88 Influential Events That Shaped This Decade

03 JANUARY 2020 88 Influential Events That Shaped This Decade Written by Abhilash Rathod As the 2010s are coming to an end, we have curated a list of events that have influenced our lives in big or small ways. Some big changes happened, some failures, some groundbreaking tech and so many things that got us on our toes. Let’s take a look at the events that caught our attention and our minds… 2010

IPad: The Introduction Of Tablet Computing What was thought to be just a bigger version of the iPhone turned out to be a revolution? Today, not only have other brands tried to ape a version of the iPad, but it has also led to the Mac opting for a lot of the iPad features IPhone 4: Welcome Retina Displays This was the year when iPhones welcomed the retina displays, which ensured you did not see a pixelated screen. Apart from that, this year also saw a scam in the form of an antenna gate, which affected the reception of the phone, and a leak in the design before the release. Android, Came In Strong A new platform that was launched back in the year 2008, saw some increase in sales in the year 2010. HTC and Motorola were amongst the top Android brands in that year. Samsung had also released their first Android phone “Galaxy S” this year.

The All-New Windows Phone Year also saw the launch of a new platform as well as a phone, Microsoft Windows 7. The live tiles feature was introduced as part of the user interface for this phone. It was a new concept but, the market was already flooded, and the performance was not up to the mark. Netflix And Chill! The streaming revolution also began this year when Netflix came into existence. It was available on three types of devices and had a mere 8000 titles at that time. 3D TV Fell Flat It was the time when 3D TVs came and went, and no one actually wanted to buy them. For one, it was an expensive affair to create titles for this TV. Secondly, watching every movie with 3D experience led to headaches. Within a few years, 3D TVs had to be pulled off the markets 2011

End Of An Era This year marked the end of an era helmed by Steve Jobs, as Steve Jobs passed away and Tim Cook took over his mentle as the CEO of Apple The Kindle Lights A Fire Amazon launched its very own book tablet in the form of Kindle Fire. One could watch movies, stream channels, play games and even read books in this tablet Kindle Google Plus: A Joker Card By Google Google launched its first-ever social network Google Plus in a low key event. Akin to Facebook, they used +1 for likes and circles to create groups. But as the social media was hogged by Facebook in upcoming years and advancements in privacy low Google will eventually be going to shut down google plus in 2018 Adding G+ into a list of failed products by Google. Apple Sues Samsung: The Patent War Begins Apple sued Samsung for copying the design of the iPhone, kicking off a winding trail of countersuits, trials, and appeals, including a stop at the Supreme Court in later 2016. Eventually, they settled a seven-year legal fight in 2018, ending the most prominent case in a series of lawsuits over smartphone patents over the last decade. 2012

Google Heavily Invests In Android Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5Bn cash, thus investing in 20,000 mobile patents. Later this year, there was an Android market that managed the downloads for books, music and other requirements of the user. In 2012, Google launched a single shop named the Play Store that handled everything Instagram Made Its Android Debut The app was finally launched for Android with the same filters that were available on iOS. A week into the release and Facebook announced it was acquiring the social media platform. Barnes & Noble Unveiled GlowLight This nook simple touch GlowLight was an e-reader that illuminated the screen in a way that the people around the reader would not be disturbed by the light.

Facebook Went Public Facebook by now enjoyed a massive user base, hence it placed its 421,233,615 shares on the table with an initial price of $38 per share. There was a lot of skepticism involved, which led to a fall in the stock prices SpaceX’s Dragon Goes Commercial this year saw an advancement in the commercial space exploration program with Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon’s launch. This commercial spacecraft was the first ever to dock in the International Space Station Marissa Mayer Leaves Google She was among the founding employees of Google, and she left to join Yahoo as its CEO. She was probably one of the few persons who could save Yahoo at that time and after this much time, we can say that she did his job splendidly. Nasa’s Curiosity Rover Touched Mars’s Surface on the 6th of August, Nasa’s Curiosity Rover with the help of a parachute, powered descent and a sky crane along with some guided entry managed to touch the surface of Mars HTC Announced Droid DNA This was a phone with super high resolution, with a 5-inch display and Snapdragon S4 processor. It had put the iPhone 5’s pixel count & display to shame! Google’s Own Siri – Named Google Assistant The new Google Assistant, an immediate competition to Siri, was also launched this year on the 27th of June. 2013

4G Got Big The network got an upgrade with the fourth generation. For faster speed and higher bandwidth resulting in the best possible user experience. The same network that we use to this day (well mostly). Now 5G is just around the corner. Microsoft Buys Nokia Microsoft went on to acquire the Nokia mobiles as well as services and businesses this year. The total worth of the deal was 3.79Bn Euros. The company paid another 1.65 Bn Euros to acquire its license for all Nokia’s patents. Bitcoin’s Rise This was the year when Bitcoin saw an actual rise. The year began with the digital currency being traded at $13.5 per bitcoin. It went up to $220 per bitcoin before falling down to $70 by April Twitter Goes Public Twitter released its IPO with an initial price of $26 per share. It was one of the most anticipated IPOs of that year. Apple Does It Again With IPhone’s 5th Generation

With iPhones 3 new models came out that year; 5, 5c and 5S, it was one of the biggest changes that the mobile industry went through. This year too, Apple introduced advancements in security with the first-ever fingerprint reader in mobile phones. This revolutionized the security in phones and started a trend of biometric authentication. We only have one phrase for this “Innovation and Apple are synonymous.” Edward Snowden’s NSA’s Spying Revelations This was also the year when Edward Snowden leaked some highly classified information from the NSA. Among the many revelations, the man global surveillance programs run by NSA and Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance came to be known in public. Wearable Goes Mainstream This became the next big thing in technology with Google Glass, Pebble Smartwatch, Galaxy gear, and almost all big players coming into existence 2014 Apple Acquired Beats For $3.2B In May 2014, Apple acquired the headphone maker and music company Beats for $3.2Bn. It was the largest acquisition of the year and pushed Apple’s music unit to a new heights

Google Acquires Nest Google acquired Nest Labs (A Smart Home Appliances Company), whose flagship product was Nest Learning Thermostat in 2014 for $3.2Bn. The new company Google Nest is now used to market smart home products such as smart speakers and smart displays Facebook Acquired WhatsApp For 22B And 2B Oculus Rift This was probably the biggest acquisition of this decade. Facebook acquired the most popular messaging platform on this planet “Whatsapp”. An approximation of $22B acquisition, Facebook became the king of Social Media. Facebook also got themselves into VR as they acquired the creator of VR headsets; “Oculus Rift” with approx $2B. Satya Nadella Becomes CEO Of Microsoft Satya Nadella, an Indian American software engineer, succeeded Steve Ballmer as the CEO of Microsoft. He has been handling the enterprise as well as consumer businesses in the company since 2014 and the company is doing great under his belt. Alibaba Went Public Alibaba’s IPO that was priced at $68 per share price was released in September 2014. This IPO raised a whopping $21.8Bn for the company, thus recording it as the biggest IPO in the history Google Announces Android “Lollipop” Google announced during its Google I/O event the release of another stable Android version which would be known as Lollipop. This was the most significant UI change made to the Android ecosystem. A new design system was introduced “Material UI”. With this new version, Google also announced a battery saver option along with more security for the devices. The Famous Ice Bucket Challenge A social media challenge that made everyone chilled! Actually, it was introduced to make people aware of ALS was taken up by close to 17Mn Facebook users. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and others from tech giants also joined this challenge. The First IWatch Came Into Existence This year marked the unveiling of Apple Watch, which was introduced as a new chapter in the Apple store. A video was shown to showcase the design and other aspects of the watch

Amazon Echo Goes Live This year marked the release of the echo devices for the public. It was launched as a device that could control a lot of home devices. It was part of the smart home product range 2015 Apple Gets Into Wearables The official release of the Apple Watch happened this year. It was not released commercially. People could opt for demonstrations, and purchase customized watches. USB-C: One Port To Rule Them All (Even Apple Loves It!) It was launched with Macbook 12 in 2015. This new port removed the need for all the other connectors, which included the USB-B and USB-A along with 3.5mm audio connectors. They could easily connect to the hosts and the devices providing higher data transfer rates. Windows 10 Launches A single platform catering to all devices, the dreamlike Windows 10 platform was launched this year.

IPhone 6S And 6S Plus Arrive Another innovation that set Apple apart from any other brand. 6th generation iPhone with 3D touch trackpad, shoot on live photo, set a live wallpaper, quick actions from the home screen, and low power mode are some of the incredible features that were launched with this phone. iOS 9 was also released along with this phone. Goodbye Old Google’s Logo With a Sans Serif typeface, Google unveiled its new logo, which looks modern and playful. They have used softer colors Facebook Reactions The ‘dislike’ button is finally real. The social network was all set to introduce the new reactions, including a dislike button Twitter Gets Rid Of The Stars The multi-faceted version of Facebook’s Like got a makeover. Twitter replaced stars with hearts in this year Tesla’s Autopilot With the autopilot, Tesla brought to the world self-driving cars and made it a reality. It brought along the advanced driver assistance systems Major Cable Companies And Networks Launched Streaming-Only Plans In an attempt to allow Internet users to live to stream the data, and watch the streaming channels without interruption, cable companies came up with streaming-only plans, in the interest of these customers. Tech Companies Took A Big Stand On Encryption While NSA kept asking tech companies to share data including emails and messages in real-time, the companies stood their ground on encryption and denied access. The companies, in fact, had asked the government to prevent NSA from its bulk data collection Google Morphed Into Alphabet This year gave birth to Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Google became its subsidiary. This allowed Google to expand into domains that go beyond Internet search Instagram Became Bigger Than Twitter

With over 400Mn users on this social network, Instagram grew bigger than Twitter and more engaging too! The New Space Race Took Off Huge progress has been made in this segment with companies creating reusable rockets. SpaceX has also made big progress at this point. Live Streaming Took Off Facebook Live and other such stories and live options led to the scaling of live streaming. People could show videos while shooting their friends through this feature. Hyperloop was also introduced at this point 2016 The Headphone Jack (The Thing That We’re Going To Miss) iPhone 7 was launched this year without the headphone jack, thus bringing about a revolution of wireless audio.

Snapchat Sets The Bar For Digital Cool Snapchat was received as the new and super cool social network at this point. With advancements in messaging, filters and even concepts such as stories, it became adopted almost immediately Hyperloop One Melts Down This propulsion tech that was offered to the tube-based transportation system came falling down owing to a fall out between the founder and the CTO Twitter Kills Vine Vine – the internet’s premier tool for making short-form videos is that it happened almost completely by accident. Making 6-second clips as a way to help people capture casual moments in their lives and share them with friends. Due to some reasons like competition and lack of interest by advertisers twitter would eventually going to pull their plug on vine. Pokemon Go Became Sensation An AR (Augmented Reality) app that made everyone run for fictional cartoons. The users were running after their favorite pokemon avatars caused a lot of havoc around the world, as people were more concentrating on their devices rather than their surroundings. No One Wants To Buy Twitter Though Twitter was still running strong, the growth of the platform, as well as the disinterest among the advertisers for the platform, led to a stalled year for the network. Even businesses were not interested in buying the social network’s stock at this point DNA App Store The first-ever app store where you can know more about your genes, and stay prepared for all the health-related issues. This concept will get the companies analyzing DNAs and introduce them to people who wish to get their DNA analyzed. The First 1TB SD Card This year saw the most mind-boggling tech invention, the ability to store massive data in a small-sized SD card. The 1 TB SD card was definitely a significant event. First Amazon Package Delivered By Drone The brand used the prime air service to deliver a package using the drone, thus leading to improvements and enhancements in the delivery services.

A Breakthrough In Lithium-Metal Batteries An anode free lithium metal battery was developed, which could significantly improve battery efficiency. They came with twice the energy density as was available with the ordinary batteries Sophia – The Robot the social humanoid robot made its first-ever public appearance this year, thus depicting how the future of AI and Robotics would look like 2017 Susan Fowler, Uber, And Sexual Harassment In Silicon Valley The blog titled a very strange year at Uber let out the inability of the company to hold the harassers accountable for their fault, thus leading to the resignation of the then CEO Travis Kalanick Cybersecurity Ransomware, viruses and a whole load of cyberattack made the data vulnerable this year. Words like ransomware which seemed like a distant affair became a reality and the truth of data that year. The Rise Of Cryptocurrency The cryptocurrency saw a rise this year, with hackers demanding it as ransom and payment to unlock the computers. In this year, Bitcoin prices shot up immensely, thus leading to a grand market for cryptocurrency

Internet’s New Obsession: TikTok China finally came back strong in social media with ByteDance taking over Musical.ly with $1BN acquisition. TikTok became the most used social media tool in every age alike. With its set of filters and even for passive users the application became an engaging medium. Till the first quarter of 2019, it became the highest downloaded application in both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Net Neutrality Net neutrality would have forced all the ISPs to treat available content equally. This regulation was abolished even before it came into existence Apple’s IPhone X (The Notch Trend Setter) And Steve Jobs Theater To Launch On Sep 12 This was the year when the movie Jobs, showing the life of Steve Jobs in and out of Apple hit the theatres. iPhone also released its best-ever version, the iPhone X, which set a new benchmark for phones this year. Alexa Breaks The Ceiling With Home Smart Camera Control It was launched during the Amazon echo show held this year. With this new smart camera control, you can easily control AC, music system and other settings in your house. The camera uses AI, well-trained algorithms and self-learning to the next level with this new innovation. Smart Speakers Echo and Google Home were already creating news with their smart speakers. Apple was all set to join with HomePod. The new trend for smart speakers that made your home smarter was initiated in this year The 360-Degree Selfie There was a revolution in selfies with the 360-degree cameras that allowed minimal delays in stitching the images and tailoring your views Pixel 2 Has Finally Launched The phone was launched without the headphone jack and was an immediate competition to the iPhones. With an amazing camera and sleek design, it could be handled with a single hand. The best feature was (and still is) is its camera module. It was the best camera in the world at that time beating Apple and Samsung in the competition.

2018 Artificial Intelligence Will Reshape The Business Strategies Marketing and business strategies started adopting Artificial Intelligence for better control and visibility. Processes started being defined using AI, specifically in retail and logistics Blockchain Will Reveal New Opportunities In Different Industries Blockchain went from being the underlying technology for Bitcoin to a technology that could increase transparency and security across industries. Many use cases were devised for this technology specifically in banking, finance and retail industries Facebook–Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal It was a major political scandal in early 2018 when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data of millions of peoples’ Facebook profiles without their consent and used it for political advertising purposes. It has been described as a watershed moment in the public understanding of personal data and precipitated a massive fall in Facebook’s stock price and calls for tighter regulation of tech companies’ use of personal data. After this security and data, privacy were the main concerns for the end-users. As a

result, businesses started identifying new methods and tech collaborations to improve overall security. AI Will Refine Auto Constructing And Tuning Of Models With AutoML, Google took one step towards AI. This helped automate the machine learning designs and allowed for AI to construct another AI model with minimal to no human interference. This was aimed to broaden the scope of AI. Elon Musk’s Roadster This year saw the unveiling of the first-ever electric-powered, four-seater sports car “Roadster”. Samsung Galaxy S9 And S9+ (First Dual-Aperture Camera) The enhanced dual aperture camera was introduced for the first-ever time with this phone. They could adjust to both bright and super low light automatically. 3D Metal Printing This disruptive method of printing saw the light this year. It helped businesses be more efficient without changing their model or production method in any way. 2019

Tesla Cybertruck An electric-powered light commercial vehicle was introduced by Tesla this year. The cybertruck will be available in three different models with range estimates between 250-500 One Plus 7 Pro (First Ever 90 HZ Display Phone) This phone came with some incredible features such as a 16MP pop-up selfie camera and the first-ever triple rear camera setup. Apart from that, it also included the 90 Hz refresh rate AMOLED display. Google Maps To Introduce AR Mode Utilizing the camera to help you navigate your location and destination, Google Maps will be able to help you move along the right directions with AR. The map will have the buildings and the other places marked so, that you don’t miss your turns. Apple Cancels AIR POWER Apple’s wireless pad that could charge an iPhone, Apple Watch and Airpods was canceled by the company owing to the many issues that came along with it. Microsoft HoloLens 2 Microsoft released the second level of mixed reality smart glasses this year with enhanced security and scalability Spotify Starts Podcasting Spotify acquired three podcasting companies Gimlet Media, Anchor, and Parcast this year for a total of $400Mn. Sundar Pichai Becomes Alphabet’s New CEO Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, was also appointed the CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Although, both co-founders are still tied up in the committee board. First Pixel With Dual Cameras Google launched Pixel 4 and 4XL, which come with dual main cameras. Along with a second camera, you can use the second camera’s autofocus system too to improve the depth perception of your picture. Google Launches Stadia

Google released the first-ever gaming service that does not require downloads or console. It is a cloud gaming platform that can stream video games of up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Google Cancels Huawei’s Android License Huawei is China’s most valued smartphone company with good worldwide sales. With tensions rising between the two nations, US and China, Google has currently revoked the Android license for the company, banning the installation of Android Play Store on the phones GitHub Forced To Ban Iran, Syria & Crimea Developers Owing to the U.S. trade implications, the world’s biggest source code host has banned developers from Iran, Syria and Crimea and other sanctioned nations to access certain parts of their service. “This decade has been one of the most influential decades in the tech industry, especially for phones, internet and privacy. A technological leap forward where AI, IOT and Robotics is picking up the market and with that we can only imagine how the next decade is going to be. But, one thing is sure, it's going to astound us in many ways!” Images Image courtesy of flickr.com

88 Influential Events That Shaped This Decade