50 Most Influential Gadgets

yinyang · May 5, 2016

1. Apple iPhone

Apple was the first company to put a truly powerful computer in the pockets of millions when it launched the iPhone in 2007.
Smartphones had technically existed for years, but none came together as accessibly and beautifully as the iPhone.
Apple’s device ushered in a new era of flat, touchscreen phones with buttons that appeared on screen as you needed them,
replacing the chunkier phones with slide-out keyboards and static buttons. What really made the iPhone so remarkable, however,
was its software and mobile app store, introduced later. The iPhone popularized the mobile app, forever changing how we communicate,
play games, shop, work, and complete many everyday tasks.

http://time.com/4309573/most-influential-gadgets/

yinyang · May 5, 2016

2. Sony Trinitron

Renowned journalist Edward R. Murrow famously described television as “nothing but wires and lights in a box.”
Of all such boxes, Sony’s Trinitron—launched in 1968 as color TV sales were finally taking off—stands at the fore of memorable sets,
in part for its novel way of merging what to that point had been three separate electron guns. The Trinitron was the first TV receiver to win
a vaunted Emmy award, and over the next quarter century, went on to sell over 100 million units worldwide.

yinyang · May 5, 2016

[h=2]3. Apple Macintosh[/h]

“Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age?
Was George Orwell right about 1984?” That’s how Steve Jobs introduced the ad heralding
the arrival of the Macintosh. With its graphical user interface, easy-to-use mouse and
overall friendly appearance, the Macintosh was Apple’s best hope to take on IBM.
High costs and Microsoft’s successful Windows software conspired to keep the Mac
a perennial runner-up. But it forever set the standard for the way human beings interact with computers.

yinyang · May 5, 2016

4. Sony Walkman

Sony’s Walkman was the first music player to combine portability, simplicity and affordability.
While vinyl records were still the most popular music format, the Walkman—originally the “Sound-About”
in the United States—played much smaller cassettes and was small enough to fit in a purse or pocket.
It ushered in the phenomena of private space in public created by the isolating effect of headphones.
It ran on AA batteries, allowing it to travel far from power outlets. Sony eventually sold more than 200 million
of the devices, which paved the way for the CD player and the iPod.

halsey02 · May 5, 2016

yinyang said:
2. Sony Trinitron

Renowned journalist Edward R. Murrow famously described television as “nothing but wires and lights in a box.”
Of all such boxes, Sony’s Trinitron—launched in 1968 as color TV sales were finally taking off—stands at the fore of memorable sets,
in part for its novel way of merging what to that point had been three separate electron guns. The Trinitron was the first TV receiver to win
a vaunted Emmy award, and over the next quarter century, went on to sell over 100 million units worldwide.

One of neighbours back when this TV came out, could afford to buy one & was the envy of the neighbourhood, most families could only afford the RCA's, Telefunken's....B/W set with the wooden chases & doors...

Trinitron....SONY..wahhhh!:p

yinyang · May 5, 2016

5. IBM Model 5150

What would the computer market look like today without the IBM PC?
Sure, the world had personal computers before the 5150 was introduced in 1981.
But IBM’s sales pitch—bringing Big Blue’s corporate computing prowess into the home
—helped make this a wildly successful product. Even more influential than the 5150 itself was Big Blue’s
decision to license its PC operating system, DOS, to other manufacturers.
That led to the birth of “IBM Compatibles,” the forerunner to almost all non-Apple PCs out there today.

yinyang · May 5, 2016

[h=2]6. Victrola Record Player[/h]

Though the phonograph was invented in 1877, it was the Victor Talking Machine Company’s Victrola
that first made audio players a staple in most people’s homes. The device’s amplifying horn was hidden
inside a wooden cabinet, giving it the sleek look of a sophisticated piece of furniture.
Records by classical musicians and opera singers were popular purchases for the device.
Eventually, the Victor Talking Machine Company would be bought by RCA, which would go on to become a radio and television giant.

yinyang · May 5, 2016

7. Regency TR-1 Transistor Radio

The Regency’s pocket radio was the first consumer gadget powered by transistors, ushering in an age of high-tech miniaturization.
A post-WWII innovation developed by Texas Instruments (which had been making devices for the Navy) and
Industrial Development Engineering Associates (which previously put out television antennas for Sears), the $49.95, 3-by-5-inch,
battery-powered portable was built on technology developed by Bell Labs. From the transistors that amplified the radio signal to
the use of printed circuit boards that connected the components to the eye-catching design, many factors conspired to make the
TR-1 a holiday must-buy after its November 1954 launch. And as revolutionary as all this tech was, it only scratches the surface
of how the Regency — by ushering in truly portable communications — changed the world overnight.

halsey02 · May 5, 2016

yinyang said:
4. Sony Walkman

Mine, was a later generation of that Cassette Tape Walkman, owned 2 generation of that portable music player, I had a SONY yellow coloured slim line foldable head phons to go with & it was almost stuck to my ears..all day long...then came the SONY CD WALKMAN....the last music player from SONY was their few generation back MP3 player....

Missed my SONY WALKMAN...it was played till the cassette head worn out.....it was the COOL thing of my time...

yinyang · May 5, 2016

8. Kodak Brownie Camera

Marketed toward children, carried by soldiers, and affordable to everyone,
this small, brown leatherette and cardboard camera introduced the term “snapshot”
through its ease of use and low cost. Priced at just $1 (with film that was similarly inexpensive)
when it was introduced in February 1900, the Brownie took cameras off tripods and put them into everyday use.
For Kodak, the low-cost shooter was the hook that allowed the company to reel in money through film sales.
And for the rest of the world, it helped captured countless moments and shape civilization’s relationship to images.

(TBC to be continued :biggrin:

yinyang · May 5, 2016

halsey02 said:
..owned 2 generation of that portable music player, I had a SONY yellow coloured slim line foldable head phons to go with & it was almost stuck to my ears..all day long...then came the SONY CD WALKMAN....the last music player from SONY was their few generation back MP3 player....Missed my SONY WALKMAN...it was played till the cassette head worn out.....it was the COOL thing of my time...

I had my 1st (work) IBM PC :o

halsey02 · May 5, 2016

yinyang said:
I had my 1st (work) IBM PC :o

The 1st IBM PC's arrived at the office, when it was transitioning between ledgers & mini computers & data terminals, few, "selected" people were allowed to touch or use the PC's.....my colleague & I, use to stay back for OT..just to learn the PC....opening the casing...examining the software...learning the OS etc...

It was I still remember, MS DOS ( IBM) Verion 1.0, Lotus 1 2 3 Version 1.0, Display Write 1.0....& I don't know if it was Dbase 1.0 ??....we mad use of the PC to learn how to run, simple run time program.....learn to dissect the Config files etc...& even later became some sort of "hacker".....making copies of the protected SW home & breaking in the program to reset...ha ha ha

In short...taught ourselves the computer....the company was one of the earliest to adopt technology....other than data machines, we had IBM mini computers later NCR...then DAC machines running Unix.... & main frames, & much, much later...the marketing department owning a a few MAC's, for they used it for desktop publishing.....we sure had come a long way....

yinyang · May 5, 2016

halsey02 said:
The 1st IBM PC's arrived at the office, when it was transitioning between ledgers & mini computers & data terminals,
..MS DOS ( IBM) Verion 1.0, Lotus 1 2 3 Version 1.0, Display Write 1.0....& I don't know if it was Dbase 1.0 ??....we sure had come a long way....

Had to transmit data files (for invoicing, daily batch) to Europe corporate by ...office telephone line/modem. 1st trial, had to call up another line if all went well.
And kns, dot matrix printer (heavy duty version). Also spotted airport terminals using same, recall Texas Instruments (TI) model :p

glockman · May 5, 2016

The Motorola brick phone. It was the all important status symbol back in the day.

yinyang · May 5, 2016

9. Apple iPod

There were MP3 players before the iPod, sure, but it was Apple’s blockbuster device that convinced music fans
to upgrade from their CD players en masse. The iPod simultaneously made piracy more appealing,
by letting people carry their thousand-song libraries in their pockets, while also providing a lifeline to the
flailing music industry with the iTunes Store, which eventually became the world’s biggest music retailer.
The iPod’s importance extends far beyond music. It was an entire generation’s introduction to Apple’s easy-to-use
products and slick marketing. These people would go on to buy MacBooks, iPhones and iPads in droves,
helping to make Apple the most valuable technology company in the world.

yinyang · May 5, 2016

Call it vibrator in another name. Some of you maybe familiar with this

10. Magic Wand :p

A few years after a 2002 episode of Sex and the City revealed the electric neck massager’s cultish adoption as a vibrator,
Hitachi dropped its brand from the device. But only in name: the Magic Wand—in service since the late-1960s
—likely remains the best-known product stateside made by the $33.5 billion Japanese company.
(Hitachi makes everything from aircraft engines to defense equipment, but perhaps nothing as personally stimulating.)
Though sex therapists and fans have extolled the Wand’s virtues by analogizing it to cars (the Cadillac, the Rolls Royce),
it more closely resembles a microphone, with a white plastic shaft—the wand—and a vibrating head—presumably, the magic.

halsey02 · May 5, 2016

yinyang said:
Had to transmit data files (for invoicing, daily batch) to Europe corporate by ...office telephone line/modem. 1st trial, had to call up another line if all went well.
And kns, dot matrix printer (heavy duty version). Also spotted airport terminals using same, recall Texas Instruments (TI) model :p

Yes TI printers....NCR also..then later NEC , Toshiba?.....& Olympia portable line printers for PC......still can hear the zigg, ziggg..ziggg sound produced by the line printer...slotting in the fan fold papers into the slots at the side...mis-slot...when heavy printing comes off..have to redo printing....last time, can't print from pages 917-928....when they portion came off...ha ha ha

was it 80 column, 120 column....or do they have 240? can't remember.....offices uses boxes of fan fold papers....& those plastic binders....I still recall doing orders for the fan fold papers, receipts & other types of paper from a company called Printpak...or was it Toppan-Moore....the world had changed so much....

halsey02 · May 5, 2016

yinyang;2440450 A few years after a 2002 episode of [I said:
Sex and the City[/I] revealed the electric neck massager’s cultish adoption as a vibrator,
Hitachi dropped its brand from the device. But only in name: the Magic Wand—in service since the late-1960s
—likely remains the best-known product stateside made by the $33.5 billion Japanese company.
(Hitachi makes everything from aircraft engines to defense equipment, but perhaps nothing as personally stimulating.)
Though sex therapists and fans have extolled the Wand’s virtues by analogizing it to cars (the Cadillac, the Rolls Royce),
it more closely resembles a microphone, with a white plastic shaft—the wand—and a vibrating head—presumably, the magic.

It was a joy for the ladies or shout for joy?....it sure relaxes in-between the legs & there were water sprouts also....ha ha ha

yinyang · May 6, 2016

glockman said:
The Motorola brick phone. It was the all important status symbol back in the day.

Yo, you were well ahead with this iconic piece. Then cost an arm and leg :p

37. Motorola Dynatac 8000x

Motorola’s Dynatac 8000x was the first truly portable cellphone when it launched in 1984.
Marty Cooper, an engineer with Motorola at the time, first demonstrated the technology by
making what’s regarded as the first public cellular phone call from a New York City sidewalk in 1973.
(It was both a PR stunt and an epic humblebrag: Cooper called his biggest rival at AT&T.)
The Dynatac 8000x weighed nearly two pounds and cost almost $4,000.

yinyang · May 6, 2016

[h=2]12. Philips N1500 VCR[/h]

Though it took a long, winding road to mass market success, the videocassette recorder, or VCR,
got its start in 1972 with Philips’ release of the N1500. Predating the BetaMax versus VHS format war,
the N1500 recorded television onto square cassettes, unlike the VCRs that would achieve mass market
success in the 1980s. But featuring a tuner and timer, Philips device was the first to let television junkies
record and save their favorite programs for later. But that kind of convenience didn’t come cheap.
Originally selling in the U.K. for around £440, it would cost more than $6,500 today.
That’s the equivalent of 185 Google Chromecasts.

50 Most Influential Gadgets

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