21st-century inventions
81 inventions and discoveries: year, what it is, what it evolved from and what it led to.
| Year | Invention | What it is | Evolved from | Led to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Segway Dean Kamen | A self-balancing two-wheeled vehicle. | Hoverboard | |
| 2001 | Power bank | A portable battery for charging gadgets. | ||
| 2001 | AES cipher | A symmetric encryption standard. | ||
| 2001 | JSON Douglas Crockford | A text data format (Crockford). | JavaScript | |
| 2001 | Wikipedia | A free encyclopedia running on a wiki engine. | Encyclopedia | |
| 2002 | HDMI | A digital interface for video and sound. | ||
| 2002 | Robot vacuum | An autonomous vacuum cleaner (Roomba). | Vacuum cleaner | |
| 2002 | Digital twin | A virtual model of a physical object. | ||
| 2003 | Video call | Video communication over the Internet. | Telephone | |
| 2003 | Warehouse robot | Robots that carry shelving units (Kiva). | Forklift | |
| 2003 | CubeSat Jordi Puig-Suari, Bob Twiggs | A small satellite in a 10 cm format. | ||
| 2003 | Human Genome Project | Reading the human genome. | ||
| 2004 | NFC | Near-field communication for contactless payment. | ||
| 2004 | Graphene Andre Geim, Konstantin Novoselov | Single-layer carbon (Geim, Novoselov). | Graphite | |
| 2004 | Podcast | Audio shows by subscription (RSS). | Radio broadcasting | |
| 2004 | Social network | An online platform for communication. | ||
| 2005 | Online maps | Interactive maps in the browser. | Map | |
| 2005 | Streaming | Transmitting audio and video over a network in real time. | ||
| 2005 | Video hosting | Publishing videos (YouTube). | ||
| 2005 | Arduino | An open microcontroller board for learning. | ||
| 2005 | Smart grid | A power grid with digital control. | Electrical grid | |
| 2005 | Git | A distributed version control system (Torvalds). | Linux | |
| 2006 | Cloud computing | Computing as a service in data centres. | ||
| 2007 | Bionic hand | A prosthesis with myoelectric control. | ||
| 2007 | E-reader | A reading device with electronic ink. | Codex (book) | |
| 2007 | iOS | Apple’s mobile OS. | macOS | |
| 2007 | Cover glass | Chemically strengthened glass on top of the screen. | ||
| 2008 | Mobile app | A program for a smartphone. | ||
| 2008 | Large Hadron Collider | The largest accelerator (CERN). | Cyclotron | |
| 2008 | Blockchain Satoshi Nakamoto | A distributed ledger of blocks (Bitcoin). | ||
| 2008 | LED lamp | A lamp built on white LEDs. | Incandescent light bulb | |
| 2008 | Android | A mobile OS built on the Linux kernel. | ||
| 2008 | Smart TV | A television with Internet access. | Flat-screen TV | |
| 2008 | Traction battery | An electric car’s battery made of hundreds or thousands of lithium-ion cells. | ||
| 2008 | Wireless charging | Charging by induction (the Qi standard). | ||
| 2008 | App store | A catalogue of mobile programs. | ||
| 2009 | Fitness tracker | A wearable activity and heart-rate sensor. | Smartwatch | |
| 2009 | Self-driving car | A car driven by a computer using sensor data. | Electric car | |
| 2009 | Ride-hailing app | Ordering a car from a smartphone. | Taximeter | |
| 2009 | Cryptocurrency | Digital money on a blockchain (Bitcoin). | ||
| 2010 | Quadcopter (drone) | An uncrewed aircraft with four propellers and stabilizing electronics. | ||
| 2010 | Grid battery storage | Battery stations for balancing the grid. | ||
| 2010 | Charging station | A device for charging an electric car. | ||
| 2010 | Air fryer | A mini convection oven. | Convection oven | |
| 2010 | Electric unicycle Trevor Blackwell | A self-balancing one-wheeled vehicle. | ||
| 2010 | Tablet computer | A portable computer with a touchscreen. | Smartphone | |
| 2010 | Portable speaker Edward Washburn Kellogg, Chester Williams Rice | A speaker with Bluetooth and a battery. | ||
| 2011 | Voice assistant | Speech recognition and replies (Siri, Alice). | ||
| 2011 | Exoskeleton | A wearable robot for walking (ReWalk). | ||
| 2012 | Deep learning Yann LeCun, Geoffrey Hinton | Training multilayer networks on GPUs (AlexNet). | ||
| 2012 | MicroLED | A display made of microscopic LEDs. | Pixel matrix (OLED) | |
| 2012 | Raspberry Pi | A single-board computer. | ||
| 2012 | Higgs boson CERN, ATLAS experiment | A particle discovered at the LHC. | ||
| 2012 | Online courses | Massive open online courses (MOOCs). | ||
| 2012 | CRISPR | Genome editing (Doudna, Charpentier). | Recombinant DNA | |
| 2013 | Smartwatch | A wrist computer with a touchscreen. | Wristwatch, Fitness tracker | |
| 2013 | Smart lock | A lock controlled from a smartphone. | Lock and key | |
| 2013 | Hoverboard Shane Chen | A self-balancing platform on two wheels. | Segway | |
| 2013 | AR glasses | Glasses that overlay images on the world. | Glasses | |
| 2013 | Hyperloop (concept) Elon Musk | Capsules in a low-pressure tube. | Maglev, Pneumatic tube | |
| 2013 | Containers (Docker) | Isolating applications. | Virtualization | |
| 2014 | Smart speaker | A speaker with a voice assistant. | ||
| 2014 | Hydrogen car | An electric car with a fuel cell (Toyota Mirai). | ||
| 2014 | USB-C | A universal reversible connector. | USB | |
| 2014 | Mobile payments | Paying with a smartphone via NFC. | Payment card | |
| 2015 | LIGO | A laser interferometer that detects gravitational waves. | ||
| 2015 | Reusable rocket | A rocket with a returning first stage (Falcon 9). | Multistage rocket | |
| 2015 | Gravitational waves | Detected by LIGO. | ||
| 2015 | Smart contract | A program on a blockchain (Ethereum). | ||
| 2016 | Tensor processing unit | A neural network accelerator (Google TPU). | ||
| 2016 | VR headset | A virtual reality headset. | Stereoscope | |
| 2016 | Wireless earbuds | In-ear headphones with Bluetooth. | Headphones | |
| 2017 | Transformer (architecture) | A neural network architecture built on attention. | ||
| 2018 | Large language model | A transformer neural network trained on text. | ||
| 2019 | EUV lithography | Photolithography in extreme ultraviolet for processes of a few nanometres. | ||
| 2019 | Satellite Internet | Constellations of low-orbit satellites. | ||
| 2020 | Small modular reactor | A compact factory-built reactor (Akademik Lomonosov). | Nuclear icebreaker | |
| 2020 | Solid-state battery | A lithium battery with a solid electrolyte (in development). | Lithium-ion battery | |
| 2020 | mRNA vaccine Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman | A vaccine that delivers instructions for making an antigen. | ||
| 2021 | Image generation | Neural networks that draw from a description. | ||
| 2022 | AI assistant | Conversational helpers built on large language models. | Chatbot |