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Here are some of the most notable tech milestones over the past four decades.
By
Senior Writer,
Introduction
On 24 January 1984, Apple unveiled the Macintosh 128K and changed the face of personal computers forever.
Steve Jobs’ compact, user-friendly computer introduced the graphical user interface to the world, marking a pivotal moment in the evolution of personal technology.
Since that day, the rate of technological innovation has exploded, with developments in computing, communication, connectivity and machine learning expanding at an astonishing rate.
Here are some of the key technological milestones that have changed our lives over the past 40 years.
1993: The World Wide Web
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Although the internet’s official birthday is often debated, it was the invention of the world wide web that drove the democratization of information access and shaped the modern internet we use today.
Created by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, and brought with it the dawn of online communication, e-commerce and the beginning of the digital economy.
Despite the enormous progress since its invention,  and global digital inclusion is considered a priority.  aims to bridge this gap and digitally connect 1 billion people to essential services like healthcare, education and finance by 2025.
1997: Wi-Fi
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 changed the face of internet access – removing the need to tether to a network via a cable. Without Wi-Fi, the smartphone and the ever-present internet connection we’ve come to rely on, wouldn’t have been possible, and it has become an indispensable part of our modern, connected world.
1998: Google
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The launch of Google’s search engine in 1998 marked the beginning of efficient web search, . Today, there are many others to choose from – Bing, Yahoo!, Baidu – but Google remains the world’s most-used search engine.
2004: Social Media
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Over the past two decades, the rise of social media and social networking has dominated our connected lives. In 2004, MySpace became the first social media site to reach one million monthly active users. Since then, , nurturing global connectivity and information sharing on an enormous scale, albeit not without .
2007: The iPhone
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More than a decade after the first smartphone had been introduced, the iPhone redefined mobile technology by combining a phone, music player, camera and internet communicator in one sleek device. It  and ultimately accelerated the explosion of smartphone usage we see across the planet today.
2009: Bitcoin
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The foundations for modern digital payments were laid in the late 1950s with the introduction of the first credit and debit cards, but it was the invention of Bitcoin in 2009 that set the stage for a new era of secure digital transactions. The first decentralized cryptocurrency, Bitcoin introduced a new form of digital payment system that operates independently of traditional banking systems. Its underlying technology, blockchain, revolutionized the concept of digital transactions by providing a secure, transparent, and decentralized method for peer-to-peer payments. Bitcoin has not only influenced  but has also sparked discussions about the future of money in the digital age.
2014: Virtual Reality
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2014 was a pivotal year in the development of virtual reality (VR) for commercial applications.  and kickstarted a drive for high-quality VR experiences to be made accessible to consumers. Samsung and Sony also announced VR products, and Google released the now discontinued Cardboard – a low-cost, do-it-yourself viewer for smartphones. The first batch of Oculus Rift headsets began shipping to consumers in 2016.
2015: Autonomous Vehicles
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Autonomous vehicles have gone from science fiction to science fact in the past two decades, and predictions suggest that . In 2015, the introduction of Tesla’s Autopilot brought autonomous features to consumer vehicles, contributing to the mainstream adoption of self-driving technology.
2019: Quantum Computing
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A significant moment in the history of quantum computing was achieved in October 2019 when Google’s Sycamore processor  by solving a complex problem faster than the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Quantum technologies can be used in a variety of applications and offer transformative impacts across industries.  to help ensure an equitable global distribution and avoid a quantum divide.
2020: The COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic . With almost every aspect of human life impacted by the spread of the virus – from communicating with loved ones to how and where we work – the rate of innovation and uptake of technology across the globe emphasized the importance of remote work, video conferencing, telemedicine and e-commerce in our daily lives.
2022: Artificial Intelligence
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Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has been around for some time and AI-powered consumer electronics, from smart home devices to personalized assistants, have become commonplace. However, the emergence of mainstream applications of generative AI has dominated the sector in recent years.
In 2022, OpenAI unveiled its chatbot, ChatGPT. Within a week, it had gained over one million users and become . In the same year, DALL-E 2, a text-to-image generative AI tool, also launched.
Originally by the , 03.14.2024, under the terms of a license.