I admit the title of this post is a bit misleading, mainly because there is still six months left in 2019.  But as I have spent more time by myself and just allowing my mind to think and ponder, I got to thinking about the changes in society just in the last ten years.  This time last year I did a post on the changes my grandma saw in her 97 years of life.  Since today, June 28, is her birthday (she would be 101 if she were still alive), I am feeling a bit reflective on the things I’ve seen.  And it hit home the changes I saw in society just in this decade.  I’ve decided to do a for fun list of things that have occurred just in the 2010s.  I will try to avoid politics as, for one, it can cause too many arguments (and I’m just not in the mood for that) and, second, too many people think politics and economics can solve problems that are really technical and scientific in nature.  Though I am beginning to see more people pay attention to science and tech than I did even five years ago.  So here goes with the list.  Much of these changes are documented on webpages like future timeline.net, quantumrun.com, humanprogress.org, diamandis.com, kurzweilai.net, futurism.com, wikipedia.org, and with a few minutes of focused Google search.  So here goes

1. Apple debuts the iPad (2010)
2. Scientists create synthetic life (2010)
3. Solar power dramatically drops in cost
4. Beginnings of Augmented Reality (2010)
5. Speech to speech translation in smart phones
6. Scientists trap anti matter (2010)
7. The death of Osama bin Laden (2011)
8. First synthetic organ transplants (2011)
9. Three Gorges Dam is operational in China (2011)
10. Windows 8 is released (2012)
11. Creation of human embryonic stem cells through cloning (2013)
12. Gene therapy becomes available
13. China’s first unmanned moon landing (2013)
14. Google Glass is released (2014)
15. Rosetta probe lands on a comet (2014)
16. Test flights of NASA’s Orion Spacecraft (2014)
17. Smart watches become popular
18. Virtual reality becomes popular
19. Self regulating artificial hearts (2015)
20. Windows 10 is released (2015)
21. New Horizons probe reaches Pluto (2015)
22. Electric car ownership takes off
23. Juno probe reaches Jupiter (2016)
24. Agricultural robots
25. Electric and hybrid car sales reach 100,000 per year for the first time (2017)
26. Internet connected devices outnumber humans (2017)
27. Beginnings of 3D printing as a consumer technology
28. Beginnings of 5G networks
29. Galileo satellite navigation system comes online
30. LEDs begin to dominate lighting
31. Connected vehicle tech
32. Automated freight transport begins
33. Autonous automobiles begin
34. Beginnings of lab grown meat
35. First vertical farms
36. Increased automation in mining industries
37. Half of the world’s population has internet access (2019)
38. Reusable rockets
39. Private space flight
40. Social media becomes ubiquitous
41. Beginnings of Cryptocurrency
42. Beginnings of Blockchain tech
43. Personal genome sequencing becomes common
44. Macular degeneration becomes curable
45. First demonstrations of solar sale technology
46. Increased automation in retail stores
47. Vast improvements in AI
48. AI assistants become commercially available
49. Wireless and implantable devises to monitor health conditions in real time
50. The 100th anniversary of World War I
51. Beginnings of trials of anti aging treatments
52. Ride sharing services like Uber and Lyft become common
53. Trials of medications to reserve obesity
54. Trials of male birth control pills
55. Internet based television becomes common

These are just a few of the highlights.  This is by no means intended to be a comprehensive list.  It is merely to reflect on the changes that have happened just in the last ten years.  Bill Gates put it well when he said short term is often overestimated but long term change is often underestimated.