They are all around us! All sorts of technological things like gadgets, gimmicks of all sorts, iProducts, and things that make you go “wow that’s-cool!” All these little things that make our lives easier, like the GPS in our cars, or the iPod you are probably listening to! (Apple took it even further with the iPhone, iTouch and iPad.) Things like audio books, auto tune plug-ins that can turn the worst of singers into nice vocals. There are also the gadgets that have no apparent use except that humanity can boast about their existence, such as glow-in-the-dark toilet paper, a clock that goes backwards, or a laptop that can fit in an envelope and nothing more.
So how did we move from ordinary items to extraordinary gadgets? Many techies and gadget lovers have noticed that people tend to improve a gadget gradually over time. Take the cell phone, for example. Its original purpose was to enable calls to be made without the need of it being plugged in. As the years passed, more and more functions were added. The first additions were basic things we take for granted, like the option to send a text message. Later, mundane things totally unrelated to communication were added, such as the ability to tell the time, date and to set a reminder on your to-do-list. Note how all 3 mentioned additions were available before their functions were added on the cell phone. You could tell the time with a watch, the date was marked on a calendar, and a notepad was used for writing down appointments or other important dates. The problem lay in that one had to take all 3 things into a bag when going out. Combining such functions into one device that can fit in your pocket is quite handy, don’t you think?
What inventors have been doing is so easy, even a hobo could do it. These so-called inventors merely combine already existing inventions into one tool instead of coming up with something new to make life easier. Let’s look at the iPhone for example. It is a phone: an invention previously invented. It has a touch screen which is also not new on the market. The iPhone can be enhanced with different applications, some of which require an internet connection to work with. Nothing new. So what made the iPhone such a popular toy? (Take note of the word “toy” due to the fact that 99% of the people who have bought the iPhone have done so for reasons other than simple communication.) The answer is simple – promotion. Apple Inc. has invested heavily in promoting their product by getting famous companies to make an iPhone application for their product. Facebook is an example of such an organization. By paying all sorts of companies to make the applications for their product, they increased the versatility of the iPhone, which is crucial for a gadget these days.
This new way of defining gadgets is quite interesting and beneficial. It makes life easier and more comfortable for the ones who can afford these gimmicks. However, we mustn’t forget the past, when the process of inventing was an art. Thomas Edison did not combine previous inventions. On the contrary, he experimented and invented the light bulb! He was truly an inventor, a word which has lost its original meaning. These days, technology has advanced so rapidly, that inventions are no longer made. Although Science progresses, there just aren’t any truly new things on the market!
Despite the lack of truly new things on the market, the new boom in technology has enabled lots of luxuries that our parents and, most definitely, grandparents did not posses. They barely had television, yet now we have flat-screen televisions with stereo surround sounds, and loads of channels to watch. Some people who are better off even have 3D televisions! Considering what the technology was 20 years ago, that is insane! The competition companies have amongst themselves supplies the market with better and cheaper products! And when you think of how in 10 years you will say, “Oh, 3D TV is so old man, check out the new
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