There has never been so much choice out there for gadget fans, but the sheer variety makes choosing difficult. Laptops, mobiles, video and music players, portable storage, and game consoles are just some of the equipment you can find in the average tech-friendly household.
Price drops and friendly contract terms have put the most powerful commercial technology within reach of everyone, meaning that a trip to the store or online sites like ebay.co.uk has become the equivalent of getting a quick multi-gadget fix for the addicted techy. Chanie Kirschner writing at mnn.com says there are signs we are too dependent on technology, including the simple fact that we do not know our friends’ and family’s phone numbers any more because we rely so much on our smart phones. Few of us really live in the moment because we spend so much time ‘periscoping’ – framing the shot on our mobile or tablet digital camera – to make sure we record that memory.
Multi-device households
Founder of Mobile User Experience (MEX) Marek Pawlowski paints a picture of the teched-out family home. On a weekday evening there are typically several separate devices connected to the web, from wall-mounted HD televisions streaming video online to the tablet in somebody’s lap browsing social media or the smart watch flicking through the latest alerts. Each one represents a channel of consumption and these are just a few that now clamour for our attention.
Choice is a good thing
Nobody is saying that choice is a bad thing. Look at the world a decade ago and there was a barely fledgling social media movement, slow download speeds, basic mobile technology and little choice in the way of digital broadcasting. New technologies are emerging all the time and development is accelerating choice and personal effectivity.
Laptop transformed
Look at the humble laptop. It began life as a workhorse for executives to crunch spreadsheets on the train home, now it has been shrunk to netbook size for global travellers to fit into a backpack, ironed wafer thin (like the Macbook Air) for convenience and aesthetics and transformed into the tablet and phablet – iPad, Surface, Nexus 7 – to make it more touchy-feely and mobile.
Consumer Electronics Show
One of the most important times in the gadgeteer’s year is the Consumer Electronics Show held each January in Las Vegas. It is a barometer for where tech will go next and the largest electronics firms launch their newest shiniest equipment there. This year’s show was bulging with the latest apps, mobile and wearable gadgets – smart watches, flexible smart phones – and hot gaming wear, including the much talked about Steam console.
Next generation
We rely on our mobiles, tablets, laptops and media centres to provide a consistent, fail-proof and seamless entertainment experience in the home. Storage for our vast mass of personal data has shrunk and speeded up to match that hunger with micro-SD cards, solid state drives and wireless storage. But the next generation of gadgets will be both truly disruptive and life enhancing. Health wristbands like the Jawbone or LG Lifeband Touch will monitor our vital signs and give us a health plan to follow.
Smart sensors and intelligent homes will adjust our environment to our exact demands. If we need a spare part for a gadget or want to create a design talking point for our living room, we will download a virtual object from the web and print it out on the desktop 3D printer. And we could be constantly ‘on’ with wearable headsets like Google Glass.
A whole new catalogue of ‘must-have’ gadgets is always just around the corner. As the maxim goes, there is no such thing as good or evil technology, it’s how we use it that counts. And we can always switch it off.