Consumer electronics: the last fifteen years

The last 15 years have seen enormous changes in consumer electronics technologies, and a great expansion in the variety of devices available at relatively low cost. Entertainment, communication, and computing technologies have tended to merge, and almost everything is "going digital". The last decade and a half has seen the rise of many important new technologies and the demise of many older ones. This article surveys some of the major events in the field since 1985.