2016 a disappointing year for the gadget nerd

Washington

LET'S face it: 2016 was a fairly disappointing year for the average gadget nerd. Yes, there were some bright spots, but they were mostly glimpses of technologies that are approaching rather than ones that are changing our lives right now.

If there is a takeaway for consumers from 2016 - as we predicted at the start of the year - it's that we appear to be in a bit of a lull when it comes to exciting pieces of technology. And while we've seen new gadgets come onto the scene, even the big successes this year felt more incremental than monumental.

There are a few reasons for this. For one thing, much of the innovation in the technology world of late has been in software - the thing about apps, streaming music and streaming video is that they manage to revolutionise devices th…