We take a lot of the conveniences of modern life for granted, especially when it comes to our technology. Many of us don’t really think of where it all our devices come from or really give them a second thought as long as they work. What’s surprising is how many of our tech inventions are actually older than we might realize; often what seems new and exciting is actually just an improvement on an idea that’s been around for decades, or even centuries. Not all of the following technologies are exactly “cutting edge” but they can still all be described as modern. That being said, we may need to broaden the definition of “modern” even more considering how long some of these things have been around.
9. DVDs
The DVD (alternately known as “digital versatile disc” or digital video disc” depending on who you ask) pretty much revolutionized the home video format and storage media in general, but it didn’t really catch on until the late 90s/early 2000s. That’s why it may come as a surprise to find out that the DVD has been around since 1995 and the technology of putting digitally encoded films on optical discs has been around even longer, as the defunct precursor to DVD, Video CD (VCD), hit the market in 1993. While DVDs are now in significant decline thanks to online digital distribution and the superior Blu Ray format, it’s still wild to think that these discs have been around for 20 years now.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/DVDs.jpg Source: wikimedia.org