I feel like the "defining aspects" of a decade come halfway through. So the 80's to me really took place between 85-95, the 90's between 95-2005, and the naughts 05-15. I think we're closing up the current "themes" of the last decade, web 2.0, social media, mobile ubiquity etc.

There's also glimpses of what's going to define the teens, right now it seems like the augmented world might be a big theme. Things like Google Glass, VR like oculus, and maybe the beginning of drones and robots such as googles driverless car. Honestly though, the biggest things are still in labs. They're ideas who's time is tantalizingly close. I'd bet some really big things happened this year, maybe by people a part of this community, but they're not ready for the tech news to hype up or to shit on yet.