Top Gadgets that Changed the world......!

Top  Gadgets that Changed the world......!

•  Light Bulb

It was invented by as many as 23 people, most notably Thomas Edison, who patented his system in 1878. His first bulb used a carbon filament and lasted 13.5 hours; early incandescent bulbs were assembled by hand.

 

• Alarm Clock

Alarm clocks predate the Seth Thomas brand by centuries, but the clockmaker's 1876 model fit on a nightstand and helped drag the Industrial Revolution out of bed. 

 

•  Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell's interest in the education of deaf people-he began teaching at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes in 1871-led him to invent the microphone and, in 1876, the telephone, which he called the "electrical speech machine." In a 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics, Bell said, "To tell the truth, as a practical man, I did not quite believe it; as a theoretical man, I saw a speaking telephone by which we could have the means of transmitting speech and reproducing it in distant places. But it really seemed too good to be true, that one could possibly create, by the action of the voice itself, electrical impulses intense enough to serve any practical purpose." The device debuted at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, leading Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro to exclaim: "My God, it talks!"

•  Personal Computer

The forerunners of modern personal computers were introduced in the mid-1970s as kits. Little did pioneers like Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who wrote programming language for the MITS Altair 8800 kit, or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who designed the skeletal Apple I, know what was in store. The Apple II, which debuted in 1977 with color graphics and an attachable floppy disk drive, ushered in a new technological era-and when IBM introduced its Personal Computer in 1981, the PC began its slow acceptance as a crucial business tool instead of merely a geeky toy. In 1983, there were 10 million personal computers in the U.S.; today 80 percent of American households have a notebook or PC, creating unprecedented levels of efficiency, capability, and access to news, music and entertainment. 

 

• Hypodermic Syringe

The promise of the hollow needle, invented in 1844, was realized a century later as injected vaccines spared millions from polio, tuberculosis, rabies and more.

 

•  Television

The origins of television stretch back to the late 19th century, to a time before it was even technically feasible. In 1877, civil servant George Carey was already sketching drawings for a "selenium camera" that would allow people to "see by electricity;" at the same time, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were theorizing about telephones that could transmit images along with sound. Modern television was demonstrated in 1939 at the New York World's Fair-and soon TV beamed dramatic images of the Civil Rights movement; political debate and casualties of war; astronauts, pop musicians, sports heroes and more directly into American living rooms. In 1949, fewer than 1 million U.S. households had a TV; four years later, that number had ballooned to 25 million. For a half-century, TV has stood as the No. 1 source for Americans' news and entertainment, and today, 99 percent of U.S. households have a TV. We spend an average of 2.8 hours per day watching them.

• Radio

Police switchboards jammed. Drivers fled cities. Doctors volunteered to treat the injured. Why all the ruckus? On Oct. 30, 1938-the day before Halloween-Orson Welles presented a radio play he based on H.G. Wells's sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds. The Mercury Theatre on the Air presentation sounded like a news broadcast of a Martian invasion, complete with fake bulletins that interrupted dance music. The resulting hysteria dramatically revealed the power of gadget No. 2, the first instrument of instant mass communication. Patented in England in 1896 as "wireless telegraphy" by Guglielmo Marconi-who based his work on technology developed by Nikola Tesla-radios were in 80 percent of U.S. homes by the time those aliens landed in New Jersey.

•  Mobile/Smartphone

With origins tracing back to Finland and Japan in the '70s, mobile phones have fast become the most widely used gadgets in the world. The first billion units sold in 20 years, the second billion in four and the third billion in two. By the end of 2010, the subscription rate stood at 5 billion, or 75 percent of all people on earth. The tech leaped forward in 1983 with the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, the first truly portable cellphone. The smartphone, with us since 2000, is now a pocket-size PC. Wireless and GPS- and multimedia-enabled, it facilitates instantaneous personal connections that make phone conversations seem like cave paintings. People of developing nations, even those without an electrical grid, can tap into the world's commerce and culture. After a scant 11 years of development, the device seems to have limitless potential.