Top 25 Innovations of the Past 25 Years

HarvardAce writes "CNN has just released a list of 24 of the top 25 innovations of the past 25 years. Most of them are things we use every day in life, such as cell phones (#2), PCs (#3), and e-mail (#5). CNN won't release the #1 innovation until Sunday, January 18 at 8pm EST (Monday, Jan 19 @ 1AM GMT), so I wanted to see if Slashdot users could come up with what they think the #1 innovation is and comment on the rest of the list."

Retarded CNN

[Directrix1]

Yeah Plasma TVs and HDTV is a real super innovation. Give me a break, this list is just a big ad.

The Web, not the Internet

[Henrik S. Hansen]

It couldn't be the Internet, since that is obviously older than 25 years.

It's the World Wide Web.

Boo on this list.

[garcia]

For example, many people turn off their PCs (No. 3) and their HDTV (No. 19) or plasma screen TVs (No. 18) as they leave their homes.

Excuse me? PCs are VERY important and probably deserving of #3 but to say that HDTV and Plasma are in the top 100 is pushing it.

I have only seen HDTV at stores and on display at the state fair (I'm relatively unimpressed). I know one single person that has it and he uses it through DirecTV. I don't know a single person that owns a Plasma screen and I really don't think that they are terribly important.

HDTV is a bunch of tax-funded bullshit that's going to bring down the right to record as you choose. Media conglomorates aren't going to want you to have digitized recordings of high-def format because then you can compete with their DRMd discs.

Boo on this list.

RFID

[amembleton]

I am suprised that RFID is at #10 on the list.

From the article: In creating the list, the group hoped to single out "25 non-medically related technological innovations that have become widely used since 1980, are readily recognizable by most Americans, have had a direct and perceptible impact on our everyday lives, and/or could dramatically affect our lives in the future

Is RFID really recognisable by most Americans?

RDS Radio

[amembleton]

I would have expected RDS Radio to have featured somewhere in the list. Do you have RDS Radio available in the states? Basically as you drive around your car radio looks for a stronger signal from the same station and then switches to it if it finds one. Also you can search for stations based upon criteria like News or Pop Music. And, the radios can display text, like phone numbers for a competion or the name of the track that is playing.

Other inovations I would have expected, would be Digital Radio and Digital TV. But they aren't as common as RDS because they are newer.

Wow, I couldn't disagree more

[maynard]

I have only seen HDTV at stores and on display at the state fair (I'm relatively unimpressed). I know one single person that has it and he uses it through DirecTV.

I own two HDTVs, an Hitachi rear projection CRT set and a Sony HS-20 front project or for my living room. Combined with a decent DD 5.1 sound and a home theater really does compete with commercial movie theaters. In Boston every broadcast station is now digital; that's ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, FOX, UPN, and WC. I actually get more HD content from broadcast than DirecTV (I have DirectTV too). HBO and Showtime in HD is pretty damn nice. Widescreen aspect ration is very damn nice! Uhhh... whether HDTV is the greatest consumer invention since sliced bread, I don't know. But... I like it! :)

HDTV is a bunch of tax-funded bullshit that's going to bring down the right to record as you choose. Media conglomorates aren't going to want you to have digitized recordings of high-def format because then you can compete with their DRMd discs.

Uhhh... just so we're clear: HDTV display technology and broadcast standards are different from the political policies being pursued by media conglomerates in their attempt to limit consumer freedom. Right? HDTV deployment does not mandate the consumer limitation by politcial fiat. --M

IAWTP

[Uber Banker]

How can PCs be #3 when they are the requirement for #1 (if #1 is indeed teh intarweb) - perhaps a hierarchy could be ordered - perhaps assessed on their own merits, anyway, I Agree With The Parent? Is this reflex journalism another excuse to fill the time and earn some $$$?

Or is this another excuse for hypnotic television:
#1 Rule of profitable television - do not offend the advertised
#2 Rule of profitable television - do not challenge the viewer
#3 Rule of profitable television - pander to the viewer's preconceptions, opinions and biases
#4 Rule of profitable television - make the viewer have a self assured, warm-inside feeling (see #2)
#5 Rule of profitable television - make the viewer feel they have been challenged and have additional insight, even though they do now

'Top 25 innovations', 'Top 100 80s music shows', 'Evening News', etc, fit so so so easily into this convention. It troubles me.

Strange use of the word innovation

[Decaff]

For example, how could they include 'Commercialised GPS'(6)? The innovation is GPS alone, or is making something 'commercial' innovative these days?

Also, portable computers (3) have not been 'innovative' in the usual sense of the word - its been a long slow evolution over decades, from small-screened 'luggables' in the early 1980s.

The vibrator is way older than 25 years

[dlleigh]

A good history can be found in Rachel Maines' paper "Socially Camouflaged Technologies: the Case of the Electromechanical Vibrator" which was published in IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, June 1989, Vol. 8, Issue 2, pages 3-11,23. It can be found here [ieee.org].

Another interesting article from Wired titled "Love Machines" can be found here [wired.com].

The list sucks

[Spazmania]

Some of their choices were obvious. Others were poor. Here are my complaints:

10) RFID tags. Given that RFID is still mostly smoke and mirrors, is it reasonable to call it a major innovation of the past 25 years? Maybe 10 years from now we'll think so, but it doesn't belong on this year's list.

11) MEMS. What? No! VLSI is vastly more important than MEMS, and it didn't even make the list. Besides, MEMS is little more than a pit stop on the road to nanotech.

19) HDTV. HDTV is not a top innovation of any year, let alone a top innovation of the past 25. It was a committee-designed system haphazardly thrown together that has yet to make any meaningful impact on everyday life.

21) Nanotech. Nanotech will be an amazing innovation if it ever gets here, but is it fair to call something that's still mostly science fiction a top innovation of the past 25 years?

24) Modern hearing aids. Yes, they're better, but its evolutionary not revolutionary.

25) Short Range, High Frequency Radio. Uh yeah. This is not an innovation. Its a category of innovations like digital radio, spread spectrum, 802.11 and cordless phones.

And of course, #1 will be the World Wide Web. Since they've seperated email from the Internet, they'll seperate that as well.

But, having split out the Internet into its components the panel has failed badly in missing TCP/IP v4 from 1981, clearly a critical innovation of the past 25 years. Vastly more important than HDTV.

The Human Genome Map

[genomancer]

It's used by a much smaller population than cell phones or the internet or viagra.. but it impacts many, many more people, and for those who do use it, the power it brings is hard to overstate.

G

It should be the microwave

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. There's nothing that has changed people's habits on cooking, eating, and how they purchase foods than the microwave. It is absolutely ubiquitous and essential in today's life.

Sony Walkman

[xigxag]

...came out in 1980, not-so-coincidentally 25 years ago. So it's probably #1.

Re:#1 *should* be...

[anactofgod]

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).

Or, perhaps, a related technology like gene therapy.

Re:#1 will be...

[benna]

With all the hype surrounding blogs this year, that has to be it. (Yes it would be stupid, but you just know they will do it anyway).