Lull in Consumer Technology

The rate of change brought on by consumer technology over the past decade has been rapid and created many disruptions in the way media has been distributed and consumed.  Record stores are now relegated to shrinking departments within the big chain stores and have mostly disappeared from specialty stores in the mall.  We now carry our entire record collection in our pocket and can watch movies, television episodes, and other forms of video from our portable devices.  We are also now beginning to use our devices to purchase and read books.  All of these changes have come relatively quickly and resulted in the rapid adoption of new technologies and new ways of interacting with media.

At this time of the year I often find myself exuberant about a new device that I just can't wait to buy and one that will change the way I do things (for the better I hope).  However, this year it seems as though we have a lull in the onslaught of new technology.  Sure there are new e-readers from Barnes and Nobel and Amazon and  Apple has a second generation iPad and the mobile phone manufacturers have new products but none of these offerings are ground breaking.  They are simply improvements to existing products.  There is nothing new and exciting in the consumer electronics market this year.

Have we exhausted innovation of our current technologies?  Is the rapid flow of change reduced to a trickle?  Or, are manufacturers waiting for the economy to improve before the release the next generation of innovation?  I don't know but it feels kind of weird experiencing a slower rate of change.  Perhaps we can now use this lull in innovation to better understand how to use our technologies to improve our world rather than simply just learning how to use the technology.