Washington Post tech writer Rob Pegoraro (another of my faves) has posted a list of his top consumer-technology developments of the past decade. He ranked Mozilla Firefox No. 1: "This browser rolled back Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) monopoly, introduced millions of users to open-source software and made Web standards a market reality that no sane Web developer could ignore."
Pegoraro followed that pick with Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone, the iTunes store, Windows XP, Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Gmail, Nintendo's (Pink Sheets: NTDOY.PK) Wii, LCD TVs, Facebook, Global Positioning System (GPS), and Flash memory from the likes of Samsung and SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK).
It's a strong list, and I regularly use every device or program on it. But personally, I would put GPS technology at the top of the list, since I think it's positively affected more people globally than any of Pegoraro's other candidates. (The only downside: Fewer people these days know how to read a map. But I digress.) I can't understand why Firefox would top Rob's list; to most people, it's just another browser.
Some of Pegoraro's readers are wondering why Facebook, an application that more or less duplicated earlier apps like MySpace, made his list at all. I'm not one of them. Facebook earns the No. 2 spot on my list, because unlike MySpace or similar products, I've seen it bring together not only different generations, but also tech geeks and technophobes alike. Other than GPS, I'm not sure anything else on the list has touched so many lives across the globe.
Here's my complete list:
- GPS
- Flash memory
- iPhone
- iTunes store
- LCD TV
- Wii
- Gmail
- Windows XP
- Mozilla Firefox
Now it's your chance to sound off. What are your top consumer tech developments of the past decade?
