Top Eleven Technology Innovations for the Past Ten Years

I tend to be a sucker for the various "top ten" lists and they are common at this time of year. I tend to always read them, mainly to see if I agree with the list. Hence my interest in the "top 11" technology innovations of the past ten years published by the IEEE (see: The top 11 technology innovations of the last 10 years, from the IEEE). IEEE is an organization that bills itself on its web site as "the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity." Why the top eleven? I suspect that there were some ties and controversy near the end of the list and they settled on eleven rather than ten. Here's their list:

• Smartphones.
• Social Networking.
• Voice over IP.
• LED Lighting.
• Multicore CPUs.
• Cloud Computing.
• Drone Aircraft.
• Planetary Rovers.
• Flexible AC Transmission.
• Digital Photography.
• Class-D Audio.

I have placed in bold face the technologies closest to the focus of this blog, information technology. They constitute five of the total of eleven and are grouped in the first six picks. The biggest surprise for me was the inclusion of cloud computing which many would categorize as a technology that is still very immature. The best may therefore come later. One more question. What's the best way to define technology? How about this: the practical application of science to commerce or industry. Or how about this: new stuff that works good. All of the five IT picks in the list have profoundly changed diagnostic medicine, particularly lab medicine and medical imaging. Perhaps the changes have been less dramatic in applied clinical practice based on the mediocre performance of many EMRs but let's see what happens in the next ten years.

Comments

[Slow PC]

Reading about Top Eleven Technology Innovations for the Past Ten Years, that is a vital point and indeed the technologies above mentioned have really changed the entire scenario in modern world especially Smartphones, Social Networking,Voice over IP, Multicore CPUs etc however putting Cloud Computing in the list by IEEE seems little strange indeed and you've aptly said that is still very immature.