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Ten World-Changing Inventions

Lola Mattiello — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 14:35:18 +0000

Some inventions, while important, don’t radicalize the world. Society wasn’t particularly impacted when, for example, chip clips were introduced. But there are some ideas that leave such an impact that the world changes once they hit the market. In no particular order, here are ten of them.

Ten World-Changing Inventions – The Wheel

THE WHEEL (approx. 3100 BC)

While the inventor’s name might have been lost to history, their creation most certainly has lived on. The wheel is a natural inclusion on this list for how it revolutionized travel and trade. But it’s the wheel’s use outside of transportation that is truly remarkable. Many machines and devices use wheels, like pulleys, centrifuges, water wheels, and jet engines. Without the wheel, many inventions we now take for granted would’ve never existed.

THE AUTOMOBILE (1885)

Speaking of wheels, the most obvious use of wheels today is another boon that changed travel forever. Between the four wheels of the chassis to the steering wheel, the automobile gave people a chance to travel without spending a fortune or huge amounts of time. Henry Ford and Karl Benz may not have invented the car, but it’s their contributions that are most widely remembered and made automobiles accessible to the public. Ask yourself: how much harder would modern life be without a car?

Ten World-Changing Inventions – Computer

THE COMPUTER (20^th century)

If you’re reading this, then it means you have one of two entries on this list: a computer. Again, there’s no exact inventor of the computer, but Alan Turing is largely considered one of the most influential people to computer sciences in general. Computers themselves have given us more than just video games and word processors; without them, we would’ve never landed on the moon or sequenced the human genome. Of course, most computers benefited greatly from the dawn of…

THE INTERNET (1960s)

AKA: The other component needed to read this blog post. Society is still reeling from the internet’s invention, with our approaches to communication, entertainment, and information all being upended. For this reason, it’s impossible to really describe just how it’s impacted the globe since the process is still ongoing. Nevertheless, the rapid change to global expectations on nearly all fronts makes the internet an obvious choice for this list.

Ten World-Changing Inventions – Communication

COMMUNICATION (1836)

While we’re on the subject, communication surely qualifies as world-changing. While the term is broad, here it means “telephone, radio, and television” (although some might want to include the advent of language, both written and oral). Thanks to the telephone, you could speak to anybody, anywhere, at any time. The radio and television radicalized entertainment and newscasting, bringing it right into our homes without the need for a newspaper or cinema. While all three have suffered declines in popularity thanks to the internet, the internet wouldn’t exist without these forefathers.

REFRIGERATION (1876)

What’s for dinner? Before refrigeration, whatever you bought or caught that day would answer the question. Iceboxes were the first attempts at mainstream refrigeration but had to be restocked with ice daily and couldn’t last as long in the summer months. Now, the cold is completely artificially manufactured, allowing us to store meats and dairy products safely year-round. It’s also possible to transport ingredients across the globe, even in the most brutal of heats. And we can’t forget the greatest benefit here: being able to eat ice cream in the summer.

Ten World-Changing Inventions – Plow

THE PLOW (approx. 3500 B.C)

The planet is resistant to change. Trying to dig up fertile soil to raise plants used to be back-breaking and slow before the plow was introduced. It may not be as flashy as some other entries on this list, but the plow allowed people to plant larger plots of land and move from subsistence farming to farming for trade. Interest in trade caused further developments in transportation, numbers, written language, and the construction of shelters and markets for agricultural products. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to claim that the plow is responsible for a blossoming of human civilization.

THE LIGHTBULB (1870s)

Up at dawn, asleep by dusk: this is how humans lived before lightbulbs. Even with candles, the flames were limited in range and only lasted for so long. The creation of Thomas Edison (and Nikola Tesla, but that’s another story…) is less notable for its power of light, however. It’s how it introduced electricity to every home- something that many appliances we now take for granted need in order to run.

Ten World-Changing Inventions – Steam Engine

STEAM ENGINE (1781)

If you wanted to travel prior to the steam engine, you had to dedicate days, even weeks to get to your destination. With a train, however, journeys took less time and didn’t require stops at night for the animals. We can thank James Watt for adding an additional condenser to a Newcomen engine in 1769 for this steam-powered wonder, the face of the industrial revolution.

THE PRINTING PRESS AND MOVABLE (1430s)

Before printing presses, books were for the wealthy and royal alone. Johannes Gutenberg brought literature out of the era of hand-copied manuscripts and eventually revolutionized communication, education, and entertainment. Without the printing press, many later inventions wouldn’t be possible. Think about it…how could we put together Ikea furniture without those easy-to-follow instructions by our side?

Where would these life-changing inventions be if it wasn’t for the inventors behind them? Every inventor has their own personality and approach to coming up with ideas. Do you know your inventing personality? You may be an everyday Edison or perhaps a dynamic or critical inventor. Take our quiz below to find out which one you are!

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The All-New Car Technology of 2013(!)

Kristi Russell — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:53:07 +0000

Ever since they were invented over a hundred years ago, cars have been on the cutting edge of technology. It seems that every time you see a car commercial on TV, they’re announcing the addition of a new gadget or a new feature. And in today’s ever changing smart-technology world, the increase in innovations in cars seems to be exponential. Just in the past few years alone, we’ve seen cars with GPS systems, cars that are Bluetooth enabled, cars with satellite uplinks to OnStar and other 24/7 services, and cars that can parallel park themselves. One of the most important innovations in the car industry may be the huge jump in electric cars and hybrids that will save their owners money by conserving fuel, and save the environment by lowering greenhouse gas emissions. So what’s on call for 2013? Here’s a short list of the latest innovation we’ve compiled to show how cars are still one of the hottest places for innovation:

The Cadillac User Experience (CUE) – As we mentioned above, high-tech literally is going mobile. The CUE is an advanced multimedia control systems that allows you to interact with infotainment, communication, navigation and personalization features, while you keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the steering wheel. The CUE employs proximity sensing, gesture recognition and natural voice recognition, along with easy-to-read icons and customizable information like those used on smartphones and tablets. It even senses when you get in the car. Now, if we can only get it to make a vanilla latté.

Airbags for Cars – Now you’re probably thinking, c’mon man, we all know about airbags. They’re in my steering wheel, on the inside of my door, all over the place. But what if we said this wasn’t an airbag IN the car. What if it’s OUTSIDE the car? As it turns out, Mercedes-Benz is experimenting with a very large airbag that would inflate from under the car if it sensed an impending crash. Now that would be cool.

The “EyeSight” Safety System – Subaru has taken the external car sensor to a whole new level. This pro-active safety system uses small cameras placed on the rearview mirror as detectors to regulate cruise control, signal a lane departure or lane swaying warning, a pre-collision warning, and pre-collision throttle management and braking. So, it will literally stop the car if you can’t. It’s like having your old driving instructor in the car at all times.

Self-driving Cars – Now you’ve probably already heard about self-driving cars on some evening news show, but did you know that Google (yes, THAT Google) announced recently that its self-driving cars have logged over 300,000 miles without a single accident. And did you know that Florida, Nevada and California have now passed laws to make self-driving cars street legal. So 2013 will be a major coming out year for self-driving cars, with manufactures like Volvo and Mercedes-Benz jumping on the self-driving bandwagon

Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication (V2V) – Imaging you’re approaching an intersection and another car comes into the intersection at high speed. There’s not enough time to brake and it’s going to be a T-bone crash with someone getting badly hurt. But what if the cars could talk to one another – what if they sensed the impending crash and both began to slow as they approached the intersection. V2V works by using wireless signals to send information back and forth between cars and exchange information about their location, speed and direction. Though still in the early stages, both car manufacturers and the Highway Safety Authority are very excited about the possibilities V2V may bring to the country’s roads and highways

This list is just some of the cooler things we’ve heard about regarding cars. While some of the new innovations are clearly for comfort and convenience, most of the new technology we’ve seen seems to be focused on safety, and that’s a very good thing indeed.

Happy Driving!

SOURCES:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2012/05/03/hottest-new-car-features-for-2013/
http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4911899_hybrid-cars-save-environment.html
http://www.cadillac.com/cadillac-cue/using-cue.htmlhttp://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/08/the-subaru-eyesight-safety-system-makes-an-impact-at-the-track.html
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/14/3766218/self-driving-cars-google-volvo-law
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/trends-innovations/5-future-car-technologies.htm

http://dc.about.com/od/specialevents/a/WashAutoShow.htm

Photo Source:
EvrenKalinbacak / Shutterstock.com

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