Consumer tech

I was reading this article about a startup that is launching satellites for imaging the earth. A line from the article stuck with me, the startup is leveraging technology developed for consumer devices like laptops and mobile phones in their satellites. This is a reversal from the olden days where technology that was developed for defense/space would find their way into consumer tech. Now a days, you see technology that was specifically targeted at consumer tech making ways into defense/space. Another specific example that I can think of is Palantir. Ways found out by engineers during their days at Paypal to fight fraud shaped into Palantir which now focuses on hunting down terrorists/hackers based on data like call records, etc.

Another point of note is consumer tech driving futuristic technology. Take google’s driverless cars for example, where is the money coming from? From consumer tech like search. Where did Elon Musk get his money from to bootstrap Tesla motors? Again consumer tech like paypal etc. As of today, I see consumer tech driving research and development more than defense and space which in a way is good for us as consumers because we get a taste of the shiny new thing without having to wait for decades for it to be made mainstream.