midas
Anon OpinNobody has done anything genuinely interesting, brilliant or even good for the consumer in computing since about 2011
Fishd@anon_opin SteamDeck.
Cheap, good enough, plays loads of games and doesn't try to steal your data, force ads or AI on you etc etc
Harry Wood@anon_opin It's true. I was really trying to think of counter-examples, but struggling. There's things like Mastodon, and Signal, and Framework laptops and Fairphone, consumer 3D printing, Rasperry Pis, which are pretty cool recent things, but none of these can really claim to have made a splash with the mainstream. Any "big advancement" the general public would be aware of, has been depressingly linked to Big Tech and hobbled by issues of Big Tech lock-in (ultimately bad for the consumer)
Mat@harry_wood @anon_opin what about wearables? The Pebble watch didn't come out till 2013.
@okwithmydecay @anon_opin Yeah that's another for the list new technologies which are pretty cool, but I sort of feel like it didn't go mainstream quite enough to be held up as the counter-example.
I think most ordinary folks would choose something like "WhatsApp" as an example of a recent new tech development. To be fair it *was* good to get the masses using end-to-end encryption but hardly an unalloyed "good for the consumer" as it cements meta's dominance.
I think most ordinary folks would choose something like "WhatsApp" as an example of a recent new tech development. To be fair it *was* good to get the masses using end-to-end encryption but hardly an unalloyed "good for the consumer" as it cements meta's dominance.
Nicolás Alvarez@harry_wood @okwithmydecay @anon_opin WhatsApp was launched in February 2009. It sent messages in plaintext over the network (not even TLS). They added basic encryption in 2012, and proper end-to-end encryption in 2016.
@nicolas17 Interesting. Yeah WhatsApp feels newer. I suppose because it went more mainstream a little later. I don't think I installed the app >10 years ago.
Another example of quite an exciting recent tech development: Apple's M1 chip. Good news for users. Breaking a monopoly by intel but... tainted again, since this one's obviously only of interest to mac users, and only serving to grow the Apple mega-corp.
I wish I could think of more recent mainstream good-for-consumers tech developments.
Simon Poole@anon_opin well the same could be said in general and not "just for consumers" 99.9% of IT is just rehashing and remarketing old ideas and products at best incrementally improved.
CK@anon_opin man, Face ID has removed a step in the classic challenge/response dance we do every day
In fact the entire ecosystem of password management and passkeys is mostly new since then, and gets a lot easier with the help of easy biometrics like that
But I bet the OP is the sort who complains he is still making up new passwords regularly
Sean@anon_opin Apple silicon shipped in 2020, so you’re totally wrong.
@anon_opin @Craktok Apple silicon arguably started with the A4 in 2010.
2020 is when they put it in a Mac and called it M1 instead of A14X.
@nicolas17 well I took computing as computers rather than smartphones. But your mileage may vary.