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Power-User

Join Date: Feb 2005
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Top 50 Inventions

05/03/2006 12:15 PM

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".

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Guru
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#1

Physical vs. Virtual

05/04/2006 12:02 PM

This seemingly unrelated article makes an interesting point about the nature of modern inventions.

"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."

Thoughts?

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