Technology
Vote on the latest matchups in our Best of What's New bracket!
Posted 12.10.2012 at 12:03 pm 14 Comments

Graphic by Katie Peek

Welcome to the fourth round of our five-round bout!

There was no shortage of impassioned debate when we gathered to anoint the top 25 innovations in the history of Best of What’s New. But a dozen editors locked in a room can only get you so far. How do you rank the best of the best – the iPhone versus the Large Hadron Collider, the TiVo versus the Chunnel? How do you name the one product that has affected more, lasting change than all others? That friends, calls for a smackdown.

Over the next week, we’ll be tallying your votes through five rounds of head-to-head matchups (thanks to our friends over at Grantland whose Wire character smackdown inspired us). Rounds 1-3 pit products against their kin in four divisions: Vehicles, Science & Technology, Electronics, and The Internet. The ultimate goal: to name the most important product of the last quarter century.

We move on now to round four. You may cast only one vote per matchup, so deliberate carefully. This poll will close Thursday, December 13, at 16:00 Eastern time.

14 Comments

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nicholasjh1
12/10/12 at 12:28 pm

ooh wifi and google maps are so close. Though wifi was important, in the light of high data cell lines eclipsing it I find google maps to be more important... It helps to structure the availability of what people use and goto. Not just on your phone as GPS, but online... It transformed the places we most go to... now the survivors for small businesses are getting better and better, and it's because of rating and accesibility found in google maps.

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ORIGINQuest
12/10/12 at 1:01 pm

The fact that the iPhone is still in this shows how sad the world has become...

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Robot
12/10/12 at 2:04 pm

I am very proud of my 2 off spring.
Yes, robots can and do multiply! ;)

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Scythelord
12/10/12 at 3:29 pm

The iPhone isn't even an invention. It's nothing more than combining a PDA with a Phone. If anything, the invention in the place of the iPhone should be the PDA.

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Greenmatrix
12/10/12 at 4:13 pm

There is no discussion. The most important invention in the last 25 years is the World Wide Web. WWW, including the first web browser, including the Http system and hyperlinks. All of this was invented by Tim Berner Lee and a college at CERN. Before that the '''internet'' was practically unheard of by anyone because it was completely useless for most. It`s like the Wright Brothers using the combustion engine and strong light weight materials already invented and combining it in the first powered plane. That`s the invention of the World Wide Web. From that foundation being created at CERN it exploded into what the web is today. Shockingly the World Wide Web is not even mentioned here.

Berners-Lee and Belgian computer scientist Robert Cailliau proposed in 1990 to use hypertext "to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will" and they publicly introduced the project in December of the same year. From this exact moment the explosion of the internet began finally resulting in www.popsci.com.

Who is the winner here should be very clear to all the people at www.popsci.com

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fgrtgjrtr
12/10/12 at 10:31 pm

in order to thank everyone, characteristic, novel style, varieties, low price and good quality, and the low sale price. Thank everyone

http://x.co/q8oh

http://x.co/q8oh

http://x.co/q8oh

http://x.co/q8oh

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　│　　　　　　　　　│＼｜／ 　
　│　●　　　　　●　│—☆— 　
　│○　╰┬┬┬╯　○│／｜＼ 　
　│　　　╰—╯　　　／ 　
　╰—┬○————┬○╯ 　
　　╭│　　　　　│╮ 　
　　╰┴—————┴╯

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bnpoteet94
12/10/12 at 10:37 pm

As much as I am an Android fan, it's pretty ridiculous to argue that the iPhone wasn't a major product. It revitalized, or perhaps even created, the current smartphone race, and has lead to millions of people owning some sort of iPhone. That being said, I would never buy an iPhone today.

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abier
12/11/12 at 1:25 am

Spaceship One is far more important than the ISS. Spaceship One is the beginning of the human expansion into the solar system. The ISS is a political compromise in the wrong orbit, constructed for the wrong reasons, a monument to the ignorance of politicians and bureaucrats.

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loraroberts8
12/11/12 at 2:04 am

Love my job, since I've been bringing in $69h… I sit at home, music playing while I work in front of my new iMac that I got now that I'm making it online..WWW.GoogleJob1.MEL7.COM

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nicholasjh1
12/11/12 at 12:56 pm

@GreenMatrix I would have to agree with that. I was just thinking about the items in there, but www is the progenitor of google maps too. The WWW is even beginning to change our social structure with accesibility features like meetup.com, facebook events, and a myriad of other ways people connect... not just on the web, but in real life.

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ndertoad
12/11/12 at 3:09 pm

The iPhone is a product, not an invention. There may be parts of the iPhone that were invented (software, interface, etc.) but it was not the first smartphone, PDA, touchscreen, cell phone... really anything, so how did it get on the list of the "Most Important Invention of the last 25 years"? I would vote for it as one of the most important "Products" of the last 25 years.

It is going to be humorous when the Apple fan club annoits the iPhone the "Greatest Invention of the last 25 years" on PopSci

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ndertoad
12/11/12 at 3:11 pm

What's so funny is that if you expanded it to "last 1000 years" the iPhone would still win

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quasi44
12/12/12 at 11:19 pm

Yeah, if it's greed and corporatism being the benchmark, then the iPhone is more important than the set-aside frequency for planet Earth citizen access, 802.11. Tiny Core Linux? Not worth considering next to the importance of the mighty iPhone. The artifice used by the U.S. to limit speed? Also not important enough to consider even though total idiots in Asia can buy consumer systems our professionals in the trades can't compete with.
Then comes the so-called 'patriot' Act. Crushing America right along with the rest of the world, IT controls all things and all people that aren't immune. If no one on Earth had reason to hate America, they sure as hell do now, right along with most Americans. The last vestiges of that pesky Constitution are now exposed and neutralized. Americans like me that don't like it are named and surveilled from Fusion Centers by 'patriots' that utilize unmitigated force to ensure that I have no rights in the country I helped build. But hey! The iTunes store is surely more important than the 2500 times Congressmen, Senators, and judges claimed immunity today by the powers granted themselves by the 'patriot' Act; and more important than the MILLIONS of times it has been feloniously claimed to date.
A conservative estimate has the world as victim since the day Cheney was sworn in to the tune of 20 TRILLION DOLLARS. All records are sealed, with multiple layers of immunities for all signatoried felons already in place. But hey! It's all about the iTunes, right?
Then comes the American taxpayer, too busy texting Facebook and playing videogames to see our government formally shifting all that national debt onto their backs through the printing of money and removal of all real worth from the dollars printed by giving the real wealth to the rich for keeping their money in gold and real estate. So yeah, iPhones, iPods, iPads? Important indeed.

bmxmag-ps