greatest technological inventions of the past 25 years

Greatest Technological Inventions of the Past 25 Years

The Greatest Technological Inventions of the Past 25 Years
41. Webmail web based email
It s a testament to how important electronic mail is that it s still rocking, alive, and well in an age where people can text, instant message, and tweet each other faster than they can email. It s been the backbone of online communication since it emerged in 1995 and, despite other companies best efforts, we don t see it going anywhere. Unfortunately, we can t say the same thing for Google Wave. No shots!
42. Search Engine
There was WebCrawler, Lycos, Infoseek, AltaVista, Dogpile, Ask Jeeves, and a bunch of other also rans that helped us find what we were looking for on the Net. Technically virtual robots, web crawlers take your query and scan a series of links and web pages looking for anything that matches your search. The Web would have been untamable without such services. Imagine trying to find Kim Kardashian ass shots without a browser? Well, you would just have to come to us but still, it d be difficult.
43. Smartphone
What makes a phone smart? Is it the keyboard? Or the operating system that allows you to write memos, surf the web, and manage your calender? Or is it the ability to connect you to certain networks? Well, it s all three. Since the early 90s, mobile phones have been transforming into mini computers, letting us do things we were once only be able to do from a desktop or laptop. With mobile operating systems and hardware getting more advanced, the line between phone and mobile workstation is about to blur even further.
44. SMS Text Messaging
According to Nielsen reports, texting among people aged 18 to 24 has outpaced that of voice call minutes used in 2009. That means people are now texting more than they speak to each other. For some it s the default mode of communication. How else would you holler at the girl you met last weekend?
45. Wi fi
The 802.11 standard set us free. No longer did we have to sit at computers or tether ourselves to a certain area to surf the web. With a wi fi router installed in your house, you could roam around as you pleased. However, the real big deal will be when entire cities are completely covered in wi fi Internet. Imagine that.
46. MP3
Brought to you by the people responsible for MPEG 4, MPEG 2 Audio Layer 3 let people make song files over 10 times smaller, making them easy enough to transfer over the Internet. We can get into the whole new age bootlegging that the MP3 gave birth to, but we ll focus on the fact that without MP3s, a lot of these rappers wouldn t have record deals.
47. Broadband Internet
Remember when you had to wait for images to download bit by slow ass bit? Thankfully, those dial up days are in the past. America may not have country wide blazing fast Internet like Japan and some European nations, but since hitting our shores in 1996, cable connections and DSL have taken over as the dominant way of getting online.
48. Personal Computers
OK, OK. So, personal computers have been around since the 70s, but computers as we know them today didn t come into their own until the mid 80s. It was Apple and IBM that brought affordable, easy to use machines to the masses, allowing everyone to enter the digital age.
49. The World Wide Web
Despite what we may think of it today, the World Wide Web a system of linked hypertext pages accessed over the Internet was developed to be a pool of human knowledge, and human culture, which would allow collaborators in remote sites to share their ideas and all aspects of a common project. Now, more than ever, that dream has been realized, with news stories breaking around the globe, people sharing photos and projects, and people using it, in lieu of their phone, to communicate with friends and family.
50. Android
One of the most significant inventions of our times, Android took Symbian and Java powered devices by storm. Almost all smart phones use Android operating system, with app developers flooding the play store! So far about 1.5 million applications are available for download in the Android market.