Major Inventions

Tefal said:
Pretty sure that was on TV back in the early 2000's hardly new :p
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It's definitely a new technology because we are the only company in the world doing it (Bosch had a pretty cool demo car at CES using our tech).
 
Graphene will be big once we can manufacture it sufficiently well.

Cement free concrete.

Lots of drugs have been invented as well as medical advances.

Large Hadron Collider?

Mars Rover?

What about wifi/3g? not an invention? Or is that an innovation - i.e. taking something existing (radio waves, digital electronics) and incrementally making something better?

Innovation / invention is subtly different in my experience.

A bike for example was an invention, but the super expensive Olympic velodrome type of bikes are an incremental innovation on an existing technology.

What I'm driving at is that invention is for all intents and purpose the creation of a product or bringing in a new process that has never been done before - i.e. world's first. Innovation generally occurs on existing things that improves it or makes a significant contribution or change to an existing product, service or process.

there are generally 3 tiers of innovation - tactical innovation (stuff that's happening right now that no one knows about, but is not mainstream yet, i.e. making new solutions to problems, solving challenges, addressing a strategic challenge), incremental innovation (an improvement of a tech/system, adaptation of something to make it better/safer/etc...) and lastly radical innovation - this is the big bang stuff that happens only occasionally but can change the world.
 
Depends on your definition of "modern world", but I'd say the atmospheric steam engine has probably had the biggest impact, as it lead to the beginning of the industrial revolution. Which in itself was a major turning point in the evolution of modern society.

As for very recent inventions, I'm not sure....but maybe, 3D printing? It's still in it's infant stages, but the ability to manufacture incredibly complex plastic parts quickly will probably have an enormous impact on how we develop components for lots of industries.
 
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Conscript said:
As for very recent inventions, I'm not sure....but maybe, 3D printing? It's still in it's infant stages, but the ability to manufacture incredibly complex plastic parts quickly will probably have an enormous impact on how we develop components for lots of industries.
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3d printing is definately an interesting one, its amazing the difference between just saying to a colleague "can you chuck that file on the printer for me" and having a fully functional jig/object/test part of whatever you wanted the next morning.

compared to having to make up a drawing, get a bunch of quotes, get approval from management, go through the requisitions process then wait a couple of weeks for getting something the old fashioned way.

the big challenge is going to be materials other than plastic, which whilst it is being done currently perfecting the art is going to make things a lot easier for certain industries.
 
In terms of consumer products in the past 20 years I'm struggling to think of genuinely revolutionary new products that didn't have any sort of previous similar product that it built on beyond 3D printers.

The real area of development is more service based internet products like Facebook etc.
 
Jokester said:
struggling to think of genuinely revolutionary new products that didn't have any sort of previous similar product that it built on beyond 3D printers.
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Vape pens are a pretty significant new product. Nothing exciting or new about their tech but we may see a very significant effect on society's health in the long run. They have certainly have had an impact just a few years after their introduction to the market on many people, as well as have acted as a catalyst to the growing anti-smoking attitude.
 
Jokester said:
In terms of consumer products in the past 20 years I'm struggling to think of genuinely revolutionary new products that didn't have any sort of previous similar product that it built on beyond 3D printers.

The real area of development is more service based internet products like Facebook etc.
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3D printers aren't that new really... College I worked at about 18 years ago had a 3D stone printer
 
Avenged7Fold said:
Vape pens are a pretty significant new product. Nothing exciting or new about their tech but we may see a very significant effect on society's health in the long run. They have certainly have had an impact just a few years after their introduction to the market on many people, as well as have acted as a catalyst to the growing anti-smoking attitude.
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that's a good point, whilst many of the components/ideas arent new, the combination together did just pop out of the woodwork.
 
I am going to plump for smaller speakers with decent base.

Speaker tech has moved on leaps and bounds, think its to do with water dampening of the cones but not really looked into it.
 
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