Top Tech Breakthroughs of 2008

As we approach the end of the year it's time once again for the never-ending stream of retrospectives and year-in-review discussions. Wired has their version of the best technology breakthroughs of 2008. From phones to shrinking laptops to flexible displays, there is no shortage of interesting advancements when looking back at this year. What other groundbreaking advancements were made this year, and what do we have to look forward to for 2009?

Comments

why look back

[wvcaver]

Let's look forward

Re:why look back

[ChienAndalu]

Because people have difficulties remembering the future

Re:why look back

[owlnation]

There's several reasons why magazines and other media look back at this time of year (or any time of the year, for a top 10 kind of thing)

1. It's easy to do. At this time of year, journalists have better things to do than research and write new things. Top 10s are copy-paste jobs.
2. Ad revenue. Top 10's are almost always viral marketing. There's always a few WTF? entries. Those are the ones that the whole article is built around to sock-puppet promote.
3. They are controversial. So, they drive up hits.
4. Oddly, people like them. They are very popular content.

Re:why look back

[Zontar The Mindless]

Because people have difficulties remembering the future

Speak for yourself. ;P

Re:why look back

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us aren't newshounds who sit at the desk all day consuming every little bit of news. These lists sometimes contain items that may be of interest to those of us who don't have a thousand RSS feeds and continuously refresh the /. frontpage.

It's funny that the people who consume the most news seem to see themselves as more enlightened and somehow more willing to pass judgement on news stories.

Yet, if you read studies on propaganda (for instance, Ellul's book), it's always the other way round: the well-informed chattering classes are almost always the targets, and consumers, of propaganda. I can see the cognitive dissonance forming in /.'ers heads now ... "but, BUT, I'm well informed, I just couldn't be targetted by propaganda!"

Re:why look back

[djupedal]

And while WIRED rolls along as at least being interesting, it is still batting a rather low average when it comes to genuinely interesting content, including, but not limited to, the TTBs of 2008. Not bad...not good - so so and holding the fort down until something better finally comes along.

What happened to those great lists that attracted so many fans in the beginning?

Re:why look back

[sleeponthemic]

2. Ad revenue. Top 10's are almost always viral marketing. There's always a few WTF? entries. Those are the ones that the whole article is built around to sock-puppet promote.

No kidding. It isn't as if people don't love it, either. You go to the digg frontpage and there always seems to be atleast one half baked list holding strong.

Re:why look back

[bytethese]

You serious? Dude, that 2023 World Series Game 7 was an instant classic!

Re:why look back

[Hillgiant]

I know! Lets have a top 10 list of reasons why there is a top 10 list! Or,a top 10 list of top 10 lists!

Re:why look back

[lysergic.acid]

so choosing to be uninformed is your solution?

avoiding propaganda by being completely ignorant about the world around you might work if you move to a remote area in the woods/mountains, becoming a hermit/recluse and never speak or listen to anyone ever again. but anyone with some degree of social contact with other people will inevitably be influenced and socialized with the dominant world view of their cultural environment.

the solution isn't voluntary ignorance, which is not only detrimental but also quite dangerous (it increases one's likelihood of being manipulated into embracing dangerous ideologies, since they have no other reference points to assess the ideology with). on the other hand, by taking a more proactive approach and seeking out knowledge for yourself (rather than passively absorbing whatever hegemonic influences surround you), you can account for inherent biases by reading a diverse variety of news sources, ranging from the domestic mainstream media to international and/or independent news sources. thus, by exposing yourself to a wide range of perspectives and opinions, you can consciously assess/analyze/filter the information you consume and make up your own mind.

it also helps to understand sociology, history, logic, philosophy, psychology, etc., which of course doesn't happen if you bury your head in the sand.

Re:why look back

[Anonymous Coward]

And why is this marked as troll? It didn't have the usual string about niggers or shit eating, so what's the deal?

Re:why look back

[avk77]

Or,a top 10 list of top 10 lists! Your wish is granted: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/ Your list is on the right side of the page.

Re:why look back

[dargaud]

So... is there a 'best of list' of all the 'Top 10 lists' of the year, so I can get all my reading done at once ?

Re:why look back

[Da Cheez]

You serious? Dude, that 2023 World Series Game 7 was an instant classic!

Too bad it all had to wind down by 2042...

Re:why look back

[nih]

i just did, and you didn't make the list!

Re:why look back

[Anonymous Coward]

I preferred the Restaurant at the end of the Universe myself.

Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters anyone?

Re:why look back

[sr180]

No, but theres the 50 top ten lists provided by time magazine: here.

Re:why look back

[Anonymous Coward]

If their content was good, then perhaps they would be worth reading! Doesn't matter if you followed tech news or not, these lists are filled with garbage every year.

Last year I can remember seeing a boring HP or Dell laptop (nothing new at all), along with an iPod (meh), a portable hard drive (seriously?) and such garbage, most of which made you wonder how much you have to pay to be on that list. I'm sure this year's list is no better.

Things worth mentioning?
-Cheap & decent performing SSDs from various vendors
-Netbooks are getting more popular
-Core i7 was just released (newest Intel architecture replacing Core 2)
-USB 3 perhaps, but it's not on any motherboard I've seen so far (so you could call it vaporware at this point), but then again, there's also PCI-e 2.0 that's new-ish, DDR3 and all that...
-existing & new virtualization products being free (VMWare ESX, Hyper-V)

Can't really think of anything else worth mentioning.

Re:why look back

[revoldub]

Was this list in descending or ascending order?
I seemed to find the highest ranked (10...9...so on) to be much more interesting than Apple's Apps store.
It also looked as though the first few entries had a much larger summary than the lower ranked numbers. For some reason this just seems to be totally opposite the idea of a countdown to me.

Missing entry:

[Katatsumuri]

0. Year of Linux on the desktop!

Re:Missing entry:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I can't wait for linux to be ready for the desktop. So windows will be forced by the competition to get ready for the desktop too.

Re:Missing entry:

[Zontar The Mindless]

0. Year of Linux on the desktop!

Hello, please check the title - it's "Top Tech Breakthroughs of 2008", not "Top Tech Breakthroughs of 2004".

Re:Missing entry:

[thegnu]

and 11. Slashdot Idle

Re:Missing entry:

[francium de neobie]

No, the year of Linux on the desktop will be on "Top Tech Breakthoughs of Year Aleph-1".

Re:Missing entry:

[Anonymous Coward]

by the time linux is ready for the desktop, there will only be netbooks

Re:Missing entry:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're half-right. They are, in fact, missing an item for position 0 of their array of breakthroughs.

But save your celebration for 2009 or 2010, when Linux finds its way onto even more computers.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Memristor loses out to the Apple App Store..

Wha-What?!!?

Re:WTF?

[Emb3rz]

I feel the same way. Nothing inherently amazing about the technology that drives the App Store. I'll agree it's a breakthrough, insofar as it's highly divergent from an existing model. At the same time, I'm not at all impressed. :)

Re:WTF?

[Daimanta]

It's easy.

The word memristor has no reference to Apple whatsoever. The Apple app store on the other hand clearly portrays itself as being associated with Apple.

The app store wins!

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on the number of times Apple was unnecessarily mentioned in the article, I'm guessing they are a big advertiser with Wired.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on the number of times Apple was unnecessarily mentioned in the article, I'm guessing they are a big advertiser with Wired.

Don't underestimate the Fanboi Factor, either.

Re:WTF?

[Xerolooper]

And I love the statement (yes I rtfa)

Until this year, mobile app developers lacked an easy way to get their software into the hands of consumers, forcing them to make deals with finicky and power-hungry carriers if they wanted to get any distribution at all.

This as apposed to forcing them to make deals with a finicky and power-hungry hardware manufacturer.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I thought they just uploaded their apps to PalmGear. I guess I must be missing something...

Re:WTF?

[Vastad]

I'll agree it's a breakthrough, insofar as it's highly divergent from an existing model.

I would argue that it isn't a technological breakthrough. Rather it is really a marketing, eCommerce or customer psychology breakthrough. A pretty interface that looks like iTunes that people are already familiar with and nurtures that brand loyalty factor. As is said elsewhere and you yourself seem to acknowledge, its all old ideas given that Apple polish.

Bear in mind the memristor is a completely new technology. It didn't even exist beyond being a theoretical element of electronic circuits until this year.

Priya Ganapati (the hack responsible for this list) seems to have taken a page out of classic 4chan anonymous pranking. She has been an immensely successful troll. We are all raging quite appropriately and its generating hits for that article, ensuring that "Apple App Store" is burned into our minds whether we like it or not.

I personally hope she never lives this down.

Blecchhh

[Cornwallis]

So I go to read the "Top Technology Breakthroughs" in TFA and see the link opens a WIRED article. In the space of the article's three pages there are three annoying for a survey and ads - including one from Porsche (how friggin appropriate in these times). I just realized my technology "breakthrough" is to give up on technology because all it seems to do is enable the friggin marketers to "reach" me in new ways.

Re:Blecchhh

[Cornwallis]

left out the word "pop-ups" - (there are three annoying pop-ups for a) SORRY!

Re:Blecchhh

[itsthebin]

maybe adblock and noscript should have been mentioned in the article as I saw none of what you mention.

Re:Blecchhh

[Sepodati]

Popups? You seriously still see popups? Maybe it's time to move off of Netscape Navigator 4...

Re:Blecchhh

[Sepodati]

I read all three pages of the article and I couldn't tell you what a single ad was for, right now. Don't even see them. I'm not blocking them.. they're there... just read right through them and pay no attention, though.

Maybe you should get off the tubes, though, and make some room for the rest of us...

Re:Blecchhh

[Cornwallis]

"I read all three pages of the article and I couldn't tell you what a single ad was for, right now. Don't even see them. I'm not blocking them.. they're there... just read right through them and pay no attention, though." Ahhh...but the fact is they ARE there and they are taking bandwidth. I use adblocker and noscript on my home PC (unfortunately not available as I'm not home) so I think my original point is valid. And don't be so sure about not paying them any attention! The impressions are being made...

Re:Blecchhh

[tsa]

Still on IE 6 are you?

Re:Blecchhh

[popeye44]

Quote: Maybe you should get off the tubes, though, and make some room for the rest of us...

Umm maybe you should block ad's and make some room for yourself.. Ehh?

Re:Blecchhh

[michael_cain]

Echoing others, but with Adblock-Plus and a reasonable blacklist, it is surprising how often I see a comment somewhere about "annoying ads" and ask myself "They have ads on this site?" The underlying battle between the marketers' ability to push content regardless of the readers' wishes and the readers' ability to selectively filter content is probably as socially important as any of the technologies shown in the article.

Solar Charged Laptops?

[William Robinson]

Solar powered laptops, is something I had been waiting for. Maybe I am day dreaming, but the back of LCD panel could be fully covered with Solar Cells and trickle charge the battery, which might run my laptop for 5-6 hours before needing recharge. I guess solar cells have not become that efficient yet, but, is anybody trying it?

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[lobiusmoop]

I live in Scotland, you insensitive clod.

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[jacatro]

Ive heard that Apple's next Ipod will be solar charged- but I think you should get to work on a prototype for that laptop-

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[sleeponthemic]

Solar powered laptops, is something I had been waiting for. Maybe I am day dreaming, but the back of LCD panel could be fully covered with Solar Cells and trickle charge the battery, which might run my laptop for 5-6 hours before needing recharge. I guess solar cells have not become that efficient yet, but, is anybody trying it?

*Yawn* Call me when there is a shade powered laptop

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, then all you have to do is:
a. use your laptop lying on your back so the back of the LCD points towards the sun, or
b. use your laptop on a reflective surface.

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[Carlosos]

Just buy an Acer Aspire One with the 6 cell battery (or buy a 9 cell battery). The 6 cell battery version last 5-6 hours and only uses 13 Watt. If that isn't enough than you can put some solar panels on the back and you can probably double the time.

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[xeoron]

Here is a solar power laptop solution. It's not exactly what you want, but a step in the right direction.

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[maeka]

Solar powered laptops, is something I had been waiting for. Maybe I am day dreaming, but the back of LCD panel could be fully covered with Solar Cells and trickle charge the battery, which might run my laptop for 5-6 hours before needing recharge. I guess solar cells have not become that efficient yet, but, is anybody trying it?

My laptop (Dell 1420) has a 13.13"x9.61" surface area. That is 0.0814 square meters.
Looking at a solar insolation map most of the westernized world would be lucky to average 200W per square meter on an optimally tilted panel.
200W per square meter x 0.0814 square meters = 16.28W.
30% cell efficiency x 16.28W = 4.88W.
Said laptop uses a 56 Watt hour battery and lasts about two and a half hours on it with light use. That is a 22 watt consumption rate.

So using this laptop outdoors with great solar cells and perfect aiming of the lid (which is not the ideal aiming for viewing the screen) will add about 30 minutes to the runtime. In real life conditions you would get much less.

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[Dun Malg]

Maybe I am day dreaming, but the back of LCD panel could be fully covered with Solar Cells and trickle charge the battery

Not really a good place to put solar panels. How much time does a laptop spend with its lid in the sun? Leaving it in the sun kinda' means leaving it out where people can see it... and steal it

I guess solar cells have not become that efficient yet, but, is anybody trying it?

Not really. Because--- just as you surmise--- the efficiency isn't there yet, solar is generally a larger stand alone power generation and storage system, which people then usually use to run their laptops via power cords.

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[Daimanta]

Personally, I'm waiting for a rain and fog powered laptop. If it can be powered by cold that's ok for the winter too.

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[Algan]

Umm, this is impractical on so many levels... Let's see, first of all, I tend to use my laptop opened with about 120 degrees between the display and the keyboard. That means the back of the display is facing slightly down, below the horizon. Even if somehow you manage to use it opened at a sharp angle, you will have to face the sun to have any kind of efficiency. Also, some people prefer to avoid prolonged exposure to the sun, and I presume most geeks fall into this category, which means most of them will use the device in the shade. Finally, I would be reluctant to leave my $2K machine out in the open to charge, which means I would have to keep an eye on it. Dunno about others but I don't find the idea of spending some hours watching a closed laptop charging in the sun too appealing... it sounds akin to watching grass grow.

Now, a better idea would be to have a separate solar panel module that you can unfold and plug into your laptop. This would address most of the above concerns. I'm not sure if it would score you points with the ladies, though...

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[earlymon]

Now, a better idea would be to have a separate solar panel module that you can unfold and plug into your laptop.

Make that sucker a tight-fitting hat with a foil lining and you've really got something!!!!

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[Mhtsos]

Or a fuel cell that runs on whiskey.

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[simplerThanPossible]

The problem is power usage.

I had your idea working a few years ago with a HP200LX - a 300 gram handheld, running DOS on a 186, with a terminal-sized black-and-white LCD display. It used two AA batteries.

Today's laptops use too much power, even the netbooks like the eeePC. Maybe electronic-paper displays, as in Amazon's Kindle, will make this possible again...

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[bronney]

That means the back of the display is facing slightly down, below the horizon.

Ever heard of a mirror?

Re:Solar Charged Laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some dude stole highway department solar panels used for signs and lived in a tent, and powered his laptop. Several years ago. Finally caught, though. Only needed the internet, tent, and scrounged food to survive. Did not affix the panels to his PC, apparently had the panels properly facing the sun, just outside his tent.

Oh dear

[netsavior]

So lets see the advancements are:
Finally implementing a 37 year old technology
A website for buying programs - Apple App store
Actually using flash memory, a fairly old technology
a bathing suit
Actually using a 1978 technology - GPS
A slightly better consumer digital video camera
The third major revision of an old technology - USB 3.0
Microchips that are small
A cellphone operating system
and, presenting, the ONLY actual innovation of 2008

Flexible displays that barely work!

so glad I live in the age of technological miracles

Re:Oh dear

[Shadow of Eternity]

You forgot to mention that most things touted as breakthroughs over the last year won't be on the market for quite some time, and wont be affordable for quite some time after that.

Just look at E-paper, from what I understand it's not nearly as expensive as an equivalently sized LCD display and yet it costs considerably more to get an ebook reader which is for all intents and purposes nothing more than a giant palm pilot.

Re:Oh dear

[SirLurksAlot]

Hey, give them a break. It was a slow year for tech breakthroughs and those end-of-the-year tech articles won't pad themselves you know!

Re:Oh dear

[Albert Sandberg]

I don't know if the LHC should be accounted for this year, but if it missed the list, something is not right.

Re:Oh dear

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad I live in an age where people retort to an article with an almost syntactically nonsensical list, lack of grammar, and borderline nihilistic jibberish.

I guess that is what we get living in an age of technological marvels.

Intelligence, and a forward-looking positive outlook on life, correlates with technological progression.

Re:Oh dear

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, it should be accounted, but after a long debate the wired team opted to take the money from apple and put the appstore instead.

Re:Oh dear

[jellomizer]

2008 was a slow year. But slow years are good too. When break-threws' are smaller that means companies are putting more effort in making the technology more reliable, and better. For example remember all the Crap that was produced during the .COM boom, then after the bubble popped the technology got refined and became productive. Things like usable Web Mail services, Google Maps with features that would have required a special plugin back in the late 90's. I am sure people with professional software development experience has realized when things are slow. You have time to go back and and fix those portions of your code that needs more maintenance and get them running smoother, reduce errors. polish the UI a bit so people don't make so many errors. Recode a sections where the Specs and after hundreds of questions worded differently asking "Are you sure this value or calculation will never change?" and the Boss goes "This will never change we have used this for the past 20 years." only to find out that after the merger that calculation changes every quarter. So you need to take it out of solid code and make it more adjustable.

Refinement is an art in itself often it is more important then innovations.

Secondly; Most technology is derivative of other technology. An impovement of x or y, any technology that is released isn't really a wow this is amazing never seen it before type of thing just an extension of something or something that has been around for time but finally has became consumer friendly.
Lets go with the Radio. Most of the technology was used for telegraph system, so people were use to it. And also for voice communication it was used in the military and for large companies so people have heard of it and many have used it before they became consumer products for homes, the same with the TV, before they could get one at home they know they could do it. And the idea Ok we can send voice over the radio the concept of sending pictures wasn't that far off it just took some refinement of the processes, eg. capturing light and convert it to an electrical signal of different strength. Then accurately taking those signals and send them back to some reaction that can produce a small portion of light at different intensities. No big deal. Just an impovement of technology.
Or this century, the iPod. Just smaller electronics and a nice UI. Nothing new heck slashdot gave it bad reviews and figured it will only last a month. Just because it didn't seem like an innovation of consequence as they have been Mp3 Players before.

Re:Oh dear

[sleeponthemic]

I don't know if the LHC should be accounted for this year, but if it missed the list, something is not right.

If you start accounting for technology conceived prior to this year, you'll open a black hole in that article that not even light can escape. (Plus there have been other colliders, smaller, perhaps, but isn't this more of an engineering marvel?)

Re:Oh dear

[radtea]

The LHC turn-on was an important milestone, but given its current state (broken) it's probably better to wait for actual physics results before talking too much more about it.

Maybe the 2009 "breakthrough" in journalism will be to stop using the word "breakthrough" to describe interesting but incremental improvements.

Re:Oh dear

[MightyYar]

Seriously... My stock market crashing device didn't even make the list!

Re:Oh dear

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at Fermilab you insensitive clod.

Re:Oh dear

[owlnation]

Yeah... as a professional filmmaker, the "HD" abilities of SLR's is a little interesting. I'm all for new advances in tech, and allowing new people and new ideas to enter the field more easily. I can see some situations where this could be useful. For example, an SLR 10mm lens is vastly cheaper than that equivalent for a professional video camera. For (very) short scenes, this could be useful. It may be also useful for tight spaces or for action sequences to have the SLR.

However, the grandiose claims in the article that this will result in lots of arty movies from pro photographers is probably nonsense. The quality of the "HD" from these cameras is not yet really at a professional standard. And stills photography and motion picture photography are really quite different skills. (I guess it might result in long, boring static shots from still photographers, who think this is arty though -- gawd help us all.)

Plus the fact, one of the main differences in conversations you have between professional filmmakers and amateurs, is that amateurs always boast about their gear, and want to talk tech. Whereas professionals talk about light quality, camera moves, filters, gobos, and creative things you can do with fairy lights, ikea lamp shades, skateboards and tennis balls.

A million videos on Youtube are conclusive proof that you can have all the tech you want, but if you don't understand light and camera moves, you will produce low quality crap.

However, for those who have talent and new ideas, these cameras could be helpful.

Re:Oh dear

[Draek]

a bathing suit

And a computer is just 'another calculator', right? don't oversimplify.

A slightly better consumer digital video camera

If you knew anything about how digital cameras are made, specially large-sensor SLRs, you'd know how significant it is.

Flexible displays that barely work!

Gee, I wonder, how good was GPS on 1978?

so glad I live in the age of technological miracles

The fact that we can create such a list out of a *single* year of our lifetimes proves this is the age of technological miracles.

Re:Oh dear

[Pulzar]

For example, an SLR 10mm lens is vastly cheaper than that equivalent for a professional video camera.

SLR lenses are much cheaper than video lenses because they don't have to keep the same focal distance through different zoom ranges, while video lenses do... I.e. while taking pictures, you can zoom in/out and refocus, while with video lenses you have to be able to keep focus while zooming.

That's just one of many limitations of doing video on an SLR camera. I look at it as a great addition to current video equipment (fantastic for some very narrow DOF shots that would require a very expensive video camera instead), but it'll hardly replace it.

Re:Oh dear

[khallow]

For me the problem is product endorsement. Most of these including the swimsuit, the fancy camera, GPS, flash memory, etc aren't impressive or truly all that new to be honest. But I bet they'll help sell some product. I think the first successful launch of the Falcon I rocket beats everything on that list easily. I haven't been keeping up, but there's got to be more out there where that came from.

Re:Oh dear

[dylan_-]

so glad I live in the age of technological miracles

Actually, this is *the* age of technological miracles. If technology continues to improve at an exponential rate, then we'll hit the "Singularity". If it doesn't and we plateau for some reason, that means we won't see this kind of progress again.

However, people like you (PLY?) will never see this progress. Let me give you an example (may not be real (hah! DYSWID?)) of how this works:

Progress 1990: "In 15 years time we'll be showing video on your computer that will be better than you have on a TV set!"
PLY: "Yeah, right. Like I want to watch TV on a crappy little monitor and how come these things are always 15 years away?"

Progress 1995: Demonstration of streaming some video over the Internet
PLY: "Oh, that's great. Barely working video that's the size of a postage stamp. Wake me up when it's anywhere near as good as my old TV!"

Progress 2000: Demonstration of near TV quality streaming on your computer.
PLY: "Huh, what's the use when you can't get the bandwidth to watch anything, it's still not as good quality as TV, and there's no choice of programmes!"

Progress 2005: Demonstration of full screen, HD TV streaming on your computer
PLY: "Please! This is progress? I remember seeing video streaming way back in 1995!"

Check your post to see which stage you're at for each of these...

(p.s. Just joking. Don't take it seriously or personally. Have a great Christmas and New Year! Slainte!)

Re:Oh dear

[Verdatum]

Brilliant! The top tech breakthrough of 2009 shall be a self-padding end-of-the-year tech article! (available 3rd quarter 2012)

Re:Oh dear

[kwerle]

Thanks for the summary. I didn't miss anything, and I found that out in 10 lines of text with no ads.

Re:Oh dear

[netsavior]

hah the irony of your fake mocking at my fake mocking is that I frequently bitch about streaming video :P

Streaming video is still broken! I have to "steal" movies off of bittorrent even with my 5mbps connection because Amazon onebox sucks, netflix streaming sucks. I don't give a whole hell of a damn about quality. I prefer non-HD content because I feel like the message of the movie(the plot not the special effects) is more important than the visual experience, and currently the variety of non-HD content is significantly greater than that of HD. I must admit though that I am guilty of downloading Sarah Connercles in HD format because their website is so broken that it cannot stream to my ubuntu machine (or linux is so broken that adobe refuses to keep Flash up to date or whatever). At any rate, We have all this wonderful streaming content bla bla bla, I still download files in full and then play them because streaming is still 98% unusable in my experience :P how is that for a self fulfiling rant prophecy?

Re:Oh dear

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm hoping you're completely serious so i can laugh at how retarded your sense of entitlement is, but it's hard to tell.

Re:Oh dear

[Anonymous Coward]

memristors are not 37-year-old technology, it has just been known that they should exist since then. Saying it's and old breakthrough is like saying that if someone discovered extraterrestrial life today, it would be old news because most interpretations of the Drake equation imply that there is life elsewhere.

Re:Oh dear

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point. People aren't going to go out and buy a consumer LHC. As such, Wired isn't really interested.

But Pinball for the iPhone, that's amazing.

Re:Oh dear

[lxs]

Read the headline. This is about top tech breakthroughs, not top tech breakdowns.

Re:Oh dear

[eggnoglatte]

I agree with the general sentiment, but you are being a tad unfair to the memristor. It is true that its existence was argued on a theoretical basis 37 years ago, but until this year, nobody had a clue how to build one. Finally figuring that one out is a genuine tech breakthrough (much more so than the flexible displays, which are the result of incremental improvements).

Re:Oh dear

[ignavus]

Seriously... My stock market crashing device didn't even make the list!

Nor did my stock market crashing device turbo power booster.

Re:Oh dear

[LeafOnTheWind]

Mod parent up. The GP is obviously misplaced on Slashdot, given that he clearly doesn't know enough about electrical engineering to pass the first year at a decent university.

Knowing mathematically that something is possible and actually creating the first practical implementation are two entirely different things. Memresistors are a triumph of engineering.

Re:Oh dear

[shutdown -p now]

Just look at E-paper, from what I understand it's not nearly as expensive as an equivalently sized LCD display and yet it costs considerably more to get an ebook reader which is for all intents and purposes nothing more than a giant palm pilot.

If you mean eInk, then it is actually quite a bit more expensive. More than half the price of a typical eInk-based ebook reader is for the screen.

Re:Oh dear

[Shadow of Eternity]

I thought the whole point was that it was simpler and quicker to make than an LCD and was better for use in brightly lit areas but beat out elsewhere...

Re:Oh dear

[shutdown -p now]

was better for use in brightly lit areas

Correct, though some models already come with built-in lighting (not a backlight though, as the screen is not transparent).

it was simpler and quicker to make than an LCD

Not really. Well, maybe they'll get there eventually, but it's certainly not a priority goal today.

eInk is better because it doesn't shine a powerful lamp right in your face, as active TFT essentially does, and in general looks much more like paper with printed text, which is easier on the eyes (and I can confirm that it really is, having used a eInk reader for 2 years now, and recently bought another). It also has some pretty decent DPI already - a screen in your average reader, today (such as Kindle or Sony) is 800x600 150dpi. Now this figure does grow, so we should see 300dpi fairly soon, and that's typographical quality...

Another big selling point is power use. The nature of eInk screens is such that, once the image is drawn on them, it stays drawn. Because of this, the device doesn't operate constantly - when you flip the page, it wakes up briefly, draws the page, and enters sleep again until the next flip (usually also preparsing & caching the next page, so that it can immediately start drawing it on wake-up). This is why the battery life figures for those readers are not given in hours, but in "page flips" - how many pages you have to flip in a row to drain it. A typical number is 3000-6000 (in practice, more often it's closer to 3000, of course) - so 6-12 books. For a lot of people, this means that a single charge is enough to last the reader through a two-week vacation, which can be pretty convenient.

Re:Oh dear

[Shadow of Eternity]

Now if only they could make one that's actually comfortable to hold for long periods of time. All the ones i've had the opportunity of tinkering with so far seemed to be trying very hard to put the controls exactly where your thumb wouldn't be while holding it in any remotely comfortable position.

Memristor

[Anonymous Coward]

Hp's memristor.

Hmmm...

[cjjjer]

It was looking good till I saw the Andriod (cellphone operating system)? WTF? Regardless if it's open source or not it's a friggin' cell phone, where is the breakthrough in that?

Pluheezzz...

Re:Hmmm...

[entgod]

Don't worry, the list only got worse after that.

what did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, number seven on the list was a freaking swimsuit.

Re:what did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

.. and it was nowhere near as good as the water-soluble bikini.

Globalsolar

[Kupfernigk]

Globalsolar of Tucson, Az. make 6W panels using the latest (and relatively efficient) non-silicon technology, but in most locations you will need at least 5 of them to run even a netbook. You certainly don't want them on the back of the lid as (a) they would take up far too much space but (b) do you really want to run a laptop while facing full sunlight?

I am building an experimental rig to measure the actual power available from 2 of them mounted in the best position (i.e. facing south at the best angle for each season) over the year, and I hope to report on this for the south of the UK in early 2010. In the meantime, don't hold your breath for a feasible, lightweight solution.

not so much breakthroughs as commercial hits

[petes_PoV]

Most of the items listed have been around or known about for a long time.

The thing that made them a success in 2008 (except for USB 3 - which shouldn't be on the list as it's merely an administrative milestone, so far - wait until the real products become mainstream) was being adopted in popular products. Flash, GPS and swimwear aren't new. Flexible screens and memristors are valid entries - and the rest simply shouldn't be there.

Misleading Title..

[Rytr23]

The OP forgot to mention this is about GADGETS, not "Technology" as a whole. If it were, it would be an embarrassing list. As it stands, a couple of the items are interesting, and most are more about implementation of fairly common ideas being the "breakthrough".

Too bad no one will ever know because no one actually RTFA.

boring year in technology

[Geoffrey.landis]

Yes, the article really underlines that 2008 was a boring year in technology. Flash memory? GPS? Sure, both are technologies that continue to evolve and get new applications, but if the top ten list can't find anything that isn't this old, it really must have been a year not much happened. Better Speedos? Really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I'd go for Tesla motors shipping their first electric roadster as top ten news, myself, but that may be so old hat for/. readers nobody cares to read it.

Re:boring year in technology

[tsa]

I would put the same thing on top. For the first time in over 100 years we have an electric car again that can do over 100 km/h! And not a bit over, but more than twice as fast! Now if it only ran on fuel cells instead of batteries. Or better, you could choose between batteries and solar cells. That would be a real breakthrough.

App store a breakthrough=

[tsa]

The fact that the App store is called the most incredible technological breakthrough of 2008 proves for me that Steves RDF is bigger than ever. Its not new )we have had internet shops for more than 10 years now', and no new technology is involved.

There's innovation, just not in WIred

[Animats]

Part of the problem is Wired, or "Tired", which has turned into a sort of Sharper Image catalog. (Sharper Image itself is defunct.) Wired doesn't really have reporters any more; just "editors" and ad reps. Hence their product orientation.

More significant tech events this year include:

• Big Dog. At last, robust legged robots.
• Cheap "netbook" computers. The price point in laptops is dropping.
• Wind farms that are really big. The US has about 18 GW of installed wind capacity, more is going in at a rapid rate, and wind power companies are making money. At last, it's a serious source of power.
• The Tesla car, first delivered in 2008. Yes, it's overpriced, but for the first time, the range and performance are there.

Those are all more significant than anything in Wired's list.

There's probably good stuff in the bio field too, but I don't follow that.

Re:There's innovation, just not in WIred

[theredshoes]

I have never heard of Big Dog, but I will check it out. I would not mind buying some Plastic Logic shares and letting them sit, never know. I thought that cell phone was impressive how it opened up to display another screen.

I had always wished I had put money in Google when I knew about it in time to invest and make money off of their shares, but I missed it because well, I didn't have any expendable money to put in stocks like the small amount of money I do now because I had ten more years to build my life savings up, LOL.

The Memristor was interesting too, that would change the computer industry quickly, so money could be made on that too.

I have no idea what a Tesla car is, I will look it up. Sounds like The Dolorean or something. Lets hope the owner of Tesla doesn't have a coke habit. LOL

Re:There's innovation, just not in WIred

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Honda's hydrogen car? Per Top Gear the Tesla is already pointless.

Ok

[Anonymous Coward]

10. Flexible Displays

Bring these out already. Although I'm sure they'll just be loaded with popover and Flash ads. At least paper has that advantage.

9. Edible Chips

This just seems freaky. "Here, swallow this chip, it'll just be used for monitoring, I swear. Be gone in no time." And now the government can track me. Thanks, no.

8. Speedo LZR

How about using the same goddamn technology in the Olympics so that new technology can't give people an unfair advantage over people years ago who had to make do with, you know, normal stuff?

7. Flash Memory

Until the problem of limited write cycles is fixed, this WILL NOT replace HDs. People underestimate how many times an OS writes to things like page files and temporary memory (ESPECIALLY WINDOWS!). Nice for a replacement for portable data (floppies/CDs/DVDs), not so much for the actual drive. HDs are going nowhere unless we're just completely stupid, and given the stupid technologies that replace perfectly good, superior technologies these days (LCDs, holy fuck people, are you nuts?), I wouldn't be surprised.

6. GPS

Meh, getting lost is half the fun.

5. The Memristor

This needs to come out. NOW.

4. Video-Capable SLRs

A NORMAL (PICTURE) CAMERA DOES NOT SHOOT VIDEO. THIS IS WHY WE HAVE A MARVELOUS INVENTION CALLED A "VIDEO CAMERA". MAYBE YOU HAVE HEARD OF IT. Modern technology's unhealthy fascination to merge every single technology together into a jack-of-all-trades device (master of none, remember) is just disturbing.

3. USB 3.0

Yay, let's make an already error-prone bus that I've had nothing but problems with (connection, reliability, etc) since USB 1.0 EVEN FASTER. This will end well. Serial and parallel was much more reliable, but poor users have to turn their computers off for a second to hook up something.

2. Android

See #4. We don't need a PHONE to do everything under the sun.

1. Apple's App Store

See #2 and #4. This is just another way to take money from people with more money than brains.

EEStor

[wonkavader]

The clear big winner, in terms of impact for the world might be EEStore's supercapacitor.

It was developed (it appears) in 2008. It will (if it's real and works) make electric cars actually happen and actually be good, radically change how we think about charging cell phones, IPods, etc.

The problem is it might be snake oil.

Re:EEStor

[nateman1352]

You can't give EEStor any credit until they publicly demonstrate a working device.

Re:EEStor

[michael_cain]

EEStor has been making public claims for at least three years, possibly longer (I know I read the patent app more than two-and-a-half years ago). If it's real, it's definitely a breakthrough -- a relatively thin insulator layer that withstands 3500 volts. TTBOMK, they have yet to demonstrate a working device in public. Depending on how you want to determine the year to which it should be assigned, the breakthrough was either a few years back, or has yet to occur.

creators' newclear power tops charts again

[Anonymous Coward]

no surprise there. coupled with the wwwildly popular planet/population rescue initiative/mandate, it'll be topping the breakthrough records consistently forevermore.

What?!

[nateman1352]

The memristor could potentially add 10-20 years to Moore's Law and the iPhone app store is worth more than it? These idiots don't even know what it is, memory RESISTOR not transistor.

App Store is not new technology

[jopsen]

App store is not new technology... It's just known technology applied in a way the makes it usable... In fact, package management isn't a new technology, though *intentional* the backdoor is kind of innovative...
The only thing that's new about it, is that existing technology, e.g. package manager and payment system, have been integrated in a user friendly manner....

This list is All Wrong.

[upuv]

I have a few issues with this list.

First off. The author was clearly asleep from years. 2002 - 2007. As that was the time period of this list.

Secondly where is the drum roll for number 1. David Letterman set the top ten standard and it's a good one. The #1 one slot should definitely be proceeded by:

"and the top Top Tech Breakthrough of 2008 is................."
When the LHC on 19 September 2008 had a liquid helium breakthrough saving man kind from the certain oblivion of a black whole on earth.

Obvious!

[Cally]

2008 waz teh yere of teh lolcat!!!!

Missing entry: BYD F3DM production plug-in hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

They missed the F3DM plug-in hybrid electric vehicle from China, $22,000, even though they covered it in March.

Fire-eagle rather.

[kalinin]

Sigh. It's way too late to earn any karma, but I am inpressed no other geeks noticed it. "Yahoo's Firebird" should be "Yahoo's Fire Eagle", a GPS something or other. I can't believe I actually wikipedia'd this....