Short answers, pulled from the story.
Consumer electronics, also known as home electronics, are electronic devices intended for everyday household use. They include devices used for entertainment, communications, and recreation, such as televisions, mobile phones, personal computers, and video game consoles.
In American English, consumer electronics were historically called black goods because many products were housed in black or dark casings. In British English, producers and sellers often called them brown goods. Both terms distinguished them from white goods, the appliances meant for housekeeping such as washing machines and refrigerators.
John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain invented the first working transistor, a point-contact transistor, at Bell Labs in 1947. The breakthrough led to transistor radios and helped launch the home entertainment consumer electronics industry in the 1950s.
The compact disc tops the list with an estimated 200 billion units shipped across its production years from 1982 to 2007. The cassette tape follows at 30 billion, and the DVD reached 20 billion between 1996 and 2012.
In 2004, the consumer electronics industry was worth 240 billion US dollars annually worldwide, spanning visual equipment, audio equipment, and games consoles. Asia Pacific held a 35 percent market share, Europe 31.5 percent, and the United States 23 percent.
Most consumer electronics are manufactured in China, due to maintenance cost, availability of materials, quality, and speed compared with countries such as the United States. Cities such as Shenzhen and Dongguan have become important production centers, attracting companies including Apple Inc.
Consumer electronics carry a steadily rising environmental cost in both energy and materials. Standby power alone accounts for 5 to 10 percent of total household energy consumption, and the International Energy Agency reported in 2014 that 80 billion dollars of power is wasted globally each year through inefficient devices. A smartphone uses 40 rare metals and rare earth elements on average, extracted through water and energy-intensive processes.