Modern Gadgets

Think of the gear you can't live without The smartphone you constantly check. The camera that goes with you on every vacation. The TV that serves as a portal to binge-watching and -gaming. Each owes its influence to one model that changed the course of technology for good.

It's those devices we're recognizing in this list of the 50 most influential gadgets of all time.

Some of these, like Sony's Walkman, where the first of their kind. Others, such as the iPod, propelled an existing idea into the mainstream. Some were unsuccessful commercially, but influential nonetheless. And a few represent exciting but unproven new concepts (looking at you Oculus Rift).

Rather than rank technologies—writing, electricity, and so on—we chose to rank gadgets, the devices by with consumers let the future creep into their present. The list—which is ordered by influence—was assembled and deliberated on at (extreme) length by TIME's technology and business editors, writers and reporters. What did we miss?

Modern Gadgets that Changed our Lives

1.  Google Glass

Google Glass, which cost $1,500 for those invited to a sort of public beta test, never took off. The relatively powerful head-mounted computer provided important signals for the future of wearable technology. Glass showed that designers working on computing devices that are worn face a different set of assumptions and challenges. Glass, for example, made it easy for users to surreptitiously record video, which led some restaurants, bars and movie theatres to ban the device. Glass also showed the potential pitfalls of easily identifiable wearables, perhaps best proven by the coining of the term "Glassholes" for its early adopters. While Glass was officially shelved in 2015, augmented reality—displaying computer-generated images over the real world—is a concept many companies are still trying to perfect. Google included.

2. DJI Phantom

Small drones may soon be delivering our packages, recording our family get-togethers and helping first responders find people trapped in a disaster. For now, they're largely playthings for hobbyists and videographers. Chinese firm DJI makes the world's most popular, the Phantom lineup. Its latest iteration, the Phantom 4, uses so-called computer vision to see and avoid obstacles without human intervention. That makes it easier for rookie pilots to fly one, making drones more accessible than ever.

3. Nest Thermostat

Developed by the "godfather of the iPod," Tony Fadell, the Nest Learning Thermostat was the first smart home device to capture mass market interest following its launch in 2011. Pairing the iconic round shape of classic thermostats with a full-colour display and Apple-like software, the Nest features considerable processing power. (For instance, its ability to use machine learning to detect and predict usage patterns for heating and cooling a home.) As interesting as the device itself is, the Nest thermostat really turned heads in 2014 when the company behind it was bought by Google for $3.2 billion. The search engine giant turned the device into the centre of its smart home strategy with hopes of ushering in an age of interconnected devices that will make everyday living more efficient.
4. Fitbit

Pedometers have been around for centuries (seriously, look it up), but it was Fitbit that helped bring them into the digital age and to the masses. The company’s first device, released in 2009, tracked users' steps, calories burned and sleep patterns. Most importantly, it allowed users to easily upload all that data to the company’s website for ongoing analysis, encouragement or guilt. Priced at $99, the Fitbit showed that wearables could be affordable. The company sold more than 20 million of the devices in 2015.

5. Roku Netflix Player

An inexpensive upstart running Linux, Roku's hockey-puck sized Netflix-and-more video streaming box emerged out of nowhere in 2010 to rally waves of cord-cutters who cancelled their cable. What its chunky remote lacked in features, the box more than made up for in software. While at first Apple struggled to rationalize its comparably barren Apple TV-verse, Roku was offering thousands of channels and the most partnerships with the biggest players.

6. Oculus Rift

2016's Oculus Rift virtual reality headset could wind up a total flop and we'd still grant Oculus a special place in computing history. And not just because Facebook paid $2 billion for the device's parent company foreseeing a future of social interaction and virtual vacationing provided by VR. Whatever happens next, the Rift, along with ebullient creator Palmer Luckey, will be remembered for reinvigorating the notion of strapping awkward-looking things to our faces in trade for the privilege of visiting persuasively real imaginary places.

7. Webcam

Perhaps not really taking off as an individual gadget in its own right, the birth of the webcam certainly influenced the way modern technology is built today. Very few laptops are now made without a built-in webcam, and the cameras on phones are utilized to allow video calling. It meant that computer software such as Skype allows meetings to be held over long distances, and friends and family can stay in touch in a more personal way than just being able to hear their voice.


8. GPS

The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a space-based radio navigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force. It is a global navigation satellite system that provides geolocation and time information to a GPS receiver anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.The GPS system does not require the user to transmit any data, and it operates independently of any telephonic or internet reception, though these technologies can enhance the usefulness of the GPS positioning information. The GPS system provides critical positioning capabilities to military, civil, and commercial users around the world. The United States government created the system, maintains it, and makes it freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver.

9. H.P Deskjet

Obsoleting noisy, lousy dot matrix technology, devices like 1988's HP DeskJet gave computer owners the ability to quietly output graphics and text at a rate of two pages per minute. The DeskJet wasn't the first inkjet on the market, but with a $995 price tag, it was the first one many home PC users bought. Over the 20 years following the product's launch, HP sold more than 240 million printers in the DeskJet product line, outputting Christmas letters, household budgets, and book reports by the millions. Even in an increasingly paperless world, the inkjet's technology lives on in 3-D printers, which are fundamentally the same devices, only extruding molten plastic instead of dye.

10.Laptop

A laptop, often called a notebook or "notebook computer", is a small, portable personal computer with a "clamshell" form factor, an alphanumeric keyboard on the lower part of the "clamshell" and a thin LCD or LED computer screen on the upper part, which is opened up to use the computer. Laptops are folded shut for transportation, and thus are suitable for mobile use.Although originally there was a distinction between laptops and notebooks, the former being bigger and heavier than the latter, as of 2014, there is often no longer any difference.Laptops are commonly used in a variety of settings, such as at work, in education, in playing games, Internet surfing, for personal multimedia and general home computer use.

A standard laptop combines the components, inputs, outputs, and capabilities of a desktop computer, including the display screen, small speakers, a keyboard, hard disk drive, optical disc drive pointing devices (such as a touchpad or trackpad), a processor, and memory into a single unit. Most 2016-era laptops also have integrated webcams and built-in microphones. Some 2016-era laptops have touchscreens. Laptops can be powered either by an internal battery or by an external power supply from an AC adapter. Hardware specifications, such as the processor speed and memory capacity, significantly vary between different types, makes, models and price points.

11.Smartphone

A smartphone is a portable personal computer with a mobile operating system with features useful for handheld use. Smartphones, which are typically pocket-sized (as opposed to tablets, which are much larger than a pocket), have the ability to place and receive voice/video calls and create and receive text messages, have virtual assistants (such as Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, Cortana, Bixby), a note-taking application, an event calendar, a media player, video games, GPS navigation, digital camera and video camera. Smartphones can access the Internet through a cellular network or Wi-Fi and can run a variety of third-party software components ("apps" from places like Google Play Store or Apple App Store). They typically have a colour display with a graphical user interface that covers the front surface. The display is almost always a touchscreen that enables the user to use a virtual keyboard to type words, numbers, and other characters, and press onscreen icons to activate "app" features.

In 1999, the Japanese firm NTT DoCoMo released the first smartphones to achieve mass adoption within a country.Smartphones became widespread in the late 2000s, following the release of the iPhone. Most of those produced from 2012 onward have high-speed mobile broadband 4G LTE, motion sensors, and mobile payment features. In the third quarter of 2012, one billion smartphones were in use worldwide. Global smartphone sales surpassed the sales figures for feature phones in early 2013

12. Apple iPod

There were MP3 players before the iPod, sure, but it was Apple’s blockbuster device that convinced music fans to upgrade from their CD players en masse. The iPod simultaneously made piracy more appealing, by letting people carry their thousand-song libraries in their pockets, while also providing a lifeline to the flailing music industry with the iTunes Store, which eventually became the world’s biggest music retailer. The iPod’s importance extends far beyond music. It was an entire generation’s introduction to Apple’s easy-to-use products and slick marketing. These people would go on to buy MacBooks, iPhones and iPads in droves, helping to make Apple the most valuable technology company in the world.

13. Home Theater Projectors

Home theatre projectors offer a fairly affordable way to view content on a screen, and their size easily trumps that of even the largest mass-market TVs. Please note that in addition to a big enough room, projectors require the purchase of a dedicated screen for an optimal viewing experience.

The frequency of use is another important consideration when shopping for a home theatre projector. The devices' lamps diminish in brightness over time, and they can be pricey to replace.

When shopping for a projector, consider its brightness as one of its key selling points — the feature is measured in lumens. The higher the brightness, the more vivid an image the device will be able to deliver.

14. Apple TV 4K

The long-awaited Apple TV 4K is fashionably late in joining the market for UHD-capable streaming devices, but it's poised to shake it up like no other product of its kind. Apple's fifth-generation streaming device will make the process of finding and enjoying 4K HDR content easier and more affordable than ever.

Visually, the Apple TV 4K and its remote control look no different than those of the previous generation. However, with the tech giant's A10X Fusion chip on board, the Apple TV 4K has twice the processing power — and four times the graphics performance — of its predecessor.

The A10X Fusion is one of the most powerful chipsets around. Also found in the latest iPad Pro, it allows the Apple TV 4K to not only effortlessly deliver UHD (ultra high-definition) video and high-quality video games, but also make lower resolution content look better.

Other key specs of the streaming device include dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity and a Gigabit Ethernet port. You can order the Apple TV 4K with 32 or 64 GB of storage. A Siri-enabled remote control is included with both variants, though you can also control the Apple TV 4K from an iPhone or iPad with iOS 11.

The Apple TV 4K supports both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision — the two leading high-dynamic range formats available today. Best of all, the streaming device requires no fiddling with settings in order to bring you the best content your TV can support.

15. WiFi

Wi-Fi is a technology for wireless local area network with devices based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance, which restricts the use of the term Wi-Fi Certified to products that successfully complete interoperability certification testing.^[1]

Devices that can use Wi-Fi technology include personal computers, video-game consoles, phones and tablets, digital cameras, smart TVs, digital audio players and modern printers. Wi-Fi compatible devices can connect to the Internet via a WLAN and a wireless access point. Such an access point (or hotspot) has a range of about 20 meters (66 feet) indoors and a greater range outdoors. Hotspot coverage can be as small as a single room with walls that block radio waves, or as large as many square kilometres achieved by using multiple overlapping access points.

Depiction of a device sending information wirelessly to another device, both connected to the local network, in order to print a document

Wi-Fi most commonly uses the 2.4 gigahertz (12 cm) UHF and 5 gigahertz (6 cm) SHF ISM radio bands. Having no physical connections, it is more vulnerable to attack than wired connections, such as Ethernet.

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