Robot vacuum cleaner, iPhone, and Large Hadron Collider — TIME presents 25 iconic inventions from 2000 to 2024

TIME magazine has published a list of the most influential inventions that have changed human lives since 2000.

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the annual Best Inventions ranking, the editorial team compiled the "Invention Hall of Fame," which includes 25 technologies, products, and solutions that have had the greatest impact on society, culture, and science.

What is known

Surely, upon familiarizing yourself with the list, many will see quite ordinary things that are taken for granted, but at some point, they were groundbreaking and had a colossal impact on everyday life and technological progress.

25 iconic inventions according to TIME, covering the period from 2000 to 2024:

2001
NuvaRing — the first flexible hormonal contraception, convenient to use.

2002
iRobot Roomba — the first mass-produced robot vacuum cleaner, changing the approach to cleaning.

2005
LifeStraw — a portable water filter that has saved lives in disaster areas.

2006
YouTube — a platform that revolutionized the concept of video and user-generated content.

2007
iPhone — a smartphone that changed human interaction with digital technologies.
Google Street View — real-time street visual navigation.

2008
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — the largest particle accelerator that discovered the Higgs boson.

2010
Kickstarter — a crowdfunding platform that launched thousands of projects.

2011
IBM Watson — an AI system that won Jeopardy! and is applied in medicine.

2012
Tesla Model S — an electric car that set a new standard for the automotive industry.

2014
CRISPR-Cas9 — a revolutionary genome editing tool.

2015
Amazon Echo — the Alexa voice assistant that popularized smart speakers.

2016
Solar Roof from Tesla — solar panels integrated into roofing materials.

2017
Nintendo Switch — a hybrid gaming console that combines portability and home mode.

2018
Fenty Beauty — cosmetics with a wide range of skin tones that changed the inclusivity industry.

2020
COVID-19 mRNA vaccines — Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, developed in record time.

2021
Perseverance Rover — a NASA rover that delivered the Ingenuity drone to Mars.

2022
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — the most powerful space telescope that has peered into the early universe.

2023
GPT-4 from OpenAI — an advanced AI capable of solving law-level tasks.
Semaglutides (Ozempic, Wegovy) — drugs that changed the approach to treating diabetes and obesity.

2024
Double Neural Bypass — a neurointerface that allowed a paralyzed patient to move their hand and feel touch again.

Source: Time