Gizmodo: list

Time Magazine's Best and Worst Inventions of 2009

Danny Allen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:40:00 EST

Sure, I could go into how NASA's Ares Rockets and Project Natal ranked high amongst Time's top 50 inventions, but when it comes to end-of-year lists, I get a kick out of what's deemed the worst. A drum roll please…

No ridiculous TwitterPeek in their worst 5, but it'd sure be on mine. What would be on yours? Check out Time's great walk-through its 50 top inventions at: [TIME]

Time's 5 Worst Inventions:
1. Draconian electronic "Smile Checks" for Japanese Railway workers who get alerted if they're not perky enough.
2. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Coming soon as a graphic novel, apparently.
3. Snuggies for Dogs. Screw that, how about all Snuggies in general.
4. The Gas-Mask Bra. It's real, and one of the award-winning inventions from this year's quirky Ig Nobel Awards.
5. Computers being used in the UK to automatically mark student's essays. Yeah, this screams stupid. Problem is, the University of Missouri started doing it in 2005.

Our 10 Best of Popsci's 100 Best Innovations of the Year

Jason Chen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST

Who has the time or patience to count, not to mention read, up to 100? So we've taken the trouble to squeeze down Popsci's 100 best list to a more manageable 10. Enough to read while still pretending to work.

And if you're really curious as to what else made the list—there are some decent ones that didn't quite make ours—head over to Popsci for the whole 100. [Popsci]

Ten Inventions That Freed Themselves By Killing Their Masters

Jason Chen — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:20:00 EST

Listverse has a very interesting, if mostly old, list of inventors dying a death that could easily been avoided if they hadn't invented whatever they're best known for.

At the top of the list is Marie Curie. Although she didn't actually invent radiation, she did totally die from exposure to it. We commend her for all the work she put into discovering new elements, but her plan for monetizing her findings—Marie Curie's Totally Safe Radioactive Anti-Wrinkle Cream—may have been a step in the wrong direction.

We would have liked the list to focus a bit more on newer inventors and their catastrophic discoveries. Real-life stuff similar to the ~~cornholer~~ cornballer on Arrested Development would have rounded out this top 10 nicely. [Listverse]

MSNBC's Jerk Gadget List is Condescending Even to the Mainstream

Jason Chen — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:40:00 EST

I get what MSNBC was trying to do with this list—warn its mainstream readers about potential social pitfalls with technology—but the contents of the list are just too condescending even for their target audience.

Here's a sampling that convinces us this is kind of a lazy list.

• Bluetooth: Yeah, no crap Bluetooth makes you look like a dbag, but it's necessary seeing as lots of states have passed hands-free calling laws. And putting Bluetooth on here? Is this 2001?

• TiVo: TiVo? TiVo?? Even your grandma likes TiVo, and she's the one reading this list.

• Linux: Wow.

• Segway: Again, the way too obvious choice.

If you really must see for yourself, the list is over here. What should you do? Make sure your less tech-aware friends know that this list is BS. [MSNBC]

A Comprehensive List of Ultraportables, Netbooks, Mini-Notebooks, Or Whatever You Call Them

Mark Wilson — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:38:00 EDT

When the Asus Eee came out, the market was simple. There was only one tiny, cheap laptop so you knew which one was for you. That was less than a year ago, but things move quickly in the tech world. Now it's tough to keep up with the major brands offering mini-notebooks, let alone every no-name knockoff (where you may still find the better deals and innovation ). Luckily, Liliputing has created a comprehensive list of these machines so it's easy to compare stats and prices. And there were a few that even we hadn't heard about.

If you're willing to stretch your browser and translators to the ends of the Earth, you might be interested in something like the Sungjut TangoX, a mini-notebook with a touchscreen, modular Skype phone and DVI out. Or maybe you'd prefer the Raon Digital Everun Notebook, which is only 1.6lbs and packs an AMD Turion dual core processor instead of an Atom or Via.

Either way, it's a convenient chart to keep your head straight. Hit the link to check it out in full. [Liliputing]

The 100 Greatest Tech Innovations Of All-Time List Takes Balls

Sean Fallon — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:10:13 EST

Whenever someone does a comprehensive countdown list like this, it goes without saying that they are really sticking their neck out. And Maximum PC is putting everything on the line with their list of the 100 greatest tech innovations of all-time. The title is a little misleading given the fact that the list is confined to PC innovations, but with a name like Maximum PC, what did you expect? Naturally, the top ten list will be a source of great controversy, so hit the following link and get your fingers limbered up for some heated commenting debates. [Maximum PC]

The Old In/Out: Top 50, What's Sizzlin', What's Fizzlin'

Charlie White — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 15:33:28 EDT

Okay folks, it's polarization time. Since we hang around, drinking beers and monkeying with gadgets all day and spontaneously erupt into typeage from time to time, it's our job to keep our fingers on the pulse of what's sizzlin' and what's fizzlin'.

While you're working away at your worthwhile jobs, we'll continue sorting out the coolness from the lukewarm for you. Of course, the following list is full of half-baked opinions, but they're probably right. Read along, get angry or applaud, but here it is, in honor of Picasso's birthday yesterday (10/25/06): The Old In/Out.

Fizzlin' Sizzlin'
iPod Zune
Core 2 Quad Core
LCD Laser Optoelectronic
Factory-Installed GPS Portable GPS
KRZR iPhone
HD DVD Blu-ray
Physical Media BitTorrent
WiFi EV-DO Rev A
PS3 Wii
Bikini Boobkini

Forty more, after the jump!

Prints LED Picture Frames
Firefox 2 IE7
Exploding Liquids Exploding Batteries
Spinning Disks Flash Memory
Vista Ubuntu
Video on Demand TiVo Series 3
O2 Water Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper
Hybrids Tesla
Blackjack Texas Hold 'Em
MacBook Pro Solar Space Heater
Rear Projectors Front Projectors
Fear Loathing
Steve Jobs J Allard
Blond Redhead
Bush Thinking Humanoid
Tits Ass
Optical Laser
Spa Chicken Ranch
DV HDV
Magazines Blogs
Robots Teledildonic Blow-up Dolls
XM Sirius
Planes Trains
Typing Voice Recognition
Hollywood Bollywood
Paintball Tankball
Permission Forgiveness
New York Vegas
Hello Kitty Braised Kitty Steaks
Real Estate Stocks
Arctic DS Black Pearl
Wristwatch Cellphone Clock
Paper Plastic
Boldface Opinions Pervasive Opinions
Lazy Efficient
iTunes Winamp
Nike+iPod Garmin Forerunner
RAZR KRZR
Q Dash

C'mon, add your In/Outs in comments! – Charlie White

Site Lists Top Digital Cameras

Charlie White — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 11:23:27 EST

Now there's a place you can go to find out the top 100 most-frequently-used makes and models of digital cameras used to take pictures uploaded to photo sharing website Flickr. There's also a column that names the top camera manufacturers represented in Flickr uploads.

Here's an exquisite example of data mining, where recent uploads are sampled using some pretty tricky technology. Taking a look at the list right now, it looks like Canon dominates, with seven out of the top 10 cameras used, with the top three manufacturers lining up as Canon, Sony and then Nikon. Take a look at the list here.