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[XiaNaphryz]

Full list from TIME. Personally, I think #10 is waaay too low on the list. It's basically a precursor to the Star Trek visor Levar Burton wore.

EDIT: To clear confusion if you just skim this post, note the very bottom 5 of this OP is a separate "5 worst inventions" list, you lazy reader you.

1. The Best Invention of the Year: NASA's Ares Rockets

From a distance, the rocket is unprepossessing — a slender white stalk that looks almost as if it would twang in the Florida wind. But up close, it's huge: about 327 ft. (100 m) tall, or the biggest thing the U.S. has launched since the 363-ft. (111 m) Saturn V moon rockets of the early 1970s. Its first stage is a souped-up version of one of the shuttle's solid-fuel rockets; its top stage is a similarly muscled-up model of the Saturn's massive J2 engines.

If that general body plan doesn't exactly break ground, that's the point. NASA tried breaking ground with the shuttles and in doing so broke all the rules. Shuttle astronauts sit alongside the fuel — next to the exploding motor that claimed Challenger, beneath the chunks of falling foam that killed Columbia. And when you fly a spacecraft repeatedly as opposed to chucking it after a single use, there's a lot of wear to repair.

When NASA engineers gathered to plan the next generation of America's rockets, they thus decided to go back to the future — way back. The Saturn V was the brainchild of Wernher von Braun, the German scientist whose bright genius gave the U.S. its finest line of rockets — and whose dark genius gave Hitler the V2 missile that rained terror on London. Von Braun had, in turn, drawn insights from American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. Goddard built on the work of 17th century artillery innovator Kazimierz Siemienowicz, a Pole.

The Ares 1 is a worthy descendant of their rockets and others, with lightweight composites, better engines and exponentially improved computers giving it more reliability and power. The Ares 1 will launch an Apollo-like spacecraft with four crew members — perhaps by 2015. Alongside it, NASA is developing the Brobdingnagian Ares V, a 380-ft. (116 m) behemoth intended to put such heavy equipment as a lunar lander in Earth orbit, where astronauts can link up with it before blasting away to the moon. Somewhere between the two rockets is the so-called Ares Lite — a heavy-lift hybrid that could carry both humans and cargo and is intended to be a design that engineers can have in their back pockets if the two-booster plan proves unaffordable.

2. The Tank-Bred Tuna

At 8:47 a.m. on March 12, fish history happened in Port Lincoln, Australia. A tankful of southern bluefin tuna — regal, predatory fish prized for their buttery sashimi meat — began to spawn, and they didn't stop for more than a month. "People said, 'It can't be done, it can't be done,'" says Hagen Stehr, founder of Clean Seas, the Australian company that operates the breeding facility. "Now we've done it." Scientists believe the breeding population of the highly migratory southern bluefin has probably plummeted more than 90% since the 1950s. Others have gotten Pacific bluefin to spawn and grow in ocean cages, but by coaxing the notoriously fussy southern bluefin to breed in landlocked tanks, Clean Seas may finally have given the future of bluefin aquaculture legs. (Or at least a tail.)

3. The $10 Million Lightbulb

With the flick of a switch, Philips Electronics may have just dramatically lowered America's electric bill. In September the Dutch electronics giant became the first to enter the U.S. Department of Energy's L Prize competition, which seeks an LED alternative to the common 60-watt bulb. Sixty-watt lights account for 50% of the domestic incandescent market; if they were replaced by LED bulbs, the U.S. could save enough electricity per year to light 17.4 million households. If Philips wins the L Prize, it will claim a cash award and federal purchasing agreements worth about $10 million.

Philips' LED bulb emits the same amount of light as its incandescent equivalent but uses less than 10 watts and lasts for 25,000 hours — or 25 times as long.

4. The Smart Thermostat

A couple of years ago, Seth Frader-Thompson was driving a Prius. Priuses have little screens on the dashboard that tell you what gas mileage you're getting, in real time, as you drive. It crossed Frader-Thompson's mind that houses should have something similar. So he built the EnergyHub Dashboard, a little device, with a screen, that can talk wirelessly to your furnace and your various appliances and let you know exactly how much electricity (or gas) each one is using and how much it's costing you. It can also turn appliances on and off and raise or lower the temperature in your house so you can rein in the real power hogs. EnergyHub is currently partnering with utilities for trials and will be available direct to consumers in early 2010.

5. Controller-Free Gaming

Since time immemorial — or at least since Pong — one barrier that has stood between gamers and total Tron-like immersion in their video games has been the controller: the joystick, trackball, mouse, light gun or whatever. This year Microsoft demonstrated a technology, code-named Project Natal, that enables players to control games using only body movements and voice commands, no controller required — the gamer's body becomes the controller. Project Natal uses several cameras, plus a highly specialized microphone and a lot of fancy software, to track the gamer's body and interpret his or her voice. You move your hand, and the Master Chief (or whoever) moves his hand. It's that simple. And that cool.

6. Teleportation

Inching our reality ever closer to Star Trek's, scientists at the University of Maryland's Joint Quantum Institute successfully teleported data from one atom to another in a container a meter away. A landmark in the brain-bending field known as quantum information processing, the experiment doesn't quite have the cool factor of body transportation; one atom merely transforms the other so it acts just like the original. Still, atom-to-atom teleportation has major implications for creating super-secure, ultra-fast computers.

7. The Telescope for Invisible Stars

It's no secret that space is cold. But in some places, it's so frigid that light can't radiate in the visible spectrum, which makes celestial bodies invisible. Now the Herschel Space Observatory is exposing them. Launched in May by the European Space Agency, Herschel scans the skies in the infrared spectrum. In order to avoid infrared interference and temperature fluctuations from Earth, it hovers in space at the second Lagrange point, about 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) away, where the gravity of the Earth and sun balance out. Herschel will operate for at least three years, during which it will watch stars and planets being born, revealing more about how the universe came to be.

Herschel is equipped with a mirror 11.5 ft. (3.5 m) in diameter, the largest ever built for use in space. The spacecraft itself is nearly 25 ft. (7.5 m) tall

8. The AIDS Vaccine

A vaccine is not exactly a novel invention, but one that's designed to fight HIV certainly is. More than 20 years after the AIDS virus was identified, researchers have devised the first immunization to protect people against HIV infection. A six-year trial showed that the vaccine, which consists of two shots that given individually had failed to protect against HIV, is modestly effective, reducing infection 31% among those receiving the regimen vs. those getting a placebo. Scientists are still trying to figure out how the vaccine decreases infection risk, since the shots did not affect the level of virus in the blood of volunteers. And some experts question whether the small effect is indeed significant. The vaccine is not approved for use yet, but it's the first to make any headway against HIV, and that's a start.

9. Tweeting by Thinking

Plenty of people's Twitter feeds appear to be connected directly to their egos, but one scientist's is actually wired to his brain. In April, University of Wisconsin doctoral student Adam Wilson — working with adviser Justin Williams, above — tweeted 23 characters just by thinking. He focused his attention on one flashing letter after another on a computer screen while wearing a cap outfitted with electrodes that monitored changes in his brain activity to figure out which character he wanted. His efforts spelled out "USING EEG TO SEND TWEET," among other messages. The feat marks a major step forward in establishing communication for people with "locked in" syndrome, which paralyzes the body, except for the eyes, but leaves the mind alert. For now, though, it's slow going: with the speediest brain tweeters reportedly managing just eight characters a minute, it's a good thing they're limited to 140.

10. The Electric Eye

MIT researchers are developing a microchip that could help blind people regain partial eyesight. Though it won't completely restore normal vision, it will enable a blind person to recognize faces and navigate a room without assistance. The chip, which is encased in titanium to prevent water damage, will be implanted onto a patient's eyeball. The patient will then wear a pair of eyeglasses equipped with a tiny camera that transmits images directly to the chip, which in turn sends them to the brain. With any luck, human trials are only a few years away.

11. The Mercury Probe
12. The Personal Carbon Footprint
13. The Solar Shingle
14. The Handheld Ultrasound
15. The YikeBike
16. Vertical Farming
17. The Planetary Skin
18. The $20 Knee
19. A Watchdog for Financial Products
20. The Electric Microbe
21. The Bladeless Fan
22. The Custom Puppy
23. The Cyborg Beetle
24. The Biotech Stradivarius
25. The Nissan Leaf
26. The Robo-Penguin
27. The Universal Unicycle
28. YouTube Funk
29. Dandelion Rubber
30. Wooden Bones
31. The Living Wall
32. The School of One
33. The No-Punt Offense
34. The Human-Powered Vending Machine
35. The Handyman's X-Ray Vision
36. Meat Farms
37. Packing, Improved
38. The Foldable Speaker
39. The Levitating Mouse
40. The Edible Race Car
41. The High-Speed Helicopter
42. The Supersuit
43. The Eyeborg
44. Spiderweb Silk
45. The Sky King
46. The Smart Bullet
47. The Fashion Robot
48. The 3-D Camera
49. The Newest Cloud
50. The World's Fastest (Steam-Powered) Car

For contrast, here's their Five Worst list for the year:

The Smile Police

Employees at Keihin Electric Express Railway in Japan have their smiles scanned by software to maximize cheeriness.

The Jane Austen Monster Mashup Novel

It started with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Please let it end soon.

Snuggies for Dogs

It's bad enough that humans wear "the blanket with sleeves." Do we have to put them on dogs as well? Do we really?

The Gas-Mask Bra

You have to admire the good intentions of the inventor who made a bra that converts handily into a pair of gas masks.

Computer Critics

A new standardized test in the U.K. will use software, not humans, to grade student essays. Shakespeare wept.

 

[Calcaneus]

I wonder what the thought process was that went into ranking Natal over an AIDS vaccine (even if it is a small step).

 

[XiaNaphryz]

The No Punt offense shouldn't be on the list either, it's been done forever in videogames after all:

As Sports Illustrated explained in a recent story, Kevin Kelley, coach of the Pulaski Academy football team in Little Rock, Ark., has called for only a single punt in the past two years. Like a seasoned gambler, Kelley has figured out that punting on fourth and long near your own end zone decreases the odds of the other team's scoring by only a relatively slim amount. So going for it will pay off in the long run: Pulaski won a state championship last year and is in the hunt this year too.

 

[DrForester]

The Electric Eye

Who are you? What is that? Oh, what's that? What is that? Ooohh! That thing has numbers on it! Hey, look at that thing! Ewww, what's wrong with your legs? Where are we going? Are you coming back? Oh, you're the lady from the test! Hi! What's that noise? Is that a gun? Ooooooh! What's in he-ere? Do you smell something burning? AGGGHHHHH!

 

[zoku88]

How did controller free get in there?


I wonder if the author knows that quantum teleportation is bounded by the speed of light?


And using computers to grade essays? How does that even sound like something that resembles a good idea?

 

[Cohsae]

Why the fuck is waggle in there?

 

[Jazzy Network]

How the fuck is this considered an invention?

 

[DevelopmentArrested]

Natal over the Aids vaccine? YEAAAH

 

[bachikarn]

I don't see how the Ares can be the best considering its so much like Apollo and had significant problems with it.

 

[AndersTheSwede]

Yawn. There are no real great inventions in Ares. The first stage is a larger version of the Shuttle Solid Rockets, the second stage is an uprated, modernized version of the Apollo second stage.

Is it cool? Hell yeah! Is it some amazing innovation? Fuck no.

 

[D4Danger]

Natal over the Aids vaccine? YEAAAH

A revolutionary new way to interact with technology vs a drug that kinda works.

 

[Unknown One]

Snuggles? What a horrible list.

 

[LocoMrPollock]

Yeah the Natal thing kind of fucks up the whole flow. But some cool shit going on there that I hadn't heard of.

 

[Synless]

A revolutionary new way to interact with technology vs a drug that kinda works.

It's not that impressive though. A 31% reduction in risk of catching HIV is even if it is a small step far more impressive. The electric eye is way more impressive then natal.

 

[Acid08]

A revolutionary new way to interact with technology vs a drug that kinda works.

lol

 

[D4Danger]

lol

It's been done before? links.

And yeah, the eye is far more impressive than Natal.

 

[Count Dookkake]

No Cunsealer on the worst list?

 

[Blader]

#6 sounds more like cloning than teleportation.

 

[Rewrite]

Some of the choices are questionably placed. However, I'll make sure to read all of the entries. Lists are always interesting!

 

[Door2Dawn]

Natal being revolutionary. Now that's funny

 

[Marty Chinn]

Isn't controller free gaming not an invention since you could do it on the Eye Toy back on the PS2?

 

[Jazzy Network]

Natal being revolutionary. Now that's funny

Joke?

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

A revolutionary new way to interact with technology vs a drug that kinda works.

lol

 

[DrForester]

Isn't controller free gaming not an invention since you could do it on the Eye Toy back on the PS2?

There were things that did it even before then. Advanced as Natal is, it's just advancing existing tech.

 

[D4Danger]

Natal being revolutionary. Now that's funny

whatever. Some people have no imagination.

It's probably the same reason Natal threads are filled with people who think the only thing it can do is Wii Sports clones and FPS games.

lol

great post. very insightful.

 

[Calcaneus]

A revolutionary new way to interact with technology vs a drug that kinda works.

AIDS is so much more important than Natal that even a small step towards fighting it deserves more recognition.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

whatever. Some people have no imagination.

It's probably the same reason Natal threads are filled with people who think the only thing it can do is Wii Sports clones and FPS games.



great post. very insightful.

How about this then.

Nobody gives a good goddamn about Natal in the face of an HIV drug that is even marginally successful. Comparing the two is asinine, and putting Natal OVER the HIV drug is insane.

 

[Phantast2k]

Joke?

He's right.
That shit is still based on a promise. What we've seen live could have been done with an eyetoy back in 2003.

 

[legend166]

It's been done before? links.

Obviously not to the same fidelity, but I was popping bubbles with my hands using a webcam back in the late 90s.

 

[BlueWord]

Someone explain to me how you put the Natal over fucking Teleportation. Or the HIV vaccine. Or half the other shit on this list.

I understand there are continuing arguments for gaming's positive influence on society, but geez, nothing gaming-related deserves to be in the top 10 unless it fucking zaps you into an alternate dimension.

Spoiler

On the other hand, I suppose Natal is sort of cool, but I feel like a list like this should be reserved for things that could, potentially, have a positive impact on humanity.

 

[D4Danger]

How about this then.

Nobody gives a good goddamn about Natal in the face of an HIV drug that is even marginally successful.

The only reason everyone is having a hissy fit right now is because Natal is marketed for games (see the post above). If you just step outside that little bubble and look at the other applications it could be used for you'd see where I'm coming from.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

The only reason everyone is having a hissy fit right now is because Natal is marketed for games (see the post above). If you just step outside that little bubble and look at the other applications it could be used for you'd see where I'm coming from.

Name them.

 

[Rewrite]

The only reason everyone is having a hissy fit right now is because Natal is marketed for games (see the post above). If you just step outside that little bubble and look at the other applications it could be used for you'd see where I'm coming from.

Yeah, but that's not what the article is saying. In case you didn't read what it says:

Since time immemorial — or at least since Pong — one barrier that has stood between gamers and total Tron-like immersion in their video games has been the controller: the joystick, trackball, mouse, light gun or whatever. This year Microsoft demonstrated a technology, code-named Project Natal, that enables players to control games using only body movements and voice commands, no controller required — the gamer's body becomes the controller. Project Natal uses several cameras, plus a highly specialized microphone and a lot of fancy software, to track the gamer's body and interpret his or her voice. You move your hand, and the Master Chief (or whoever) moves his hand. It's that simple. And that cool.

So yeah, the other posters are right. For Natal to be above more important discoveries/inventions is downright ridiculous.

 

[Synless]

The only reason everyone is having a hissy fit right now is because Natal is marketed for games (see the post above). If you just step outside that little bubble and look at the other applications it could be used for you'd see where I'm coming from.

The cap that allows you to type with you rnind that's listed at #9 is more impressive and will have better future uses on other products then natal. Let's be serious now.

 

[zoku88]

#6 sounds more like cloning than teleportation.

quantum cloning is impossible.

It really is teleporation (just not Star Trek like.)



Or, if you would like, it's like cloning except that you only end up with one thing... in another place.

And I'm pretty sure teleportation has been performed before, just not as far as a distance as what's mentioned...

 

[hokahey]

Oh for fucks sake. Natal??? :lol :lol :lol

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Snuggles? What a horrible list.

Err, that's in the list of 5 WORST inventions. Do people not read? :lol

 

[Keylime]

Wow...controller free gaming at #5 is a tragedy :lol

 

[Gospel]

Where is the Fleshlight?

Spoiler

Or is that not 2009?

 

[esbern]

wow fucking fail the best thing is the snuggy this magazine sucks

 

[Xeke]

A revolutionary new way to interact with technology vs a drug that kinda works.

:lol

 

[zoku88]

Err, that's in the list of 5 WORST inventions. Do people not read? :lol

Oh wow, I really did miss the fact that there were two separate lists XD

Good thing my computer critic comment doesn't imply what the article said about it XD

 

[legend166]

Am I the only one that thinks that teleportation would pretty much solve 90% of problems in the world?

 

[LizardKing]

Where is the Fleshlight?

Spoiler

Or is that not 2009?

lttp

 

[Zombie James]

#6 sounds more like cloning than teleportation.

One and the same.

 

[JayDub]

Not to rain on Natal's parade; and I hope someone more knowledgeable on the tech can correct me; but haven't the Sony EyeToy been doinf the exact same thing for years?

 

[Vinci]

Wow...controller free gaming at #5 is a tragedy :lol

Priorities, man. Priorities. Gaming is vastly more important than some nonsense like HIV. Who cares about that other than gay people?



...



what have i done?

 

[silverbullet1080]

A revolutionary new way to interact with technology vs a drug that kinda works.

Are you fucking kidding me? A souped up eyetoy versus a working vaccine for a retrovirus, there's no way you can be serious.

 

[DMeisterJ]

revolutionary

:lol

 

[McNei1y]

Well shit Natal is tight.

HIV vaccine is definitely great but hopefully they get that shit down so they can mass produce and help out alotta people.

But while thats in progress, I'll be doing revolutionary Natal shit