Have you ever stopped to think which are the Technological Inventions that most revolutionized the world, and that changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people?

Many times we are not even aware of these great inventions, because they are simply part of our lives. Some of these important inventions have been part of our lives for a longer time. And others of course less time.

In case you didn't know, the 15th of August is a true historical milestone for the evolution of technology in the 20th century, as the invention of the first large-scale electrical computer is celebrated on that date.

So we decided to prepare a brief list for you with the greatest technological inventions of recent times, which in our opinion only tend to evolve more and more, contributing to and facilitating many tasks in our day to day.

Greatest inventions:

We will separate our content in a kind of order as they happened, that way you will know the years or decades, and also who was the inventor or inventors of these great technological innovations that changed the world, and continue to change.

World's first computer:

The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer) was the pioneer, being the first computer electricity from around the world to be produced on a large scale.

The same was developed by 2 scientists from the north of the United States, John Eckert and John Mauchly in the year 1946, exactly during the period of World War II. Approximately US$500,000 was spent to carry out all of its construction at the time.

ENIAC was created especially at the request of the US Army, and it was thanks to its launch that a great revolution in the world of computing in general took place.

The computer had the capacity to process only 5 thousand operations per second (which at that time was a lot), and it had in its structure more than 17 thousand thermionic valves, all of 160W of power.

The ENIAC computer was so big, so big that a whole room was needed just for it, and for its installation. It had an approximate weight of an absurd 30 tons, and occupied a space of 180 square meters.

At the time, its operating system was commanded by people from the army itself, where it was used to carry out calculations for future trajectories that they were still going to travel.

First personal computers:

The first personal computers, where the great Steve Jobs (founder of Apple), already in the 70s, with the intention of being able to facilitate the functions of common computers of that time, so he launched the Apple I in 1976.

Which in turn was completely assembled by hand, with just a simple graphic monitor and a keyboard and nothing else. And a few years later, in 1979, the Apple II appeared.

Both the Lisa personal computers of 1983 and the Macintosh of 1984 were the first personal computers to use the mouse, and also to have a much better graphical interface. With menus, folders and also the desktop.

Operating systems (Microsoft):

So Bill Gates already practically at the end of the 70's founded the company Microsoft, and which in turn also started to develop personal computers. In the beginning Bill used ideas from other machines already produced and then built his own machines.

Gates was also responsible for developing one of the first operating systems. And that would also be the most successful of all to date, MS-DOS.

So Bill and Jobs made a great partnership, where they practically copied all the graphics technology of the Macintosh, to develop a brand new operating system, the Windows system. And so, in the mid-80s, Microsoft also became the great leader in the personal computer market.

Emergence of the Internet:

This great invention could never be left out of our list, in 1992 the scientist Tim Berners-Lee created the first world Wide Web, the WWW or World Wide Web.

Years later, the WWW acronyms were then used to identify the internet browser, which was also the creator of HTTP. That it is a protocol that establishes internet connections for the entire planet.

The network had a gigantic diffusion, so in 1993 it was communicated to everyone that the internet would be completely public and also free and without fees for all its users. Today we are 3.9 billion users worldwide.

Social media:

Social networks are also other major technological developments that have certainly come to revolutionize the way people relate and communicate. And they are here to stay, because today there are already many new social networks that are in full growth.

But the year 2004 was really a milestone in the enormous popularity of social media, such as the now extinct Orkut, Google Plus, which no longer exists, Facebook, which never stops growing. Not to mention YouTube, which has become a huge video platform.

Mark Zuckerberg was the one who took the lead among all social networks, shooting ahead of everyone with Facebook, which today has no less than 1.5 billion users worldwide.

In 2006 Twitter arrived, with a style similar to microblogging, so that content could be shared quickly and easily, but with limits on the number of characters per post. Today the network has 115 million active users across the planet. And we can never mention other social networks like Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, among others.

Modern cell phones (Smartphones):

Modern cell phones, or smartphones, could not be left out of our list either, as the pioneering device was the famous BlackBerry 5810, launched in the 2000s.

The device at the time allowed the user, in addition to the telephone function, of course, a personal organizer, sending and receiving messages, and you could even listen to music on it.

This market was dominated for many years by BlackBerry and also by the great Nokia, but then came the launch of the iPhone by Apple in 2007. The iPhone smartphone combined new features and functionality with cell phones.

And with this device it was then possible to use functions such as multitouch, voice assistants, downloads of apps, and also a brand new IOS operating system.

Artificial intelligence:

Artificial intelligence is also certainly part of the greatest inventions of technology, this term was created in the year 1956, but it only became popular even today. And all of this was only possible thanks to the growth in the volume of data that is available today, such as computational storage, algorithms, among others.

Know that the GPS is considered the pioneer, because it was the first software (program) to have implanted the ideology of thinking in a human way. 

And then, with the help of Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Big Data and Business Intelligence among others more than artificial intelligence (AI), so it made information and data accessible, automating processes that are used today in the fields of science and technology.

Some examples of this artificial intelligence you can see in cars from Tesla, Google, and also in drones that transport people, which work without the need for human interference.

Industry automation:

Industrial automation is certainly part of history and it is also one of the great technological innovations, soon after the implementation of Lean Manufacturing. Then industrial automation became present in several factories, but mainly in autonomous production lines.

And in case you didn't know, it was through the Toyota Production System that in the 50's emerged in Japan through the great automotive company Toyota. Which at the time had been suffering from low productivity problems, and also from a lack of resources. So this is a big problem for Toyoda Sakichi to solve.

So he increased the efficiency of the production line, still achieving a good reduction in waste. And he became well known worldwide due to the best seller "The Machine That Changed the World". Book where points and characteristics are described that led Toyota to succeed in production.

Electric vehicles:

Electric cars are also great innovations in technology that are already a reality in many places across the world. Electric vehicles appeared in 1828. And the first electric car ever built was made by Thomas Davenport in 1835.

If one day you have the opportunity to visit the famous Silicon Valley, then you will see many electric cars being charged there for use. Many car brands have already started betting on electric cars for the near future, the great BMW has already announced that from 2025 they will only produce electric cars.

Toyota already plans and intends to stop selling gasoline-powered vehicles by the year 2050. And Tesla in turn, which only manufactures battery-powered cars, only tends to evolve each time, perfecting its technology even more.

Robotics:

Another of the great and important innovations is robotics, where it had its beginnings in the beginning of the 20th century, when the enormous need arose to increase productivity on a large scale and also to improve even more the quality of products.

And because of this, the implementation of robots in the industry appeared with the intention of making human work easier and more agile, accelerating production processes. George Devol, that is the name of the great father of industrial robotics, and also responsible for creating the first material robot used in the work of a production line. Also known as Unimate.

The first robots, even if still somewhat primitive, as they only knew how to move things from one place to another, had all their patents at the time belonging to George.

Conclusion:

As you can read in our brief article, there are many technological inventions that really came to change our lives, and also change the way we do certain things.

Of course, we cannot in any way say that they are not useful, as they are very useful and contribute to improving our daily lives. Have you ever imagined yourself without a smartphone, computer and without internet? Absolutely not! Maybe only on vacation days and days off.

So that's it, that's it, our tip is: make the most of them consciously, and obviously many new ones are already emerging out there. Big hug and success