"What Are the Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years?"

Knowledge@Warton provides this list, in order of importance:

1. Internet, broadband, WWW (browser and html)
2. PC/laptop computers
3. Mobile phones
4. E-mail
5. DNA testing and sequencing/Human genome mapping
6. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
7. Microprocessors
8. Fiber optics
9. Office software (spreadsheets, word processors)
10. Non-invasive laser/robotic surgery (laparoscopy)
11. Open source software and services (e.g., Linux, Wikipedia)
12. Light emitting diodes
13. Liquid crystal display (LCD)
14. GPS systems
15. Online shopping/ecommerce/auctions (e.g., eBay)
16. Media file compression (jpeg, mpeg, mp3)
17. Microfinance
18. Photovoltaic Solar Energy
19. Large scale wind turbines
20. Social networking via the Internet
21. Graphic user interface (GUI)
22. Digital photography/videography
23. RFID and applications (e.g., EZ Pass)
24. Genetically modified plants
25. Bio fuels
26. Bar codes and scanners
27. ATMs
28. Stents
29. SRAM flash memory
30. Anti retroviral treatment for AIDS

Comment: Without microprocessors there would not be personal computers, and without personal computers and fiber optics, there would not be much value in the Internet. That is true also for ATMs I suppose.

The software commodity business, including Microsoft, is more important than the development of free and open source software, at least so far.

Generally, I guess I would put the evolution of the global information infrastructure as the most important technological development of the past 30 years.

I wonder whether there are not more important medical advances than anti-retrovirals. Perhaps some of the social innovations that are leading to more progress against the diseases of poverty are saving more lives than the anti-retrivurals. JAD