows apps, the original Microsoft Surface sold $853 million in revenue in its first eight months, and by March 2013, it had sold 1.5 million units. However, by 2014, it was reported that the tablet was losing money, which would only be sorted after Microsoft expanded the brand into one that would include both laptops and tablets.

As of 2025, both the Microsoft Surface Pro and laptop Surface lines remain popular with the people it is targeted at, and new models with AI are rumoured to come out later this year. But with the brand having experienced plunges before – most recently in 2023 – nothing remains certain.

However, we also got to see the birth of AR devices and smart devices in 2012, after Google announced Google Glass, otherwise known as the world’s first smart glasses.

Although it was only a prototype at the time, Google Glass was one of the first wearable devices that also introduced the world of Augmented Reality to the world.

Coming with adjustable nosepads and durable frame sizes that could fit any face, as well as extra nosepads in two extra sizes, Google Glass, while still just a prototype in 2012, were basically a pair of glasses with a computer built into them, capable of taking photos at 5MP and videos at 720p. It came with Bone Conduction Transducer audio, as well as support for Wifi and Bluetooth, with 12GB storage and a battery that, while sort of good, may lose a bigger percentage of power when using apps that were more battery intensive.

You could turn the glasses on by tapping the side of the glasses, then from that point onwards, you could interact with them with gestures. Want to turn your smart glasses on? You just need to press down firmly to turn the glasses on. Want to search for an option then launch it? You just need to swipe forwards and backwards on the touchpad at the side of the glass then touch to launch it.

By the time they launched, Google Glass sold 10,000 units, but thwarted product ultimately ended up failing, with fewer than 300,000 units selling overall after the product’s public release.

However, while the product didn’t catch on, you could argue that they’ve led in some way to VR headsets, which, while there may be multiple different brands, do offer some features like this.

Other noticeable technology announced or released in 2012 include:

• The world’s first motion-activated screw driver, created by a company called Black and Decker, which was able to screw clockwise or anticlockwise depending on which way you moved it.
• The Tesla Model S.
• And in the world of accessibility, gloves called Enable Talk gloves were created, which were equipped with sensors that could recognise sign language and translate it into text on a smart phone before furthermore converting the text into spoken words.

2013: the year that ultimately witnessed the rise of machines

By 2013, we were preparing for a future that would ultimately be ruled by machines, as well as a future that would expand what the technology we used beforehand were capable of.

But something that finally started to make a name for itself in 2013 was Virtual Reality, with the launch of the Oculus Rift.

While developers may have played round with a couple of different versions of it before this year, Virtual Reality was very much still in its infancy. Yes, VR and AR devices had been developed, but the public was still very much being introduced to a new reality, which many were still very much skeptical about.

That all changed, however, after the Oculus Rift DK1 was launched in September 2013.

Featured at CES that year, the Oculus Rift was the first Virtual Reality that blew the game when putting the gamer inside the game.

Built with plastic when it comes to the facial interface as well as a flexible fabric strap, the Oculus Rift DK1 was released in the colour Black and with 640×800 resolution per eye. Without the headstrap, it weighed 380g, but it was capable of 3 DoF Non-positional tracking, as well as 90° horizontal Visible FoV, 90° Vertical Visible FoV, and 110° diagonal Visible FoV. Beyond this, it also had a 60Hz refresh rate, as well as a single LCD display.

By July 2014, Oculus Rift development kits passed 100,000 sales, and by June 2015, Oculus revealed more than 175,000 development kits had been sold.

As of 2025, there are seven large brands of Virtual Reality headsets, but the number of headsets that exist likely reach into the hundreds and thousands. By 2030, the global VR market is expected to reach $57 billion, with that figure likely to be even bigger by 2040 and 2050.

However, another technology that started to make a name for themselves in 2013 were Drones.

In case you’re someone who has been living under a rock, drones are basically flyable machines which are capable of taking photos and videos, fighting wars, catching criminals, as well as being expected to be used to deliver packages in future. You can fly them by using a flight controller, which basically acts as the machine’s brain, as it takes in information it is sent by the remote controller, and as it has GPS, as well as obstacle avoidance sensors, they are capable of finding their way back to you (which works in some cases).

But back in 2013, these flying robots were only starting to make it into the mainstream, after they were involved with saving a man’s life; in taking off from an underwater submarine; and in other operations in relation to the military, as well as being moved into planned schemes as part of Amazon.

By 2030, drones are expected to be able to stay in the air for longer and to be capable of covering more ground without requiring frequent charging. But while all this would be great, I would love if drone designers could adopt controller technology that will mean people who are physically disabled can drive them with just an analogue stick, or with any other assistive technology, that could make how you drive drones more customisable.

Other additional technologies that either improved or launched in 2013 include:

• The Hapilabs HAPIfork, which was a smart fork capable of telling you if you were eating too quickly or eating too frequently.
• Next generation gaming consoles, after Sony launched the PS4; Microsoft launched the Xbox One and Nintendo launched the 2DS.
• Improvements to Voice Recognition, after voice recognition expanded past something that only Apple was working on and started to be integrated with Google’s search technology, as well as a feature on the Xbox One.

2014: when technology finally made its way into the future

By 2014, people were starting to fall in love with technology to such an extent that they wanted to rely on it to do tasks they could otherwise in most cases do for themselves, while also trusting it to create new and existing opportunities but through a digital experience, while also trusting it with more information.

In the finance world, physical purses and wallets began to be replaced with digital alternatives, after Apple announced Apple Wallet, a digital version of the item it was trying to replace, marking a move away from physical versions. And in the fitness world, we continued to witness the rise of wearable technology, as numerous companies announced wearable products that doubled as devices that could monitor your health.

But if you’re interested in why this year is considered the year when Science Fiction became a reality, it’s also because this was the year when we started to see the dawn of the smart home, otherwise referred to in the tech industry as the Internet of Things.

A term to describe a large range of technology instead of just a single product, the Internet of Things is the term used to describe all the technologies we connect to the internet now. But back in 2014, this concept was only starting to take shape, with guides written in publications such as Wired and Forbes describing what the Internet of Things meant and how it was likely to impact the public.

In January of that year, experts were writing about how wearable technology and Augmented Reality were going to grow even bigger, and by June of that year, numerous smart devices, including smart thermostats and alarms had been created.

By the end of the year, Amazon Insiders had got their first look at a smart assistant the company had created, with other brands starting to create smart assistants of their own, and in the years since, the number of devices that can connect to smart assistants has grown intensively.

As of 2025, the Internet of Things has continued to grow, with many brands focusing on creating their own hubs, as well as hubs that can communicate with a range of different devices. But while some rumours and advancements including the use of Artificial Intelligence may concern some people, it’s worth remembering that some Internet of Things technology can help physically disabled people get more independent, with devices such as smart lights and smart TVs proving as an example.

Other noticeable technology announcements and advances from 2014 include:

• The Hendo Hoverboard, which was created by Axe Pex, and which, while not exactly what fans of ‘Back To The Future 2’ had hoped for, was announced, and marked the start of a new toy or transportation tool, which many will hope will only get better as more technology becomes available.
• The advancement of 3D printing across numerous industries, including Medicine, where it was used when developing a bionic eye etc; for recreating Chess sets and Kayaks, as well as food and a lot more.

2015: a year of developments in health technology

2015 proved to be a year that expanded the new introductions of the previous year even further, with VR, AR and wearables all playing a major role.

In the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality world, we saw headsets that were made out of cardboard being released, as well as devices that took the shape of goggles.

Elsewhere in the tech industry, we started to witness a move towards digital art, after Apple announced the Apple Pencil, a stylus which, in its first generation, was capable of pairing with your iPad and charging in it, while acting as a pencil you could make notes with or a paintbrush you could make art with, and which has received numerous new versions in the years since.

But devices that really started to make a name for themselves this year were the large amount of sensors and wearable monitors that were released, advancing the world of Health Technology.

If you asked most people to list off wearable technologies they were most familiar with, the likelihood is you would have heard a lot about the Fitbit and the upcoming Apple Watch. Yes; other wearable devices did exist, but many of them weren’t as well known as the big two, and giving that many devices were aimed at the older age range, it often got even harder if you were looking for a monitor that was aimed at parents with babies.

But that’s when companies such as Mimo Baby, MonBaby, Owlet, TempTraq and Sproutling had the unique idea of creating wearable baby monitors, as well as other devices that helped parents and other family members monitor an infant’s health.

Mainly coming in the form of ankle bracelets, patches, slippers and garments, many of these devices were capable of letting parents track their baby’s breathing. Some were able to inform you if a baby had rolled, fell, or removed from their cot; and even better for many parents, some of them could be moved from one item of clothing to another. And in another area of the same industry, a company called Pacif-i developed dummies that buzzed and notified parents if their child’s comforter went missing, paving the way for a new era in the baby health industry.

However, as people were slightly more cautious about how much information you would share with devices back then, devices like these only sold in a limited amount. Still, devices like these did pave the way for a smarter devices, with wearable baby monitors estimated to have reached over 1 billion in 2024.

Other new technology inventions from 2015 include:

• The Nima sensor, which was capable of informing people with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity if a restaurant was gluten free or not.
• The Pantelligent cooking pan, which, by using Bluetooth and a special heat sensor, was capable of teaching you how to cook.

2016: the year of more smart technology and devices receiving capabilities that already existed

By 2016, we were starting to get used to living with smart speakers, with voice recognition coming on leaps and bounds from what it had been like in the early 2010s. From voice recognition being only a gimmicky thing a few years before, to finally advancing to being used to control household devices, it’s no wonder how 2016 is remembered as a year when voice activation reached its mind-blowing moment, while also helping other devices become even smarter.

But one way we did get to see both voice activation and smart technology advancing was after Google joined the smart assistant race, launching their Google Home smart assistant in November 2016.

Google’s answer to the Amazon Alexa which was launched two years before and had already reached 5million units, the Google Home operated with the action words, “Ok Google”. In its first generation, it could play songs, artists. radio stations, playlists and more from Google Play Music, just like its main competitor, but it could also play music you had on Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn and YouTube Music, with the promise that iHeartRadio would be supported in the near future.

Beyond this, it was also capable of streaming audio directly from your phone, if you casted music to it from a choice of over 100 Chromecast-enabled apps, and even better, it was able to work with Android and iOS devices, while also being capable of performing all the same demands its slightly older cousin was capable of.

In its first year, the Google Home became capable of controlling over 1,000 smart home products from more than 100 brands, and by 2018 12.5 million units had being shipped.

While it isn’t as popular as Alexa in 2025, the Google Home is still a successful smart assistant. It currently supports over 50,000 smart devices such as TVs, lights, plugs, thermostats and more, somewhat less than the growing amount of devices the Amazon Echo is compatible with, yet possibly a lot more than the Apple HomePod.

However, somewhere else that Voice Recognition got to prove itself in 2016 was in cameras, after GoPro included it in their Hero 5 Black and Hero 5 Session cameras.

Launched in October 2016, GoPro’s Hero 5 cameras were capable of shooting up to 4K at 30 Frames per second. If you chose the Hero 5 Black, you would be able to capture photos at 12MP, compared to 10MP on the Hero 5 Session, and if you were interested in diving, you’d be able to capture content as long as you only went 33 feet.

But where these cameras became groundbreaking was when you could operate both of them with voice control, as the cameras supported 7 different languages when they were first announced, with the promise that more languages would be coming.

By 2018, GoPro had sold more than four million Hero 5 Black cameras, a milestone they reached faster than their previous camera, the Hero4 Silver.

However, it wasn’t all good news for every tech company that year, which Apple learnt after they unveiled a series of Mac laptops with a Touch Bar.

First included on the 2016 MacBook Pro, the Touch Bar is something that got a bit of a mixed response from Apple Fans.

Placing controls right at the user’s finger tips, just like it had on iPads and iPhones, Apple had great belief that Mac users would fall in love with it just as much as iPad and iPhone users had. Mail, Finder, Calendar, Numbers, GarageBand, Final Cut Pro X and more were swapped to items you could touch on the Touch Bar, with options for video and audio editing, coding etc.

However, while there were some who loved the Touch Bar, others found it gimmicky. While there were reviewers who said they enjoyed working with it at times, it was hard to find someone who would say they would use it for everything, which left it with a negative repartition. Plus, others found it difficult to activate the buttons and bar, which didn’t really help.

In October 2023, Apple discontinued Mac models with the Touch Bar and there is currently no word on it returning.

Other noticeable technology releases from 2016 include:

• Virtual Reality making its way to consoles, as Sony announced PlayStation VR, making it the first virtual reality headset that was compatible with the PS4.
• The Hello Sense alarm clock, which aimed on improving your sleep, but collapsed a year later.

2017: the year of face ID and gestures

You may be thinking now that we’d seen it all with the gadgets that were coming out, and that nothing would get more futuristic than Virtual Reality, Smart Homes and Voice Recognition, but think again. Because that’s when the 2017 tech year came around, which is a year that is probably best remembered in the tech industry for the dawn of Facial Recognition and Gesture Controlled technology.

And the first device that probably symbolised this was the DJI Spark Drone, which changed the game for the drone industry which had largely shaped into one used for various areas of content production.

In the years since drones started making a name for themselves, DJI had become the world’s leader in civilian drones and aerial imaging technology, with brands such as the Phantom and Mavac series being named as fan favourites during the three years before.

But their drones quickly became even more futuristic after DJI launched their Spark series of drones, the first that users could use by using only hand gestures, removing barriers between the user and their drone while it is in the sky, unless they are physically disabled to such an extent they can’t use hands or fingers.

Launched on the 4th of May 2017, the Spark drone was capable of automatically entering Gesture Mode as soon as it takes off from your hand, before then being capable of entering into PalmControl, enabling users to control the drone with only their hands. However, it was also controllable with the remote control it came with, as well as via a mobile device, so you had options if you didn’t want to use gestures.

Elsewhere in the tech industry, however, Apple introduced the iPhone X, their first iPhone to come with Face ID.

Announced in September 2017, available for pre-orders from October 2017 and officially released in November, the iPhone X was a really groundbreaking phone for its time.

Coming with an all-screen display that follows the curve of the device, as well as its elegantly rounded corners, the iPhone X was available in silver or space grey. A seven-layer colour process allowed for precise colour hues and opacity, with a reflective optical layer which enhanced the rich colours.

But if there’s anything that impressed iPhone users more than anything else on the iPhone X, it was the Face ID capabilities that were introduced with it, by using a state-of-the-art TrueDepth camera system, made up of a dot projector; infrared camera and flood illuminator.

By the time it was ten months into its launch, the iPhone X had reached 63 million units, and its Face ID technology has been included on every iPhone since, except the iPhone SE, even making its way over to the iPad, but only the Pro models.

And in accessibility world, eSight 3 electronic glasses were released, launching a new series of smart glasses for visually impaired people. These electric glasses came with a built-in HD autofocus camera for distance, intermediate and near viewing; lenses that could be customised to whichever prescription was best for the person using it, and was capable of connecting to your computer, games console, Freeview box and more.

Other technology releases from 2017 include:

• The Polaroid OneStep 2, a retro instant camera with a couple of new features, including a timer, a flash and a USB cable which can be used to charge it, which offered something unique for people trying to fight a technology addiction or wanted to return to a more simpler time.
• The Nintendo Switch, which for those not in the know, is a games console that can be attached to both your tv at home and use as a handheld, which is played through a controller called joy cons.

2018: accessibility finally starts to become the norm

By 2018, the world was getting used to relying even more on smart home technology, with devices that could define themselves becoming even more smart.

In the smart home technology industry, a robot vacuum that could empty itself was created, while elsewhere in the smart home world, LynQ released a smart compass that, by using a mix of GPS technology and long-range radio frequencies, was able to find family and friends who were also owners of the same devices.

In the fitness world, we saw advancements to the amount of technology included in fitness products, with new e-bikes and skipping ropes able to track your fitness.

But if there’s one area of tech that started to make a name for itself in this year, it’s the world of accessible technology, which after years of only being made by a couple of niche companies, began making its way to the wider industry.

Accessible products were being created before 2018, but they were pretty much non-existent in the mainstream tech industry. While devices had been created to assist disabled people in performing tasks that were difficult for them, they were largely developed by much smaller companies, and there were very few devices designed for people who were physically disabled, especially if they were interested in gaming.

That changed, however, after Microsoft released the Xbox Adaptive Controller, making them the first mainstream tech company to create a controller that was aimed at the disabled community.

Inspired by an internal hackathon and informed by work by disability charities and sold for £100 when it first launched, the Xbox Adaptive Controller is a rectangular sized version of the Xbox controllers most people were used to. Instead of small buttons, it includes two large black buttons, as well as two USB ports at the side and nineteen 3.5 headphone jacks at the back, which you can plug accessibility switches into. However, what makes it revolutionary is that you can pair it with another controller so that you can either use both as one controller in one or ask another person to play alongside you as you complete some actions that are easier.

While public figures for how many controllers it sold and how much revenue its made aren’t available, the Xbox Adaptive Controller did go on to win the world’s top design awards during an event in the UK. During the D&AD Festival in London, it won the prestigious Black Pencil award in the Product Design category, marking its milestone as a device that is widely recognised as a device that has improved game accessibility in a previously inaccessible industry.

However, another accessibility product that was released in 2018 was the subscription service, Aira, which, although costing $99 per month for its standard plan, enabled its users to stream live video of their surroundings to a 24/7 agent, using either a smartphone or Aira’s proprietary glasses, with the result that whichever agent they had would then be able to answer questions, describe objects or to guide users through a location.

2019: the year when accessible tech went even further and devices were released that changed the way filmmakers film

If the previous year hadn’t been game changing enough, 2019 definitely was, as the worlds of accessible technology and the mainstream technology started to blend even more.

In the worlds of smart narration, AR and accessibility, we saw the launch of the OrCam MyEye2, which was an AI device you could attach to the frame of any glasses you owned, that was capable of reading text and information from Bar Codes, while in other areas of accessible technology world, we also saw talking hearing aids that were powered with AI, as well as smarter canes.

But other devices that started to make a name for themselves in 2019 were gimbals, which, while they first started reentering the scene a few years before, started transforming the way filmmakers made videos and films that year and were adopted as a vital filmmaking tool.

Normally if you were interested in creating videos or films, you would have had to get a tripod, and if you wanted to capture movement, you’d have to buy an expensive piece of filming equipment called a Dolly. If you were low on money and needed to opt for perhaps a more affordable option, you could borrow something else on wheels that was easier to come across, such as a wheelchair, a child’s buggy or a toy pram, and after that, you had to figure out how to strap a camera to the top of whatever cheap product you had opted for, with the hope it would be secure enough to not fall.

But gimbals have proven to largely put a pause to that.

They had existed in some form since ancient times and were used on ships and in spacecraft throughout the 20th Century, but it wasn’t until the 2010s that gimbals made their way into the technological wave, after DJI became a key player with the launch of their Ronin series.

A 3-axis gimbal designed to provide smooth footage, the DJI Ronin marked the beginning of a vital change in the accessories we use to capture footage. Not only did it mark the beginning of professional-grade camera stabilisation coming to the mainstream and alter the videography indefinitely, but it also led to the integration of gimbals into drones and military UAVs, with cameras enhancing the capabilities of aerial photography, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

By 2019, the DJI brand of gimbals had expanded to the DJI Ronin S which was able to head track, though new models of drones were on the market that it had to compete with. Some of these newer models were bigger, so they were often more heavier than the DJI Ronin, but in other aspects, they also came with more battery life, which would have won some users of the previous winner over.

In 2024, the Gimbal Market size was valued at 204.73 million USD, according to Global Growth Insights, and DJI have recently announced they will be making the DJI Ronin 2. As of 2025, gimbals for video stabilisation still remain popular, especially now that AI tools are being added into them. Many gimbals are now capable of being controlled with your phone, though most require the need to hold them, and so, while it looks great that some gimbals are adopting more accessibility features, it would be great if they also came with a wheelchair attachment, so wheelchair dependent people in the media could attach their gimbals to their chairs if they can’t use their arms for a long time or at all.

And lastly, new VR headsets that expanded Virtual Reality even further arrived on the market in 2019, with the HTC Vive Pro Eye, Oculus Quest 2, Holoride and Osso VR all welcoming a massive amount of changes. These headsets all came with changes, whether that be the ability to control headsets with your eyes; to be able to move round freely while using it without the headset attached to wires; to ride spaceships while sitting in the passenger seat; or to practice nursing in a digital environment, and they’ve all played a part in getting the Virtual Reality world to where it is today, especially during the year that we went through next.

2020: the year that would change the ways we work, learn and travel

It may not be everyone’s favourite year, but 2020 still held claim to the advancements of some existing and new technology that, which transformed the way we lived and worked, while, for some, making the times we were living in not that bad.

Firstly, we witnessed video calling software becoming more prominent than they had ever been before, after the world was shut down due to the Covid19 Pandemic.

They may have existed in some way for a long time before then, but before 2020, video calling software was only used to catch up with friends or family, and you wouldn’t have heard of it being used as a tool for learning or working from home.

Furthermore, if the times we lived through had occurred 10 years before, the only real apps you probably would have had to choose between would have been Skype or FaceTime, which – as popular as they were in 2010 – were not as capable of doing everything the larger amount of software and apps we had access to come 2020 were capable of.

Throughout the first year everyone wants to forget, video conferencing apps were used to do everything from learning, to working, to organising quiz nights and movie nights etc. Yes; FaceTime and Skype were still a thing – and they are still around today at the time this blog was being written – but Zoom and Microsoft Teams soon took the crown for working from home, learning from home and socialising while social distancing, though Apps such as Google Meet and HouseParty also had a good user base.

While Google Meet was more like a blend of FaceTime and Skype blended together – enabling its users to launch video chats directly from Gmail and to embed them into calendars without leaving Chrome, to invite 25 people to join a video call all at once if they were a nonpaying user or to make calls to a standard phone – the other three offered services that completely changed the game.

With Microsoft Teams, HouseParty and Zoom, you had the option to share your screen, making them great for employees, students, families and kids. Users could use these apps to share a film they were watching with friends or family, to share a quiz they had set up, to share gameplay or other versions of entertainment, which for people who don’t remember it, was how we entertained ourselves and caught up with friends in 2020. Beyond screen sharing, however, some of them allowed their users to save recordings of the meetings they had, and in Zoom alone, multiple users were able to share their screens.

We’ve since moved on from family quiz nights, gaming sessions and shared movie nights held over video chats, but the same apps we used to do those things on have since been adopted for replacing face to face communication when you can’t meet up with a person or a selection of people in person, especially in industries such as teaching and journalism. While kids and other people in education are now able to attend classes in person again, if schools, universities or further education colleges have to close for any reason, online learning can continue, and if someone can’t turn up to an interview in the media, they can easily be interviewed over a recordable video chat.

Still, the advancement of video chat technology wasn’t the only thing we saw in 2020 in an attempt to continue normal life, as some areas of the tourism industry created virtual tours of exhibitions that had been scheduled to take place in 2020, thus creating a more accessible experience for multiple people to attend.

Although they’ve been around in some sort of digital way since 1994, and businesses started playing around with them throughout the 2000s and 2010s, it wasn’t until 2020 that virtual tours began to be regarded as a possible alternative of visiting an attraction in person.

Throughout 2020, numerous tourist attractions launched Virtual Tours, including the Vatican, the Petra in Jordan, the Palace of Versailles, the Anne Frank House and many more. But out of all the tours that became available, the virtual tour I enjoyed the most was George IV: Art & Spectacle.

At the beginning of 2020, I had been trying to figure out ways to attend this exhibition, especially as the Georgians are the one part of history I am absolutely obsessed with. However, as I am physically disabled and unable to travel as easily over to Great Britain from Northern Ireland, which would also cost money, you can imagine how glad I was that the pandemic made it possible for me to go round the exhibition virtually and to spend as much time as I wanted in each area, reading about every single item that was in the collection.

Since attending the George IV: Art & Spectacle virtual tour back in the height of the Coronavirus Pandemic, I have also went through the tour of the Royal Brighton Pavilion and of Anne Frank’s house, and I have loved how interactive and informative they are. This is why, if anything can still come out of the memories we have from the pandemic, I would love inaccessible tourist attractions who can’t make their venues accessible for wheelchair dependent people to compromise on creating a virtual tour, especially as VR is a lot cheaper for businesses to enter into now, and it’s a way they can get around the discrimination issue.

And lastly, something else that also made its entrance in 2020 was the Logitech Adaptive Gaming Kit, which came with various switches and other features to help physically disabled gamers create an accessible gaming setup for themselves, including 2 Light Touch Buttons, 2 Small Buttons, 2 Large Buttons, 2 Variable Triggers, a game board, 2 label sheets, attachment stickers and loops to attach the switches to a surface.

Other noticeable technology releases from 2020 include:

• The launch of the Pico Interactive Neo 2 Eye, Augmedics XVision and Virti Virtual Reality Headsets, which introduced surround sound and let doctors do operations in X-Ray vision, as well as giving other frontline workers opportunities to practice what they’d do in the worst case scenario in the Covid-19 pandemic.
• AI started to really make a name for itself, with devices such as the Moxie AI robot helping to teach 5-10 year olds emotional skills; the Beewise AI powered beehive; the TrialJectory AI service which helps researchers research cancer; BrainBox AI which helps with climate change; and the Krisp AI app launches, which uses AI technology to cancel background noise while people are on video calls did other things all released that year.
• The launch of Logitech’s Adaptive Gaming Kit, a kit made up of various accessibility switches, enabling physically disabled gamers to set up their own gaming setups much easier.

2021: The year AI and AR finally started to become a prominent reality

When 2020 finally ended and the world entered the year 2021, we were hoping the year ahead would be different than the year we’d just been through, but that unfortunately wasn’t the case. However, just because the world didn’t change that much in 2021 – with much of the world still having to put up with periodic Covid lockdowns – it didn’t mean that the technology industry didn’t move on, with a couple of new devices and software still making their debut.

And one area of the tech industry we definitely saw making a name for itself in 2021 was in AI, after it advanced into software that would help in making some areas of filmmaking easier, especially in relation to Dubbing.

Making it simple for anyone not in the know, Dubbing is a process used when you want to translate a films or tv shows that were made in one language into a film you can watch in another language. To successfully dub a film into another language, you would normally have to hire voice actors, then successfully match the actor’s lip movements and expressions to the original actor’s performance and dialogue, with the help of translators and sound engineers as well. However, this process can be difficult, and by the time the film or programme goes out on release, some skilled viewers can pick out footage in a scene where the dialogue and mouth movements don’t match up, which of course reflects negatively on all involved.

But this is something Flawless AI, founded by former film director Scott Mann, aimed on changing in 2021, after debuting TrueSync, which as soon as it launched, aimed on perfecting the issue.

Where you would have had to normally make sure that the voice actor hired to dub the performance of the original actor exactly, TrueSync since its launch has made it possible to fix footage that hasn’t been dubbed up to scratch to be dubbed perfectly. It can analyse and capture every nuance of an actor’s performance, then generate new lip movements that map perfectly to the new language the footage is being dubbed into, decreasing any noticeable mistakes that show up in the footage.

Following its debut, TrueSync got plenty of good feedback, and in the years since, it has received a large amount of good feedback praising how it helps make the dubbing process easier for filmmakers who want to dub their films. However, there have also been comments from voice actors stating that they only think it’s ok for such software to be released as long as it doesn’t take away jobs from voice actors and is only used for lip-syncing purposes, which remains to be seen.

Nevertheless, elsewhere in the tech industry of 2021, we also saw AR arriving on Google Maps, as Line View became capable of laying instructions on top of what you were seeing as you walked down the street using it, and Lenovo launched their ThinkReality A3 Smart Glasses.

The second pair of smart glasses launched by the company 8 years after the Google Glass launched us into a new reality, Lenovo’s ThinkReality A3 Smart Glasses are smart glasses that were announced during CES in January 2021, with it then releasing later that year. Centred more towards people in business than it is towards individuals, they were capable as soon as they launched of connecting to your computer or smartphone, as well as five different virtual desktops. Beyond this, these smart glasses are capable of letting you move through different desktops by just moving your head, while enabling users to multitask between Word and Excel spreadsheets like they normally would with a keyboard, trackpad or mouse. However, what makes it mind-blowing is that you can stream Spotify playlists through the headset’s built in speakers.

Meanwhile in the accessibility world, a company called OrCam released their OrCam Read device, which aimed on helping people who struggle with reading, whether that be because they have comprehensive difficulties, poor vision, dyslexia etc. Although it costs £1,470.29, the device is capable of reading any text it’s pointed at out loud, thanks to it being powered being powered by computer vision, artificial intelligence and a laser, which, after you point it at text and press a button, instantly reads it out, in a voice that sounds remarkably natural and that can be translated into multiple languages.

Plus in the fashion area of technology, Nike launched their GO FlyEase trainer, which includes a hinge in the middle that enables users to bend it open, which people who are disabled in certain ways can just slide into.

2022: the year when AI started took over the world and robots became companions

By 2022, we were slowly beginning to reintroduce ourselves to the world again, though we still weren’t exactly living in a free utopia. However, while a lot of us may have had memories of a technologically advanced world that was filled with impressive but useful technology, the one we were moving ourselves into was a world that was continuously adding more AI software into industries, becoming more reliant on robots and where products and services were starting to feel slightly like overload, with very few of them being counted as useful, although we still got some good ones.

And yet again, it was the Artificial Intelligence industry that probably changed the most throughout 2022, as it was that year we saw the introduction of an AI software that could create 3D scenes, as well as the birth of the most famous AI software in the world.

For years, if you wanted to create 3D scenes for films, tv shows, video games or anything else that required 3D models, you would have to learn 3D modelling software such as Blender, Maya, Cinema 4D etc, then break everything into motion by moving your model round in filmmaking software. This would have of course been expensive, plus it would have also been time consuming, and although there were cheaper ways to enter the 3D animation space, this was only by opting for Stop Motion animation, which was only really prominent in film and tv. But in 2022, we witnessed AI becoming capable of producing 3D scenes, after NVIDIA — a company known for designing and manufacturing GPUs for gaming — made their AI based NGP, Instant Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) technology capable of rendering models of images and videos into 3D scenes, with the only limit being that anyone using it has to download NeRF’s codebase, as well as the latest versions of Visual Studio; CUDA Toolkit; Python; and CMake.

Following its release, some 3d artists did try NVIDIA’s NeRF software out, but while some had a good experience trying it out, others voiced that they could probably create some models a lot better. However, while it might have been good news for 3D artists who were worried that AI might steal their jobs that 2022’s offer was met with mixed views, more AI model, art and animation services have followed in the three years since, which are capable of creating 3d models in seconds, with users only being required to enter text prompts, though others can create images etc if they are shown a photo or video. Therefore, it isn’t surprising why 3d artists and animators are worried that AI will ultimately steal their jobs, which in recent months, we’ve seen many creatives protesting over.

However, while AI did struggle to generate 3D art and models in 2022, there was another Artificial Intelligence software that did make its entrance in that year which has ultimately since became the world’s most popular chatbot, that being OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Launched on 30 November 2022 though OpenAI was initially founded in 2015, ChatGPT is software that enables whoever is using it to ask it questions, with the result that it can then do most of the things that it is asked to do. Built with language models that can produce text on the possibility for a word to occur based on previous words in the sequence, while also being trained on about 45 terabytes of text from the internet, it can calculate which sequences are more likely than others, though this skill doesn’t exactly mean it is completely trusted by everyone, with academics, journalists, law professionals, authors and others being the first to grow wary about it.

As such, although many in such industries have agreed that the chatbot may be useful in some aspects of their careers, such as finding out if a selection of text could be written better or not or to see if it has any suggestions for headings in articles or blog posts or for text suggestions on a thumbnail for a video that is being shared to the internet etc, they mainly don’t use it for writing up content until after a hard copy created by a human has been created, using it more as an assistant instead of a tool.

But it wasn’t just AI that started making a name for itself in 2022, as it was this year when we started to see the advancement of robots that could act as companions, with the launch of the ElliQ robot.

To make it clear, robots had been introduced to healthcare settings long before 2022, with them first being used to perform neurosurgical biopsies as far back as 1985. However, while they did start advancing further throughout the ’90s and 2000s, it wasn’t until the 2010s that they started to advance in the way they have and they started to be used a lot more often, as robots were trialled carrying clinical waste, delivering food, cleaning operative theatre and dispensing drugs, as well as being trialled as robotic nurses, which was common throughout the world, including in the UK and America.

However something we weren’t really hearing about until the late 2010s was the ambition for the creation of robotic companions, that would be capable of assisting older and vulnerable adults, which was the world the ElliQ robot entered in 2022.

Powered by advanced Artificial Intelligence, the ElliQ robot is able to communicate with the people who use it more intelligently than other smart devices in the industry, with a tone that makes sure it sounds generally interested. Beyond this, it is also capable of checking in with you throughout the day, whether that be by telling your loved ones you’re ok; helping you track appointments and medication; and helping you get a good night sleep, however, it has been developed with behaviour that makes it easy to use and that will grow its relationship with you, ensuring it is easy to understand. Nevertheless, just like other smart assistants in the modern world, it can interact with your voice as well as action, so it won’t limit you if you can’t move, but it can respond to more of what you say than other assistants can, as it is capable of suggesting activities and listening to conversations you want to have with it, though it is also capable of answering questions as well.

Another product that made its debut in the tech industry, however, was the Cannon release their RF5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fish lens, which — having been inspired by the human face — made it easier for visual artists to create VR content.

And lastly, we also saw the launch of a product called Polly, a wifi enabled device developed by the American Printing House for the Blind and Thinkerbell Labs, which made it possible for visually impaired children to learn and access Braille at home.

2023: the year we witnessed the continuation of accessible tech, plus the year that extended Spacial Computing

By the time 2023 came round, life had pretty much returned to normal, with many people, including disabled people, finally feeling confident to start going out again, though some had already done so. And with this came the debuts of various accessible technology devices, such as an accessible controller for PS5 consoles, though other products which could appeal to everyone came out throughout the year as well.

Revealed during CES in Las Vegas in January 2023, the controller Sony announced they had been working on for some time was only referred to as Project Leonardo. By the 8th of June, however, it became public knowledge that this was in fact PlayStation’s Access Controller, a customisable controller that made it easier for disabled gamers to play games on their PS5 consoles, finally deciding to join the accessible gaming technology race five years after Microsoft launched their Xbox Adaptive Controller, but better late than never.

So what made this controller different and not a complete knock off of the older assistive controller?

Well non-like the older device, a log-like controller with two big circles and 3.5mm jacks at the back and USB ports at the side, PlayStation’s Access Controller is a round, flat device with an extendible arm at the side of it which holds a joystick, as well as swappable buttons that are laid out all round it, which can be used by placing it on any flat surface, whether that be a table; a wheelchair tray or a mount. You can adjust the extendable arm length and configure the controller’s button layout to suit your accessibility needs, whether with buttons or changeable stick caps, plus it also has four 3.5mm ports at the back of the controller, as well as the ability to configure up to 30 individual control profiles from your PS5 console settings, with the option of saving three profiles on the controller which you can switch between with a dedicated button. And just like the Xbox equivalent, you can connect two access controllers or an access controller with a handheld controller so you’ll be able to play it as one.

The controller officially released on 6th December 2023, and since then, it has been greeted warmly by disabled gamers who have a PlayStation.

Meanwhile, in other areas of the accessible tech industry, we saw the Swiss oral health company, CURAPOX, release their Samba robotic toothbrush, with the aim of stopping 88% of disabled people experiencing tooth decay, while elsewhere, we saw Naqilogix invented Naqui Neural Earbuds, earbuds that thanks to being made with electrical services, makes it possible to navigate digital devices hands free, with the hope that it will one day be capable of enabling wheelchair dependent people control their Electric/Powered wheelchair hands or other body part free.

Moving away from the accessible technology sector, however, numerous other AI software made their entrance, including options for photo and video editing, web browsing, writing, titling etc.

And for my fellow Apple fans, it was 2023 when Apple gave us the Apple Vision Pro, a mixed reality headset that has introduced us to up to date Spatial Computing, which it may or not have taken inspiration for by failed VR and AR headsets and glasses we’d seen over. the decade before.

2024: a year of technology advances as well as devices that returned us to our roots

By the time we left 2023 behind and transitioned into 2024, some people were beginning to feel overwhelmed with the high amount of technology we were getting, though others still remained interested.

In just a few years, we had gone from living with basic and useful tech with some handy Artificial Intelligence apps to being bombarded with AI apps that weren’t as useful, such as the Rizz dating assistant and Facticity AI Fact Checker which were among some of the Artificial Intelligence offerings that appeared in our lives last year. By all means there were a few useful AI apps, such as Captions which makes it easier to translate conversations using AI when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t understand your language, and Guardrails by Aporia which lets you fight back against inaccurate, inappropriate, or of-topic responses AI chatbots gave you, but a lot of the Artificial Intelligence that was released could be accused of taking over too much, though there were also other good AI services that helped in other ways as well, such as X Bellwether, a software that helps predict natural disasters.

But nevertheless, there were other more useful technologies that came out, such as the Kingsters Wheely-X treadmill for wheelchair users.

I’ve been open on Instagram over the last few years about how much I enjoy staying healthy as someone who is paralysed from the neck down, coming up with recipes that keep me slim despite the fact I can’t physically move. According to a 10th February 2025 report on obesity statistics by the UK Parliament, excess weight is 10% higher among disabled people than it is among non-disabled people, with people who are learning or physically disabled finding it extremely difficult to manage their weight.

Therefore, although I wouldn’t be able to use it unless I drive myself onto it with the joystick I use with my chin, I am delighted that wheelchair users who can use their arms and hands and are as interested in staying healthy as I am will be able to use a treadmill just like the able bodied population can.

A foldable treadmill built with Stainless Steel Aluminium, the Wheely X has a flat entrance, slopes, camber angles and impressive hardware, making it possible for wheelchair dependent people to simply roll themselves onto the device before engaging themselves in effective cardio workouts. Beyond this, it also has sensors, which are so advanced they enhance the responsiveness and accuracy of the treadmill by offering you real-time feedback on your workout, and if you’re one of those wheelchair users who like a bit of a challenge, there’s also an optional Gaming Package you can get for the treadmill as well, which for some users, will make their workouts more engaging and fun.

Elsewhere in the industry, however, we saw the release of the iFixit FixHub Power Series smart soldering iron, and in the phone accessory world, we saw the launch of the Khronus iPhone case, which treated us to yet another device that would help out with smartphone filming.

And lastly, good news for anyone who grew up in the ’80s, 90s or 2000s, we ultimately witnessed handheld gaming becoming cool again, with releases such as the R36S Retro Gaming Handheld, the Steam Deck and Ambernic Handheld all releasing and reintroducing us to our favourites throughout the years.

Conclusion

So what has 2025 given us so far and how do I hope that tech will advance further in the next 5 years? Well, reflecting on three major tech events — CES, WWDC and Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase (though other events have taken place as well) — I do have mixed views which could apply to numerous devices, so why don’t I first of all talk about my thoughts regarding devices we saw at CES at the begging of the year then I’ll talk about the tech showcased at the two more recent showcases from earlier this week?

I was impressed with the number of health devices we saw at CES, such as apps like AI Doc which is a mobile and PC that can screen, read and diagnose Cervical Cancer, as well as devices that can help women track the Perimenopause. But just as I believe AI isn’t exactly evil and there could be a time in future when modern technology could be be used to assist with certain aspects of the health industry, the idea of relying on an AI app to get diagnosed with cancer — especially Cervical Cancer, which would involve women having to take pictures of private parts that would then be uploaded to an app — may be uncomfortable for some.

However, I was impressed by Virtual Reality and Metaverse accessories we got to see, such as Aespa, where you can meet up with other people, take photos together, dance and create music videos to share with friends, even though I haven’t personally used it myself, and some of the cooking devices I saw were also cool.

Moving on to talk about other technology we’ve seen being announced recently, I just want to quickly give my views on a device that was mentioned during Microsoft’s Xbox Summer Showcase — which as of the time I’m finishing up writing this — took place only a matter of days ago.

While I am happy Xbox is giving its fans an Xbox handheld, which if you’ve not been following the news, is basically the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, I am slightly anxious about accessibility giving they only showed off two handheld controllers in one of their overview videos and not something like the Xbox Adaptive Controller being used on it, nor anything being said about Controller Assist, though from what I understand, you can still use a controller with it if the handheld layout just doesn’t work.

I would write more about my views regarding more games and new hardware that are coming, but this isn’t that type of blog, so I’ll get back to talking about technology we’re meant to be bombarded with throughout the rest of the year.

No surprise to anyone, AI is meant to get even more intelligent, with AI agents, assistants and customisable AI on the near horizon. We are also meant to see AR and VR blending together, as mixed reality headsets are due to grow immensely, and beyond this, we’ll be seeing improvements to Blockchain, advancements towards 6G communication, plus further testing of self-driving technology, some of which we’ve seen already.

However, while it is interesting how fast AI is expanding, we have seen it starting to freak some people out, and this is why we’ve seen many people picking up dumb phones and retro tech that is either completely dumb or has some modern features.

For this reason technology companies now have multiple streets to go down when creating devices they’re releasing, with audiences requesting both up to date technology and less advanced technology. But something I think is noticeably missing from the dumb technology market that is slightly more common to see in the smart technology market is the lack of accessible features that make could make retro devices more accessible to the world’s growing disabled population.

So what would I like the technology industry to morph into in the next 4 and a half years and what will we be living with in 2030?

Well something I am hoping to see by 2030 would be accessible retro handhelds, or at least a handheld that sells a separate device with 3.5mm jacks along the side of it, which can be plugged into a port on the handheld. I would also like to see retro technology with some accessibility features smart phones have, whether those features be VoiceOver and Spoken Content; support for hearing devices and captions; or making the buttons easier to press and the ability to control a dumb phone with you voice.

However, in relation to the question the title asks, technology has certainly changed quite a lot since 2005, hasn’t it?

From services you couldn’t rely on the internet for and that were a lot more clunky, to digital exercise existing but not being able to be used outside of your house, to devices that are capable of tracking your health wherever we go, to the digital space becoming where you go to work, attend school or go to events, then finally, to a science fiction concept people had been talking about for years ultimately changing everything, it has been quite the ride.

This, I guess, introduces another question I’d like to ask: is all the technology we have now bad and is it possible that some of our new tech and older tech blended together in a modern world could work?

I don’t know what the correct answer to this is, but out of all the negative experiences with technology people talk about now, accessible technology is the one thing that we didn’t see much of twenty years ago but has since managed to pull people together. Is there more in that?