The Top 10 Tech Breakthroughs of 2012

I don't know about the 1 Litre EB, but the 3.5 EB sure is a kick in the pants :)
 
Airbags will save a bunch of lives in the mountains, once people start wearing them. They've been around for a bit, but people, well.... haven't been using the ones available. Much like Apple capitalizing off of the MP3/ phone market holes, now North Face (who I believe is owned by Vanity Fair) is making money off the hole that has yet to be filled by this type of item. They have proven quite efficacious.
 
The Lytro Camera sounded good until it can only be used with Mac's - Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is the only OS it is said to support
 
Some interesting stuff on there. No idea why Win 8 is on there, rather out of place given the impact of everything else there. Really liking what I see in the shingles, starting to see some real improvements. The crash avoidance system is also rather nice, hopefully that becomes standard quickly.
 
Some interesting stuff on there. No idea why Win 8 is on there, rather out of place given the impact of everything else there. Really liking what I see in the shingles, starting to see some real improvements. The crash avoidance system is also rather nice, hopefully that becomes standard quickly.

I wonder what would happen if they had a demolition derby with cars with crash avoidance. :p
 
Some interesting stuff on there. No idea why Win 8 is on there, rather out of place given the impact of everything else there. Really liking what I see in the shingles, starting to see some real improvements. The crash avoidance system is also rather nice, hopefully that becomes standard quickly.

Since win 8 was included in conjunction with the Surface Tablet I think it is reasonable as a tech breakthrough ... as they noted, Windows hasn't made such a dramatic change to the UI since the first GUI ... the NT changes were significant but they were mostly under the hood ... if you think that tablets and a tablet friendly UI are the future then Win 8 is a valid Tech breakthrough ;)
 
Ford ecoboost engine giving efficiency in the "40s" is a huge tech breakthrough?

I like the idea of the solar shingles but I could have sworn I've seen those decades ago, the biggest issue (other than cost) is you need to wire each one to your inverter which could be a major PITA (translation: cost of installation skyrockets) problem.

Airbags for avalanche, now I know there's people who get injured/killed in those, but is that really one of the best breakthroughs of 2012? Do that many people die such that this is a shining beacon of light for all mankind? Or was 2012 a slow fucking year for tech advances (I'm looking at you Windows 8)
 
I'm sorry but most of that list is horseshit and must have been more of a marketing campaign than anything else.
 
I'm sorry but most of that list is horseshit and must have been more of a marketing campaign than anything else.

Exactly, it's all crap. None of it is stuff we'll actually buy. At least I know I wouldn't. All breakthrough stuff that has no real world application. At least not cost effective.
 
No plasma beams or ion engines? No nuclear fusion? No molecular computers? Come on, that list isn't tech breakthroughs. Those are consumer products.
 
you figure with all the higgs bosons being detected.. we'd have some new tech from it by now... but hey.. we got propane powered outboards motors... so I guess it's all good. :D
 
Instead of Windows 8 or Surface, I think the more specific past should be the Metro interface.
 
Exactly, it's all crap. None of it is stuff we'll actually buy. At least I know I wouldn't. All breakthrough stuff that has no real world application. At least not cost effective.

Some people actually do stuff in the mountains believe it or not.
 
Instead of Windows 8 or Surface, I think the more specific past should be the Metro interface.

Microsoft introducing it's own PC is big news. And it's not Metro anymore... just like there's no Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers anymore... stupid Europe...
 
Instead of Windows 8 or Surface, I think the more specific past should be the Metro interface.

The Metro Interface is MS's version of the iOS and Android touch interfaces. Not sure what's innovative about that. New flavor of ice cream.
 
The Metro Interface is MS's version of the iOS and Android touch interfaces. Not sure what's innovative about that. New flavor of ice cream.

The difference is that both iOS and Android were brand new systems and didn't affect anyone except the new users that switched over to them ... MS is the dominant player in the PC world with more than 90% market share ... they have done extremely significant changes to their OS only two other times ... back in the 90's when they firmly established the Windows GUI with the fully featured Windows '95 (a very significant departure from the legacy Windows and DOS) and in 2001 with XP (when they merged the standard Windows and NT family lines) ... whether this new change is a true "breakthrough" is probably debatable but it is most definitely significant since it impacts billions of PC users ;)
 
The difference is that both iOS and Android were brand new systems and didn't affect anyone except the new users that switched over to them ... MS is the dominant player in the PC world with more than 90% market share ... they have done extremely significant changes to their OS only two other times ... back in the 90's when they firmly established the Windows GUI with the fully featured Windows '95 (a very significant departure from the legacy Windows and DOS) and in 2001 with XP (when they merged the standard Windows and NT family lines) ... whether this new change is a true "breakthrough" is probably debatable but it is most definitely significant since it impacts billions of PC users ;)
The release of win 8 does not leave any impact on existing users either, the only difference is that the MS will drop security updates over a time and that is something bad about this issue. Both XP and Vista get support dropped in Q2 2014 and Windows 7 in 2017. Although I don't believe that Win 7 will be overtaken by 8 anytime soon, if ever, and it will become the dominant operating system after 2014, when the most XP and Vista users will migrate to 7 in order to get remaining support. Despite the controversial metro UI, win 8 does not bring any improvements in speed, responsiveness or security in the manner that would make the upgrading worthwhile. While not just metro, but overall interface and controls of the system were way too simplified and limited in both customization and utility, I last used it in the release preview and I find the general working with system to be annoying and slow, compared to pre-8 windows. Basically I feel that win 8 wont make any impact on the current market.
 
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