Top Tech Breakthroughs of 2008 116
As we approach the end of the year it's time once again for the never-ending stream of retrospectives and year-in-review discussions. Wired has their version of the best technology breakthroughs of 2008. From phones to shrinking laptops to flexible displays, there is no shortage of interesting advancements when looking back at this year. What other groundbreaking advancements were made this year, and what do we have to look forward to for 2009?
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Solar Charged Laptops? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh dear (Score:3, Interesting)
2008 was a slow year. But slow years are good too. When break-threws' are smaller that means companies are putting more effort in making the technology more reliable, and better. For example remember all the Crap that was produced during the .COM boom, then after the bubble popped the technology got refined and became productive. Things like usable Web Mail services, Google Maps with features that would have required a special plugin back in the late 90's. I am sure people with professional software development experience has realized when things are slow. You have time to go back and and fix those portions of your code that needs more maintenance and get them running smoother, reduce errors. polish the UI a bit so people don't make so many errors. Recode a sections where the Specs and after hundreds of questions worded differently asking "Are you sure this value or calculation will never change?" and the Boss goes "This will never change we have used this for the past 20 years." only to find out that after the merger that calculation changes every quarter. So you need to take it out of solid code and make it more adjustable.
Refinement is an art in itself often it is more important then innovations.
Secondly; Most technology is derivative of other technology. An impovement of x or y, any technology that is released isn't really a wow this is amazing never seen it before type of thing just an extension of something or something that has been around for time but finally has became consumer friendly.
Lets go with the Radio. Most of the technology was used for telegraph system, so people were use to it. And also for voice communication it was used in the military and for large companies so people have heard of it and many have used it before they became consumer products for homes, the same with the TV, before they could get one at home they know they could do it. And the idea Ok we can send voice over the radio the concept of sending pictures wasn't that far off it just took some refinement of the processes, eg. capturing light and convert it to an electrical signal of different strength. Then accurately taking those signals and send them back to some reaction that can produce a small portion of light at different intensities. No big deal. Just an impovement of technology.
Or this century, the iPod. Just smaller electronics and a nice UI. Nothing new heck slashdot gave it bad reviews and figured it will only last a month. Just because it didn't seem like an innovation of consequence as they have been Mp3 Players before.
Re:why look back (Score:3, Interesting)
What happened to those great lists that attracted so many fans in the beginning?
boring year in technology (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd go for Tesla motors [teslamotors.com] shipping their first electric roadster as top ten news, myself, but that may be so old hat for/. readers nobody cares to read it.
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Re:boring year in technology (Score:3, Interesting)
I would put the same thing on top. For the first time in over 100 years we have an electric car again that can do over 100 km/h! And not a bit over, but more than twice as fast! Now if it only ran on fuel cells instead of batteries. Or better, you could choose between batteries and solar cells. That would be a real breakthrough.