Technology has come a long way since 2006. Smartphones, social media and super-fast connectivity have changed our lives and in the background cloud computing and the Internet of Things are altering how we live and work.

2016

• Gemalto is established from the merger of Gemplus International and Axalto
• Twitter launches with the idea of sharing live status updates. It goes on to become the de facto source for breaking news
• Europe’s first commercial deployment of contactless banking cards is made by Garanti Bank in Turkey
• First biometric passports roll-out

2007

• Barclays launches 2-Factor authentication to secure online banking in the UK
• Zeus malware is first identified, stealing personal details via keylogging and form grabbing. International agencies spend many years trying to capture the author
• Apple launches the iPhone, changing the mobile industry at a stroke

2008

• Amazon Kindle becomes commercially available, sparking the eBook revolution
• First 3G network launches in Brazil

2009

• Google and others start to offer browser-based enterprise applications, through services such as Google Apps using cloud computing
• Intel notices employees using their own devices at work, starting the BYOD trend that would put pressure on IT departments to regulate employee access to sensitive data

2010

• Google’s first self-driving car, a modified Toyota Prius Hybrid, takes to the streets of the company’s campus in California
• Verizon launches 4G-LTE Network covering 110 million Americans

2011

• >24% of Estonians cast their votes on the Internet for the country’s parliamentary elections
• Biometric voter registration used to create electoral register for Benin’s presidential elections, smoothing the democratic process in West Africa
• Big Data enters the stage, with academics noting that in 1986, 99.2% of all storage capacity was analog, but in 2007, 94% of storage capacity was digital. Companies start to examine how to nalyse and interpret vast datasets
• Google and Blackberry enable users to pay with ther smartphones via NFC

2012

• Facebook passes the one billion user mark and floats on Nasdaq giving the world’s largest social network an initial $104bn valuation
• Samsung and Visa provide contactless mobile payments during London Olympics

2013

• Hackers steal 40 million customer card details from retailer target
• Apple embeds fingerprint scanner in its iPhones and iPads

2014

• CaixaBank launches wearable payment bracelets in Spain
• Apple Pay launches in the U.S. boosting interest in mobile payments
• Sony Pictures is hacked, leaking 47,000 social security numbers, unreleased films and countless sensitive emails

2015

• U.S. EMV liability shift starts widespread roll-out of chip payment cards
• Samsung Pay and Android Pay launch using host-card emulation and tokenization for securing mobile payments
• 1.5 billion smartphones are sold worldwide in 2015. PC sales in decline, with only 288 million units sold

2016

• US Securities and Exchange Commission bills cyber threats as biggest risk to financial markets
• GSMA releases standards for embedded SIM provisioning for consumer devices – something that will have a huge impact on the Internet of Things
• First mass market commercial Virtual Reality headsets launch

It’s been an incredible 10 years and we can only guess where technology will take us by 2026. Mass market electric driverless cars? Space tourism? Contactless implants? We look forward to the journey.

Source from Gemalto