What has been invented in the 21st century? (1 Viewer)

[Leroy Hoard]

The 21st century needs to have an auto-editor created.

 

[Mr. Know-It-All]

Smellivision. Invest now before it takes off.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

Smellivision. Invest now before it takes off.

Your idea stinks.

 

[Rove!]

Not really science, but will blow your mind

RIP

 

[roadkill1292]

Probably repeating myself here but the thing I probably underestimated most while following driverless car development was how powerful a force V2V communication would become. A lot of our traffic problems are caused by restrictive rules made necessary by the fact that we can't possibly know very much about fellow drivers. We human drivers function in a vacuum. When your car is swapping data with dozens or even hundreds of other cars in the vicinity, it can make decisions about speed and route that will make every trip safer and more efficient.

Lost in that lengthy New Yorker story was an anecdote about a couple of engineers out on a run in a self-driving car when it suddenly slowed for no apparent reason. The engineers thought at first they had a computer malfunction only to discover that the car's sensors had detected a deer alongside the road too far ahead for humans to recognize.

 

[Whitetail Hunter]

Crypto Currencies

Most notably, Bitcoins

 

[Dan Lambskin]

Smellivision. Invest now before it takes off.

Would improve porns

 

[(HULK)]

Smellivision. Invest now before it takes off.

Would improve porns

No it wouldn't.

 

[phrozen]

Shake Weight FTW

 

[Vrana]

good god man, you can't expect anyone to read that.

I highly recommend it. That's a great, entertaining, educational article. Well worth the time.

Thanks for posting it (HULK)

 

[Rove!]

3D Printed organs/bones

wireless electricity will become mainstream

Google Glass

Google Cars

Palcohol

 

[Ilov80s]

At the ARS Electronic Center, will report back later.

 

[Rove!]

At the ARS Electronic Center, will report back later.

update?

 

[Rove!]

BioBots

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/tiny-bio-bots-walk-using-real-muscle-tissue-n145746

living tissue. Rashid Bashir, head of bioengineering at the University of Illinois, leads the effort to build "bio-bots" that use muscle cells culled from rats to get around. The muscle is wrapped around a simple, flexible 3-D printed "skeleton," and stimulated electrically; when the muscle contracts, the tiny contraption takes a "step" forward. The speed can be controlled by the frequency of electrical pulses.

 

[ClownCausedChaos2]

BioBots

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/tiny-bio-bots-walk-using-real-muscle-tissue-n145746

living tissue. Rashid Bashir, head of bioengineering at the University of Illinois, leads the effort to build "bio-bots" that use muscle cells culled from rats to get around. The muscle is wrapped around a simple, flexible 3-D printed "skeleton," and stimulated electrically; when the muscle contracts, the tiny contraption takes a "step" forward. The speed can be controlled by the frequency of electrical pulses.

Yeah, that doesn't sound like the beginnings of the Terminator AT ALL.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

Top 7 Threads

 

[Ilov80s]

At the ARS Electronic Center, will report back later.

update?

The museum wasn't what I expected. It was all speculative: things that were being researched and developed that may be used in the future. It was off. Beautiful place, tons of cool hands on stuff, but I couldn't really tell you something new that was invented. There's a room full of sewage that is used to power the electricity. That's cool, sort of.

 

[FlapJacks]

http://www.cnet.com/news/ultrasound-creates-a-haptic-shape-that-can-be-seen-and-felt/

One step closer to a Holodeck

 

[cstu]

when was 3D printing invented? I think the advances in 3D printing have a lot of potential to drive innovation

I saw a 3D printer in the mid 90s.

Did you see one do this?

Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) is apparently 25 to 100 times faster than traditional 3D printing techniques.

 

[the moops]

bad ###

 

[Fennis]

when was 3D printing invented? I think the advances in 3D printing have a lot of potential to drive innovation

I saw a 3D printer in the mid 90s.

Did you see one do this?

Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) is apparently 25 to 100 times faster than traditional 3D printing techniques.

3D printer in the 70s

 

[Tennessee_ATO]

Someone may have mentioned it already, but the invention of the blue LED is a big frigging deal. Applications are staggering.

 

[cstu]

Carbon3D's TED talk.

Mind-blowing breakthrough, folks.

 

[cstu]

Someone may have mentioned it already, but the invention of the blue LED is a big frigging deal. Applications are staggering.

Technically a 20th century invention (90's) but its impact has only started to be felt.

 

[Riversco]

Cryptocurrency - Bitcoin was the first one invented in 2009. Its not certain what its future is, but it is definitely a 21st century thing. We may not see if fully realized for decades if at all.

Fracking on horizontal oil wells - Invented in the 21st century, this technique vastly increased the oil supply in the 21st century, as oil that was previously thought to be unreachable at a decent cost was suddenly available. Fracking was originally invented as a vertical well technique but they figured out how to do it horizontally this century.

I see EGs point that it doesn't seem like a lot was invented this decade, but it a bit unfair since major innovations like unmanned drones, many internet services, and Apple's hardware line all got invented very very late in the 20th century. Amazon for example was founded in 1994 and didn't truly become Amazon until like 2 or 3 years before the 21st century.

 

[jon_mx]

Once Al Gore invented the Internet, everything else just seems muh.

 

[jon_mx]

Carbon3D's TED talk.

Mind-blowing breakthrough, folks.

Awesomeness.

 

[Rove!]

Thync

 

[Rove!]

I think EG is right, despite the long term trend in information explosion, new product introductions and patents, we're due for a slow century.

Nope if anything the rate of invention is progressing geometrically. We aren't slowing down at all.

I agree. However, it seems innovation is more focused on improvement than creation right now. I'm just wondering if that's part of a natural ebb and flow or whether we've reached a plateau of sorts. It feels a bit like the latter right now, but I'm certainly not making a declaration to that end, I don't know nearly enough to do so. I was just hoping to foster some spirited discussion on the subject.

It really just depends on how you look at things. Look at communication. We've been communicating for milenias. First spoken words, then written, then telegrams, then phones, then email, then cell phones, then video conferencing, next probably in VR. At the bottom line, its still communication. You can say a smart phone is just a better telephone, but really thats just saying its a better way of talking and we've been doing that forever.

I would say a smart phone is a :1) Better phone

2) Better internet (mobile)

3) Mobile GPS

Etc. Nothing about it is a new invention on its face, it's improving a number of different things at once and putting it together in a portable package. Staggering, to be sure, but compared to the advance of say, the telephone as a way to communicate rather than via physical mail, it's not something "new." You see what I mean? I understand it's night and day compared to a 1940s rotary dial phone, but it's more a way of consolidating and packaging several other ideas in a handheld device rather than being an entirely unique concept.

modern phone replaces

- phone

- watch

- camera

- video camera

- gps

- radio

- notepad

among many other things....it's still called a "phone", but it had evolved into something completely different...