50 Most Influential Gadgets

[yinyang]

Had fond memories, of this user friendly piece before smartphones era.
Can also beam your contact to another Palmtop user (like at the bar).
Can doodle etc. fun :p

36. Palm Pilot

The original Palm Pilot 1000 solidified handheld computing when it launched in 1996, paving the way for BlackBerry and, eventually, today’s smartphone.

The “palm top” computer (get it?) came with a monochrome touchscreen that supported handwriting and was capable of syncing data like contacts and calendar entries to users’ computers.

It spawned a device category known as the “personal digital assistant,” or PDA. It wasn’t the first such device—the Apple Newton preceded it—but it was the first one people wanted and bought in droves.

 

[Narong Wongwan]

I remembered the days when every towkay carried a 555 booklet in his breast pocket

 

[yinyang]

...every towkay carried a 555 booklet in his breast pocket

Not forgetting the hawker stalls bosses and ah nehs drinking on credit :p Lil black book

 

[yinyang]

[h=2]38. Apple iBook[/h]

The iBook’s brightly-colored, plastic trim may look dated now, but it was the first laptop to offer wireless networking.
Apple’s consumer-oriented portable—for its cool-factor as well as its technology—grew into a serious business.

The product’s reveal was a classic example of Steve Jobs’ showmanship at its best.
While loading a webpage and showing off the computer’s display at 1999’s MacWorld conference,
the Apple co-founder lifted the computer off its table and walked across the stage.
The crowd roared in approval. In a gesture, he showed that Wi-Fi was here to stay.

 

[yinyang]

[h=2]40. Sony Discman D-50[/h]

Following up on the success of the Walkman, Sony unveiled this portable CD player in 1984,
just a year after the music industry adopted the format. The device and later portable CD players
helped the compact disc usurp cassettes as the dominant music format in the United States in less than a decade.

 

[yinyang]

[h=2]42. Fitbit[/h]

Pedometers have been around for centuries (seriously, look it up), but it was Fitbit
that helped bring them into the digital age and to the masses.
The company’s first device, released in 2009, tracked users’ steps, calories burned and sleep patterns.
Most importantly, it allowed users to easily upload all that data to the company’s website for ongoing analysis,
encouragement or guilt. Priced at $99, the Fitbit showed that wearables could be affordable.
The company sold more than 20 million of the devices in 2015.

 

[yinyang]

1st era of PC? :p

[h=2]43. Osborne 1[/h]

When you think of a portable computer, the Osborne 1 is probably not what comes to mind.
But this unwieldy 25-pound machine was heralded by technology critics at the time of its 1981 release—BYTE magazine
celebrated that it “fit under an airline seat.” The Osborne’s limitations, like a screen about the size of a modern iPhone’s, kept sales low.

The machine’s true influence wasn’t on future gadgets, so much as how they are marketed.
The company’s executives had an unfortunate knack for prematurely announcing new products,
leading would-be customers to hold off for the better version and thus depressing sales.
Marketing students now learn to avoid this deleterious “the Osborne effect.”

 

[yinyang]

[h=2]44. Nest Thermostat[/h]

Developed by the “godfather of the iPod,” Tony Fadell, the Nest Learning Thermostat
was the first smart home device to capture mass market interest following its launch in 2011.
Pairing the iconic round shape of classic thermostats with a full-color display and Apple-like software,
the Nest features considerable processing power. (For instance, its ability to use machine learning to detect
and predict usage patterns for heating and cooling a home.) As interesting as the device itself is, the Nest thermostat
really turned heads in 2014 when the company behind it was bought by Google for $3.2 billion.
The search engine giant turned the device into the center of its smart home strategy with hopes of ushering in an age of
interconnected devices that will make everyday living more efficient.

 

[yinyang]

[h=2]45. Raspberry Pi[/h]

The Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer with a price tag to match its tiny size: about $35,
without a monitor, mouse or keyboard. Not meant to replace everyday computers, the Pi is being used in classrooms worldwide
to help students learn programming skills. With eight million Pi’s sold as of last year, the odds are decent that the next Mark Zuckerberg
will have gotten his or her start tinkering with one.

 

[yinyang]

[h=2]46. DJI Phantom[/h]

Small drones may soon be delivering our packages, recording our family get-togethers
and helping first responders find people trapped in a disaster.

For now, they’re largely playthings for hobbyists and videographers.
Chinese firm DJI 'makes the world’s most popular, the Phantom lineup.
Its latest iteration, the Phantom 4, uses so-called computer vision to see and avoid
obstacles without human intervention.
That makes it easier for rookie pilots to fly one, making drones more accessible than ever.

 

[yinyang]

[h=2]47. Yamaha Clavinova Digital Piano[/h]

You could argue the Minimoog did far more for music tech, or that the Fairlight was cooler,
but visit average U.S. households from the 1980s forward and you’re most likely to encounter the Clavinova.

Yamaha’s popular digital piano married the look and compactness of a spinet (a smaller, shorter upright piano)
with the modern qualities of a modest synthesizer. With a plausibly pianistic weighted action and space-saving footprint,
it’s become a staple for parents looking to bring maintenance-free musicality—you never have to tune it—into households,
all without sacrificing huge swathes of living space.

 

[yinyang]

48. Segway

Why is the Segway personal scooter such a potent cultural symbol?
Maybe it has something to do with providing a metaphor for increasingly out-of-shape Americans.
Perhaps it was seeing a U.S. president fall off one.

Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” video helped, too.
The Segway—as hyped and as mocked as it has been—is a defining example of “last mile” transportation, a
n electric scooter designed to make walking obsolete. (Recently, the idea has been somewhat revived by the emergence
of so-called hover boards, which are now also entering a kind of post-fad twilight.)

The Segway’s symbolic impact greatly exceeded its commercial success.
Unit sales never exceeded the six-figure mark before the firm was purchased by a Chinese interest in 2015 for an undisclosed sum.

 

[yinyang]

3-D printer, revolutionary

[h=2]49. Makerbot Replicator[/h]

The Makerbot Replicator was neither the first nor the best consumer-level 3-D printer.
But it was the model that made the technology widely accessible for the first time, thanks to its sub-$2,000 price tag.

The Replicator used inkjet printer-like technology to extrude hot plastic that took three-dimensional form as artwork,
mechanical parts and more. As a company, Makerbot’s future is uncertain.
But the firm’s equipment helped bring 3-D printing into the mainstream and is a fixture of many American classrooms.

 

[yinyang]

Concluding piece.

[h=2]50. Google Glass[/h]

Google Glass, which cost $1,500 for those invited to a sort of public beta test, never took off.
The relatively powerful head-mounted computer provided important signals for the future of wearable technology.
Glass showed that designers working on computing devices that are worn face a different set of assumptions and challenges.
Glass, for example, made it easy for users to surreptitiously record video, which led some restaurants, bars and movie theaters to ban the device.
Glass also showed the potential pitfalls of easily identifiable wearables, perhaps best proven by the coining of the term “Glassholes” for its early adopters.
While Glass was officially shelved in 2015, augmented reality—displaying computer-generated images over the real world
—is a concept many companies are still trying to perfect. Google included.

 

[jw5]

51. Game & Watch

 

[yinyang]

51. Game & Watch

Old school, but another era before the techies came on:p

 

[jw5]

52. Shredding Machine

 

[jw5]

53. Cyclostyle Machine

 

[yinyang]

Exceeded quota 50. Yours truly's contribution :p

#54 Stapler

No office shd be without it

 

[yinyang]

#55 Flash Drive

Toshiba engineer Fujio Masuoka developed the concept of flash memory--so-called because the erasure process
reminded a colleague of a camera flash--in the early 1980s. But the good ship flash drive needed a way to dock.
Intel's Ajay Bhatt and his Universal Serial Bus (USB), which was introduced in 1996, provided part of the solution.
But data still didn't travel well until 2000, when the first USB flash-drive stick, with 8 megabytes of storage, arrived