Tech that did not exist 20 years ago, and tech that will dominate the next 20

20+ years ago my wife and I moved to Perth, and, although the locals would still regard me as a b$#@ding Pom, we are well and truly settled. Perth’s been great to us. We love the place. We now have 2 Aussie kids, who are privileged to be able to grow up in paradise.

20 years has flown by, but looking back over the last two decades, it’s incredible to think what’s happened around the world and how all our lives have changed during that time.

For example, the following 25 tech businesses and services simply did not exist when we stepped off that plane in mid 1997 (the year each one started is shown):

• 1997 – Netflix, Yahoo Mail
• 1998 – Google, PayPal
• 1999 – Alibaba, BlackBerry, Emojis
• 2001- Xbox
• 2002 – LinkedIn
• 2003 – Android, Skype, Tesla, iTunes, WordPress
• 2004 – Facebook
• 2005 – Youtube
• 2006 – Twitter, Spotify, BuzzFeed
• 2007 – iPhone, Fitbit
• 2008 – AirBnB
• 2009 – Uber
• 2010 – Instagram, iPad
• 2011 – Snapchat

How many of these do we totally rely on every day? Imagine life without any of them. That was only 21 years ago.

The question now is: what emerging technologies will dominate the next decade or more?

Many analysts seem to think it will be the following…

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning
• Internet of Things (Iot)
• The Blockchain
• 3D Printing
• Mobile devices and mobile internet
• Autonomous vehicles
• Robotics
• Virtual and Augmented Realities (VR/AR)
• Wireless power
• Nanotechnology
• Voice User Interfaces, Virtual Private Assistants
• 5G

And of course, loads of other things that we have not even heard of yet. None of us had heard of the top list 20 years ago.