Consumer tech gadgets and trends that defined the decade starting in 2010 are the subject of the 12/17/19 edition of Forum, a talk show from KQED, a public media outlet based in Northern California. The show is entitled “The Decade’s Best (and Worst) in Consumer Tech” and hosted by Scott Shafer. The panel talk about how the smartphone has become ubiquitous. If you haven’t noticed, it might be because you’re too occupied looking at your own, maybe while you read this blog post. Although the iPhone debuted in 2007, from a tech perspective, the period starting in 2010 was the decade of the smartphone. In the prior decade, Web 2.0 was the rage, where anyone could contribute content to the Internet. The skyrocketing popularity of smartphones in the decade closing now is due in part to the growth of algorithms, like the one Facebook uses to control the presentation of posts users see in their feed. The evolution of the Internet can be viewed in three phases, the first wave of enthusiasm for the Web was around searching for information, the next involved creating content, and in the third, where the mobile web exploded, people expect information and entertainment to come to them. Tech watchers and pundits will be keen to report on the next big trends in consumer tech. Will the big four, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple remain dominant or will one or more of them be disrupted by new players or regulation?

Click on the title below to listen to this program, or download a podcast to listen to at your convenience:

The Decade’s Best (and Worst) in Consumer Tech