Editing Consumer electronics (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of electronic engineering}}
[[File:Radio&TV store 1961.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A radio and TV store in 1961]]
For its first fifty years, the [[phonograph]] turntable did not use electronics; the needle and sound horn were purely mechanical technologies. However, in the 1920s, [[radio broadcasting]] became the basis of the [[mass production]] of [[radio receiver]]s. The [[vacuum tube]]s that had made radios practical were used with record players as well. This was to [[audio power amplifier|amplify]] the sound so that it could be played through a [[loudspeaker]]. [[Television]] was  invented soon after, but remained insignificant in the consumer market until the 1950s.

The first working [[transistor]], a [[point-contact transistor]], was invented by [[John Bardeen]] and [[Walter Houser Brattain]] at [[Bell Labs]] in 1947, which led to significant research in the field of [[solid-state electronics|solid-state]] [[semiconductor]]s in the early-1950s.<ref name="Manuel">{{Cite book|title= The information age : economy, society and culture|last= Manuel|first= Castells |date= 1996|publisher= Blackwell|isbn= 978-0631215943|location= Oxford|oclc= 43092627}}</ref> The invention and development of the earliest transistors at Bell led to [[transistor radio]]s, in turn promoting the emergence of the home entertainment consumer electronics industry starting in the 1950s. This was largely due to the efforts of [[sony|Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo]] (now [[Sony]]) in successfully commercializing transistor technology for a mass market, with affordable [[Transistor radio|transistor radios]] and then transistorized [[television set]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hagiwara |first1=Yoshiaki |chapter=Microelectronics for Home Entertainment |editor-last1=Oklobdzija |editor-first1=Vojin G. |title=The Computer Engineering Handbook |date=2001 |publisher=[[CRC Press]] |isbn=978-0-8493-0885-7 |page=41-1 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=38Aj3CjHgc8C&pg=SA41-PA1 |access-date=25 November 2019 |archive-date=30 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230630125859/https://books.google.com/books?id=38Aj3CjHgc8C&pg=SA41-PA1 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Integrated circuit]]s (ICs) followed when manufacturers built circuits (usually for military purposes) on a single substrate using electrical connections between circuits within the chip itself. IC technology led to more advanced and cheaper consumer electronics, such as transistorized televisions, [[pocket calculator]]s, and by the 1980s, [[video game]] [[Video game console|consoles]] and [[personal computer]]s affordable for regular middle-class families.

Starting in the 1980s and ending in the early 2000s with the [[compact disc]] (CD) and the introduction of personal computers, many consumer electronics devices, such as televisions and stereo systems, were digitized: digital computer technology, and thus digital signals, were integrated into the operation of consumer electronics devices, drastically changing their operation but with improved results such as enhanced image quality in televisions. This was made possible by [[Moore's law]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dswWzEZuMRQC&dq=consumer+electronics+integrated+circuits+cheaper&pg=PA2 | title=The Digital Consumer Technology Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Devices, Standards, Future Directions, and Programmable Logic Solutions | isbn=978-0-08-053041-3 | last1=Dhir | first1=Amit | date=30 April 2004 | publisher=Elsevier }}</ref>

In 2004, the consumer electronics industry was worth US $240{{spaces}}billion annually worldwide, comprising visual equipment, [[audio equipment]], and [[games console]]s. It was truly global, with Asia Pacific having a 35% market share, Europe having 31.5%, the US having 23%, and the rest of the world owning the remainder. Major players in this industry are household names like [[Sony]], [[Samsung]], [[Philips]], [[Sanyo]], and [[Sharp Corporation|Sharp]].<ref name=":13">{{Cite journal |last1=Sodhi |first1=M. S. |last2=Lee |first2=S. |date=2007 |title=An Analysis of Sources of Risk in the Consumer Electronics Industry |journal=The Journal of the Operational Research Society |volume=58 |issue=11 |pages=1430–1439 |doi=10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602410 |jstor=4622837 |pmid=32226176 |pmc=7099209 |issn=0160-5682}}</ref>

=== White Goods ===
The increase in popularity of such domestic appliances as '[[white goods]]' is a characteristic element of consumption patterns during the [[golden age]] of the Western economy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Paris |first=Ivan |date=2013 |title=White Goods in Italy during a Golden Age (1948-1973) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43829418 |journal=The Journal of Interdisciplinary History |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=83–110 |doi=10.1162/JINH_a_00502 |jstor=43829418 |issn=0022-1953|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Europe's White Goods industry has evolved over the past 40 years, first by changing [[tariff]] barriers, and later by technical and demand shifts. <ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Baden-Fuller |first1=Charles W. F. |last2=Stopford |first2=John M. |date=1991 |title=Globalization Frustrated: The Case of White Goods |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2486522 |journal=Strategic Management Journal |volume=12 |issue=7 |pages=494 |doi=10.1002/smj.4250120703 |jstor=2486522 |issn=0143-2095|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The spending on domestic appliances has claimed only a tiny fraction of [[disposable income]], rising from 0.5{{spaces}}percent in the US in 1920 to about 2{{spaces}}percent in 1980. Yet, the sequence of electrical and mechanical [[durables]] have altered the activities and experiences of households in America and Britain in the twentieth century. With the expansion of cookers, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, washing machines, radios, televisions, air conditioning, and microwave ovens, households have gained an escalating number of appliances. Despite the [[omnipresence|ubiquity]] of these goods, their [[diffusion]] is not well understood. Some types of appliances diffuse more frequently than others. In particular, home entertainment appliances such as radio and television have diffused much faster than household and kitchen machines."<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bowden |first1=Sue |last2=Offer |first2=Avner |date=1994 |title=Household Appliances and the Use of Time: The United States and Britain Since the 1920s |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2597714 |journal=[[The Economic History Review]] |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=725 |doi=10.2307/2597714 |jstor=2597714|url-access=subscription }}</ref>