MSN.com put up its list of top 50 inventions of "our time" today.
I find it interesting that the first (chronologically) was the TV remote. Probably related to the fact that this story was posted under "Men's Lifestyle".
"Around 1900, most inventions concerned physical reality: cars, airplanes, Zeppelins, electric lights, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, bras, zippers. In 2005, most inventions concern virtual entertainment—the top 10 patent-recipients were IBM, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Matsushita, Samsung, Micron Technology, Intel, Hitachi, Toshiba and Fujitsu—not Boeing, Toyota or Victoria's Secret. We have already shifted from a reality economy to a virtual economy, from physics to psychology as the value-driver and resource-allocator."