We like to think we’re so advanced, you know? We’re so modern. We’re not like our ancestors, whom we picture exclusively in black-and-white, running around in jerky fast motion. How quaint they were with their Model T’s and gas lamps!

Well, hate to break it to you, but we’re going to look just as quaint to our own descendants. We still hunt around for a coffee shop when we need a wireless Internet connection. We still buy movies on plastic discs. Some people still read “newspapers.”

But at least we’re still making progress. The year’s not quite over yet, but it’s over enough to observe a few of the most interesting high-tech highs, lows and trends of 2009. Besides, it’s Thanksgiving — a perfect time to contemplate the future that’s starting to take shape.

PICO PROJECTORS

The first pico projector hit the market late last year: a pocketable, rechargeable, iPod-size box that could project a six-foot image onto a wall, a sheet or an airplane ceiling (my favorite). This year, several rivals appeared — and now companies have started building projectors into other gadgets.

Nikon, for example, released the first camera with a built-in projector, a shirt-pocket model called the Coolpix 1000pj. No more connecting cameras to TVs or downloading to computers; you just say “Hey guys, come ’ere!” and push a button for a communal slide show. It’s novel, amazing and surprisingly useful.

Cellphones, obviously, will be next.

Now, your Thanksgiving-dinner candles probably put out more lumens than today’s pico projectors; the image is far from high-def, and it’s pretty dim unless you turn out the lights. But baby steps, people, baby steps.

CAMERAS TACKLE LOW LIGHT

From the beginning of digital-camera time, the rule was: if you want to take no-flash photos in low light, you’d better buy yourself one of those big, black, heavy S.L.R. cameras. Too often, the pocket cameras that make up 90 percent of camera sales produce blurry or grainy shots in low light.

This year, the camera companies finally abandoned their decade-long obsession with megapixels. Instead, several of them began working on things that really count — like bigger sensors for better pictures.

Panasonic and Olympus teamed up to create the Micro Four Thirds format: coat-pocketable cameras that take near-S.L.R.-quality photos. Fujifilm and Sony released new shirt-pocket models whose redesigned sensors do exceptionally well in low light. And Canon’s PowerShot S90 combines an unusually large sensor (for a little camera) and a remarkable lens to produce amazing low-light shots.

Still, even these cameras may someday seem laughably crude; already, high-end cameras like the Canon EOS 5D MKII actually “see” better in low light than you do. Trickle-down theory, do your thing.

THE RISE OF THE APPS

“Apps,” of course, are those 100,000 wildly creative, infinitely fascinating free or cheap programs that you can download to your iPhone or iPod Touch.

For maybe $1 or nothing, you can turn your phone into a barcode reader, musical instrument, carpenter’s level, video-editing station, game machine or just about anything else. These days, entire dinnertime conversations center on people showing each other their favorite apps, and more than one programmer has become a millionaire just from selling a whole lot of copies — at $1 apiece.

This year, the idea caught fire. New app stores opened for the BlackBerry, Palm phones (the Pre and Pixi) and Windows smartphones. They join the existing stores for the iPhone/iPod Touch and phones that run Google’s Android phone software. (NYT)