Alexa was not the first virtual assistant, and many would say that "she" isn't the best either. However, the introduction to Alexa and the Echo helped Amazon lead an ambient computing and smart home revolution that gained momentum over the last half of this decade.
We've seen a lot of incredible tech in the last decade, but by far my favorite is the advancement of HDR imaging and the impact it's made on other photography features like Night Sight and astrophotography.
Google is way bigger than just Android, but Android was a huge part of Google's decade. Here are the stories that mattered for the company and the operating system.
Google Cardboard is, invariably, the father of mobile VR as we know it. It ushered the concept of VR into the minds of millions and had people sharing and talking about VR in a way that didn't happen before it.
It wasn't the first consumer mesh Wi-Fi router set, nor is it the best. But Google Wifi was cheap and accessible to everyone.
The one service that stood out for me this decade is Google Assistant. Google wasn't the first to roll out a digital assistant, but in Google Assistant it created something that was better than the likes of Siri, Cortana, and Alexa.
There's no denying it— the HTC One M7 was one of the iconic Android phones of the decade.
Google forever changed the way we stream and consume digital media with the introduction of the Chromecast.
There hadn't been anything like it before, and there hasn't quite been anything like it since. The original Moto X truly was a unique original, more than the sum of its parts, and it was a phone that gave every phone that followed two important features.
While the first Roku launched in 2008, Roku as a platform really found its footing during the 2010s to make video/music streaming as accessible and affordable as possible — mainly through a combination of unmatched app support and robust hardware offerings.
Robot vacuums used to be somewhat useless. The old, erratic nature of bump-and-go navigation has been replaced with intelligent vacuums that can map your home and plan a logical path through it. That's a massive improvement over what was available last decade.
The Galaxy S7 marked the point where Samsung truly figured it out, and locked in on a formula that was a hit with consumers and could be replicated for years to come with incredible results.