Top Inventions of 2007

Gibbs-Duhem writes "Time Magazine is reporting on the best inventions of the year. The top invention is the somewhat well-known iPhone, but there are some extremely cool projects included that I had certainly never heard of, including a device for capturing waste heat from car engines to increase efficiency up to 40%, a novel car designed to run entirely on compressed air claiming to have a range of 2000km with zero pollution, a James Bond style GPS tracking device that police can use to avoid high-speed chases, a small-scale printing press capable of printing and binding a paperback book in 3 minutes for under $3/book (and $50k per machine), a microbe-based technology for turning soft sand into sandstone, a water-based display which uses computer controlled nozzles to produce coherent gaps in the water, and a way to convert type A, B, and AB-negative blood into type O."

Comments

I'm sorry but no

[brejc8]

This has gone too far. There is no way you can place the iPhone as the top "Invention". It is a phone just like any other but with a lot of features you would expect on a phone removed. No novelty or ingenuity. The only thing that it has going for it is that it looks nice. If looking nice is a quality of a great invention then I proclaim the Mona Lisa as the greatest invention of Leonardo da Vinci. I will be hearing next that the iPhone gets the Nobel peace prize as well.

Re:I'm sorry but no

[Red Flayer]

Not for nothing, but how about RTFAing and bothering to address the reasons they picked the iPhone?

I happen to disagree with them as well, for many of the same reasons as you. However, they do (to a certain extent) try to address exactly what you're saying.

Of course, I believe that they picked the iPhone because it'll drive traffic, not because it's truly the #1 invention in their minds. I simply can't see how the iPhone is a better invention than a device/method to strip blood of its AB antigens.

Oh, and PS:

If looking nice is a quality of a great invention then I proclaim the Mona Lisa as the greatest invention of Leonardo da Vinci.

Meh. She's ugly. Plus, that's a painting, not an invention. I proclaim daVinci's wire tensile strength tester as his greatest invention (since it was actually put to use, unlike his helicopter plans).

Re:I'm sorry but no

[Pharmboy]

Of course, I believe that they picked the iPhone because it'll drive traffic, not because it's truly the #1 invention in their minds.

Which is reason enough to not RTFA, as it is designed to generate traffic, not provide any useful information. Of course, the editors here at /. could have chosen to NOT quote an article that is solely designed to get linked on /. and digg.

Re:I'm sorry but no

[revscat]

There is no way you can place the iPhone as the top "Invention". It is a phone just like any other but with a lot of features you would expect on a phone removed.

RTFA.

The reason they chose to give it to the iPhone wasn't based upon a checklist of features, but because of how well it was designed and the impact it has had. Apple knows how to make products that people enjoy using. That is a difficult thing to do.

The only thing that it has going for it is that it looks nice.

Looks nice and behaves nice.

Most geeks don't understand design, and in fact disregard design considerations as nothing more than eye candy. This is foolish. Design is about taking the human into consideration. Frank Lloyd Wright is a good example: while his structures were beautiful, a large part of their elegance was due to the consideration he gave to his users. He never once forgot that he was creating something that would be used by people.

Apple understands that strong design makes for strong products. The mistake people like you make is that you think design is about looks: skins for Winamp, etc. It's not. Design is about the whole experience, of which elegance and beauty is a part, but only a part.

Re:I'm sorry but no

[2nd Post!]

Maybe you have no sense of perspective.

Think of the iPhone today and the computer of 10 years from now.

Time is probably thinking the iPhone, today, is like the original Mac or Lisa 25 years ago. In that sense, the iPhone is likely to dictate how all computing will occur in 10 years.

If they are right, then it does qualify as invention of the year.

Re:I'm sorry but no

[Anonymous Coward]

Average? Average in the US maybe. Check out Japanese phones some time, 5MP camera, autofocus lens, Xenon flash, VGA screen. They make the iPhone look like a toy for stupid Americans who need everything so dumbed down it's insulting to anyone who can actually read.

Re:I'm sorry but no

[nine-times]

...maybe there should be a distinction between incremental inventions and novel (meaning really new) inventions.

I agree that there's some sort of distinction to be made there, but it's fuzzy at best. Look deeply enough into the most novel of inventions, and you'll find that's it's basically cobbled together from already-existing inventions and well-known principles. That's just how these things work.

But I agree that I don't think of the iPhone as an "invention". Even though I think it's cool and innovative, it just doesn't do anything that hasn't been done elsewhere. I might consider the whole multi-touch thing an invention, but it's only part of the iPhone, and it existed elsewhere first.

Yeah

[dedazo]

The iPhone is the coolest and best designed closed-off brick of the year. Nay, the decade.

Such a great device with so much potential, it's just a shame. And I really don't even blame Apple. It's this country's telecomm industry that's broken.

My Two Cents

[Internet Ronin]

Look, I'm an iPhone owner, and I love the damn thing, no question about it.

It was worth every penny, and then some; the SDK should only make it better.

However, that said, labeling it as "Invention of the Year" is a pretty sad state of affairs for the country. I'm pretty medical, environmental, and social breakthroughs deserve FAR more attention.

I'd hate to tell the guy with cancer that the really cool virus that eats cancer cells could've had a ton more funding for R & D if only it had one Time's Invention of the Year.

The iPhone is cool, no question, but it is the height of frivolity, and can't possibly compare with all the other wonderful things mankind is dreaming up and making a reality that deserve far more press coverage than the iPhone has already gotten.

Not that I'm complaining too loudly, my Apple stock just keeps on truckin'

Re:The iPhone as a weapon against the cell carrier

[dave420]

Apple is doing NOTHING to break the hegemony. Apple released a phone which does barely nothing more than other phones on the market (and indeed a lot less than some), tied to a single network (which was THEIR choice), and then charged massive amounts of money for the phones. And what happened? People who either don't use phones a lot, or people who love marketing spiel, or people who love apple, bought the flying shit out of them. Apple is one of the bad guys! This article is saying that a product that isn't better than any others, but which costs more and is locked more and runs less software is somehow better than, say, any other mobile out there? That's what's truly horrifying about this. The only thing Apple is changing is how much people will pay for a mediocre phone. And currently that's $400, with a contract. Jesus.

Re:The air car

[rubycodez]

in real life compressed air motors get about 7-15% efficiency in industrial applications, the compressed air car is a horrible waste of energy