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Subjectively, "The Matrix" doesn't seem like it came out so long ago, and I remember how stylish the Nokia 7110 seemed at the time when Neo pressed the button and the spring-loaded cover opened on the phone. Some movies from the 90s are not so lucky with their technology choices, showing great big brick phones that date the movie as surely as synthesizer music dates movies from the 80s.

Between modems and broadband there was enthusiasm for another transitional technology you didn't mention, and that is ISDN. In my house we had the advantage of relatively fast connection and throughput with ISDN. This was a technology "blip" that lasted probably 3 years before broadband proper became available.

Frankly if the evidence of the video is anything to go by then it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that you are such a fan of Spotify and the rest of places supplying low-resolution facsimiles either streamed or downloadable music. Even in 2000 that micro-system would have been considered lo-fi rubbish.

Off the top of my head - and in no particular order - I'd go with DVDs, affordable digital cameras, mobile phones that included digicams, iPods, WiFi & mobile broadband, Bluetooth earpieces, touch screens (iPhone), the Blackberry, digital and high definition TVs, Sky Plus, flat-screens, GPS SatNav, USB sticks, the Xbox, PS2, PS3, Nintendo's Wii and Apple's OS X as the tech that excited the public most.

The one that was worst received was MS Vista.

On the web it has to be the rise of Google, Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr etc and YouTube; it feels incredible that YouTube is only five years old!

The buzz meme of the noughties has to be Web 2.0.

Looking ahead I'd like less 'interim' tech. i.e. Spend lots of money just to keep up only to find that what you've bought soon becomes obsolete.

If someone manages to pull off the trick of a 3D screen for mobiles and PCs - that doesn't require glasses - then 3D could be here to stay.

I agree - Broadband has to be the gadget. Good choice

Is broadband really a gadget? I think of a gadget as something tangible that you can touch and feel, something which you don't really need but which makes you feel good. The best 'gadget' of the decade: the iPod which has transformed the music industry and is doing the same for broadcasting and the mobile industry too (no iPod, no iPhone).

Completely agree with broadband being the most important development of the noughties. Its status as a 'gadget' may be up for debate but the effect it has had on modern day life is enormous. As far as gadgets go, I have to say the DVD is probably the most important. It symbolises our transition from and analogue to a digital age (even though analogue components are still present in a large number of our electronic devices). DVDs have brought huge advances in quality due to the large amounts of data they can store compared with videos. For gaming, they drastically increased the amount of detail and depth that could realistically be put into games compared with regular CDs. Despite the emergence of Blu-Ray, I still see DVDs remaining as the mainstream form of physical data purchases for the next few years.

Finally, the iPlayer deserves a mention, as it is where most people first encountered 'on demand' television for free.

I find it odd that Sky+ became the popular choice, despite Virgin TV offering a techincalyl superior product. I suppose that shows the power of advertising (see also VHS vs. Betamax).

@7 tom_p_willis - Good point, and to extend it even further ntl (the company now re-branded as Virgin Media) have always had a technically superior product to Sky even before Sky+. Alas they were badly let down by a vastly inferior set-top-boxes.

The VHS vs Betamax battle had simpler issues. Anyone who wanted could make a VHS player but Sony didn't license the technology (initially...they relented when they realised the mistake) so only Sony could make the Betamax (as you hint at, the Betamax was a superior product). It would be the modern-day equivalent of iPod having its own music format while all other players use MP3, or Sony using its own video format while everyone else uses the DVD format. The death of Betamax has greatly shaped the interoperability of today's technology.

In a chilling forewarning the greater run-time of VHS tapes also made them the pirates' and pornographers' favourite format which helped VHS win the battle.

While there will always be format wars (HD-DVD vs Blu-ray for example) company's now realise restricting technology formats are not always a good idea (even Microsoft is preparing to publish details of it's proprietary Office document formats).

@7

$ky+ is available in much more of the country than V+ is.
Advertising is one thing, but if don't have the cable, you're not going to buy it!

@ Martyn Davies #1 At the risk of setting off on a "when I was a lad" rant, the Nokia 7110 was NOT the phone used in the Matrix. The Banana Phone in the film was an 8110 modified to add spring opening.

Such details may not seem important but with the likelihood that a statement on a 大象传媒 website will both last a long (that is internet long) time and be considered to have a degree of authority the perpetration of untruths however much of an urban legend they may be can not go uncorrected.

And yes the phone in the clip was an 8110 note no wheel on the front and no trigger on the back.

It should be remembered that Sky+ is a rip-off of Tivo. That was the first true PVR in this country, but unfortunately suffered from bad marketing* and a high price compared with VHS (although of course it did so much more but the bad marketing didn't really convey the advantages very well).

I still have my Tivo (one of the last ones sold when Tivo abandoned the UK after poor sales). Despite being ten years old, other than being capable of recording only one channel at a time, it still beats Sky+ in most ways, and is certainly more reliable based on experiences of most people I know that have had Sky+.

Sky deserve credit for making the PVR a popular item, but Tivo deserve all the credit for doing it first, and better (especially of you look at the newer models available in the US).

*The name of the company that did the marketing for Tivo in the UK? Sky TV! Shortly after Tivo pulled out of the UK market Sky amazingly came out with their own (and at the time significantly worse) product.

mmmm, decade of gadgets? digital decade? not so sure! OK advances have been made in terms of capability of mobiles, of speed of internet access (to most of country - arent there still some areas with no broadband?), in mass market appeal but I dont think advances in the 00s match the change in the 90s.

in mid 90s home PC market huge (fewer had one), dialup internet affordable (yes slow but mainly text/little video so no need for broadband), internet social sites developing (mainly dating but special interest groups too & people developing personal web space), IM common on AOL + it had a searchable user directory to find people with common interests. MiniDisk had brought random access digital recording devices to the pocket granted limited in number of tracks but better quality.

By 2000 I had a Garmin Etrex GPS cost approx 拢100 and although not turn by turn I could use software to plan a route and download waypoints to find a destination.

Sky+/V+ is a change to how we used to view TV / use VHS but the original PVRs (eg TiVo) were a development of the late 90's launching in 2000.

I do not think the gadget makers have leapt ahead, simply consolidated ideas and made improvements. In 2001 I had (still have) a touch screen pda capable of accessing the internet - web & email - using my 2G mobile's IR port as a wireless modem. I used this camping on the Aug bank holiday weekend 2001 to access 大象传媒 News website. Ok 9 years later iPhone/N96/... are colour, 3G, have GPS, camera, etc in one device but is this really 10 years worth of development? Also I suspect cost/performance has not obeyed Moore's law.

Gadget-wise i think poor decade, consolidation and improvement in services ok, but could have done better.

I'll go along with broadband in it's many guises being the development of the noughties. But, for the gadget, I'd have to say the mp3 player (not the ipod) but the many and varied portable music devices.

The DVD, for all those proposing it, came out in the late nineties as I remember buying my first sony player in 1997/8.

As technology progresses in ever-decreasing development cycles, new products are becoming obsolete even faster than before. Where a new typewriter would've lasted several years before needing an upgrade, [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] for example are ever-evolving; like Martyn wrote in the top post, The Matrix seems really dated with its use of brick phones. Ironic for a film setting that purported to be on the very edge of both technology and reality.

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It's uncanny how that pic of the Psion 3A looks just like the new DSi XL, minus the lower screen of course .

For years technology seemed to always get smaller, but over the past few years I've noticed many handheld devices that have increased in size. Nintendo have been increasing the size of their handheld machine with each new release and mobile phones are getting bigger thanks to the inclusion of touchscreens.

Maybe this is a result of more of the older generation getting comfortable with new technology and the younger generation getting older. At the end of the day a screen has to be big enough for someone to actually see and I don't think we'll see an iPhone with a prescription screen anytime soon.

Gone are the days when Mobile Phones came with games like Snake and Tetris! I remember sitting there for hours on my old Nokia handset (with a long areal poking out the top) playing game after game.

Now there are so many Phones on the market, all with high definition graphics, tilt control and bluetooth, it makes it hard to remember the phones of the good ol' days!

Makes me wonder where mobile phone technology will be in a few years time. Surely they have covered most angles already?

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@Alan - I think you make a good point in regards to the price of 'old' technology.
I certainly think that in 5 years the LCD TV's will be near worthless - but what remains to be seen is if the recent ecomonmy will have an adverse effect on the technology field? Will this slow down the production of new technologies / will the gadgets keep there value longer?

As for the best Gadget I would have to say smartphones in general - the fact that we have gone from desktop computers to all the information in a hand held is amazing!

The only question I have is where does it end ..........

<RICHPOST>I absolutely love these 大象传媒 features on past and present gadgets, it still amazes me how quick we are flying into the technology age! <BR /><BR />Ive had some wicked gadgets in my time, but it seem to get on my nerves when you buy something new when its replaced in months rather than years with a newer version. <BR /><BR />My predictions for the next few years is the advancements in eyeware screen technology, powered by next generation smartphones. <BR /><p>Chris Brookfield<br><BR /><a href="https://www.uraugmentedreality.com/">Augmented Reality</a></p></RICHPOST>