The Most Important Tech Inventions of the Last Decade

(Newswire.net — October 15, 2019) — Technology has woven itself into the fabric of our daily lives. We depend on our smartphones for access to information, automated coffee machines to deliver our morning caffeine kick, and automated car safety features to keep us in our lanes when we start to drift. In the last decade in particular, there have been incredible advances across multiple industries. From 3D printers to medical bioprinting, technology has saved lives and changed how we live our day-to-day lives.

Here are some of the most revolutionary changes and inventions in tech that have occurred over the past decade. 

1. Self-driving cars

Imagine this: you’re out drinking but you need a safe ride home. So, you pull out your phone and order a WayMo, Google’s self-driving car service. It’s basically the self-driving equivalent of Lyft or Uber. While this service is still being tested and fine-tuned, you’ll still see a human operator in the car who can take over driving if there’s a serious error with the driving technology.

With that said, WayMo self-driving technology has millions of miles of simulated driving behind it, making it one of the safest cars on the road. The only aspect that remains to be ironed out are the legal implications of getting into an accident with a self-driving car. Who is at fault in a crash with a Google WayMo and who pays whom?

2. Bioprinting

Bioprinting is the process of “printing” different kinds of tissue. These tissues can be from the patient’s own biological material and can be used in transplant procedures. This helps to avoid the issue of a transplant patient’s body rejecting the implanted tissue since it’s using the same genetic material. It also has the potential to save patients who can’t wait for the years it sometimes takes to get an organ transplant.

3. 3D metal printers

The history of HP is long and storied, but one of the most impressive inventions to come out of the tech company is their 3D Metal Jet metal printer. The consequences of this 3D metal printer are far reaching. It could help reduce the cost of manufacturing and could increase the fuel efficiency of cars, for example. From the automotive industry to the aerospace business, metal printing is proving to be invaluable to all sorts of companies.

4. Virtual reality

Virtual reality has made huge advances in the last decade and it’s useful for so much more than gaming. For example, the US military has shortened the time it takes to train pilots by partially relying on virtual reality to simulate flying. For more dangerous jobs such as firefighting, virtual reality software has provided ample opportunity for trainees to practice safety procedures in a simulation where there are no life-and-death consequences.

5. AI

Artificial intelligence is poised to revolutionize how many companies do business. There are AI-powered chat boxes, money-managing apps, and tons of other robot-powered applications ready to assist humans. Although Stephen Hawking warned of singularity – aka when robots gain consciousness – so far, they’ve simply just been doing what we tell them to do. And we hope it stays that way.

6. Netflix

While maybe it’s not as impressive as the other inventions on this list, it’s hard to imagine a time without Netflix. It revolutionized the home entertainment industry and spawned its own slang, “Netflix and Chill.” It’s become part of a growing landscape of subscription-based services.

7. Gene editing

Although originally resigned to the genre of science fiction movies, gene editing – where scientists add, delete, or replace parts of DNA – became a reality over the last ten years. The process, called CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), was first tested and successfully conducted on twin monkeys in 2013. Currently, this unique medical technology is being used to treat cancer patients but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

8. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

The first test run of the particle accelerator has helped physicists run experiments to find out how the universe works and the fundamental laws that govern everything around us. 

Conclusion

Technology is always changing. Scientists, engineers, and futurists are always dreaming up the next big thing. While we are still waiting on flying cars and a Jetsons-esque cityscape, we might be surprised at how fast those scenes become our new reality.