SCIENCE

23 years later: these commonly used inventions did not exist in 2000

How much has the world changed in the Third Millennium? Today's 30-year-olds have witnessed one of the most radical technological changes in history, with the emergence of so many technologies that have gradually become of common use.

In fact, a great many tools and devices that seem almost taken for granted to us today did not exist just over 20 years ago, and if they did, they were not available for commercial use. One obvious example is the smartphone, introduced by Apple in 2007 (the closest ancestor were the so-called PDAs).

But besides the cell phone, now an external prosthesis of our bodies, do you know what else did not exist in 2000?

Pexels/Freepik
23 years later: these commonly used inventions did not exist in 2000
How much has the world changed in the Third Millennium? Today's 30-year-olds have witnessed one of the most radical technological changes in history, with the emergence of so many technologies that have gradually become of common use. In fact, a great many tools and devices that seem almost taken for granted to us today did not exist just over 20 years ago, and if they did, they were not available for commercial use. One example is the smartphone, introduced by Apple in 2007 (the closest ancestor were the so-called PDAs). But besides the cell phone, now an external prosthesis of our bodies, do you know what else did not exist in 2000?
Freepik
Hybrid cars
Actually, it is not that they did not exist, but they had not yet been introduced to the global market and, therefore, virtually no one owned them. Going back in time, Toyota launched the Prius model in 1997, but it did not arrive on the globalized market until 2000. Even today, this Japanese model is the best-selling hybrid car in the world.
Pexels
GPS as a navigator
GPS stands for Global Positioning System, itself short for NAVSTAR GPS, short for NAVigation Satellite Timing And Ranging Global Positioning System or for NAVigation Signal Timing And Ranging Global Position System. Invented, of course, as a military positioning system by the U.S. Department of Defense, it was introduced in May 2000 as a technology open to all, albeit with very different accuracy than today. This technology is the basis of modern satellite navigators.
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3887429
Wikipedia
The birth of Wikipedia goes back to January 15, 2001, and it revolutionized the way humanity accesses information. Before that date, information was accessed through huge and expensive volumes, which in any case had to be constantly updated over time.
Pexels
On demand TV
An invention that goes hand in hand with the increased invasion of technology into our daily lives, nowadays on demand TV have completely replaced TV and zapping, as have DVDs. By now, almost no one watches TV, and everyone relies on platforms such as Netflix (a company founded in the 1990s that became popular in 2014), Amazon Prime, Disney+ and so on.
Pexels
Voice assistants
Voice assistants are a technology that has been studied since the 1950s, but it is with Siri (Apple) that they have really entered our everyday lives. There are so many of them now, for various software and platforms, but it is a technology that was not even conceivable at the beginning of the Millennium, especially encased in something like a cell phone or wireless device (just to be clear, in the early 2000s, Wi-Fi was a technology that was just emerging for commercial Internet modems).
Pexels
Social media
One of the great inventions of this Millennium, it has revolutionized sociality around the world. This model evolved through several steps, culminating then in 2004 with the invention of Facebook by Zuckenberg. Today there are so many of social network, involving a network of as many as 4.7 billion people. Although some socials existed prior to 2000 (SixDegrees, a name born out of the "Six Degrees of Separation" theory, came out in 1997) their use was much more than limited and by no means comparable to today.
Freepik
The map of the human genome
Scientists made the announcement of decrypting our genetic information back in 2003, but in reality the operation was not completed until 2022. These new models have enabled giant strides in the treatment of various diseases, as well as the discovery of genes that can lead to developing diseases. This is particularly useful for diagnosis, history and especially prevention.
Pexels
Smartphone
When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone to the world, it was 2007, and it was heralded as the fusion of "a phone, a satnav and a iPod). Today, live without it is unthinkable, but the first iPhone did not even have Wi-Fi integrated, just to understand how times have changed. The real invention that changed our lives above all others.
Pexels
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies
Established in 2009 by a Japanese software engineer, to date there are more than 2,000 different types of digital currencies. In 2023, digital currencies are poised to influence the world's finance and economy.
Pexels
3D Printers
The technology itself has existed since as far back as 1986, and was called stereolithography. However, its proliferation in modern companies only began in 2009, when the patent on Fdm technology expired. Today 3D printing is used in so many fields of research, from medical research, to design and to animation.
Informativa ai sensi della Direttiva 2009/136/CE: questo sito utilizza solo cookie tecnici necessari alla navigazione da parte dell'utente in assenza dei quali il sito non potrebbe funzionare correttamente.