Time’s best inventions of 2006
Although this list isn’t in a web friendly top ten format, it’s certainly interesting to see what the folks at Time ranked as the best inventions of 2006.
Some are interesting, but enough are so consumer focused that I can’t help but feel every major magazine these days is more lifestyle catalog than anything else.
Pictured at right is an RFID kit so you’ll never lose household items again. Sure is interesting, but can this compare to the invention of the microwave, the PC, the automobile, or the laser? I think not.
Since these best inventions are new and quite expensive, only those who have been really good this year will see any of these for holidays (I’m not holding my breath :)
None of these seem like world-changing inventions, but then again, they may need some time to develop. The car took about a century to catch on, while the PC and microwave oven needed years to decades.
True – the inventions I mentioned had a long curve of adoption.
But for most of these the problems they were intended to solve seem so trivial, or at least so narrow, that I couldn’t help feel underwhelmed (a shirt that hugs you? An impossible to lose tv remote? I mean come on :)
Which one of these do you think has the greatest chance to be significant 10 years from now? The Tesla car might have won if it wasn’t a sports car.