Top 20 innovations of the last 30 years

Here are the top 20 innovations of the last 30 years, according to a survey sponsored by Knowledge@Wharton and PBS’s “Nightly Business Report”. Judging was done by Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

  1. Internet, broadband
  2. PC, laptop computers
  3. Mobile phones
  4. E-mail
  5. DNA testing and sequencing
  6. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
  7. Microprocessors
  8. Fiber optics
  9. Office software
  10. Laser/robotic surgery
  11. Open-source software
  12. Light-emitting diodes
  13. Liquid crystal display
  14. GPS devices
  15. E-commerce and actions
  16. Media file compression
  17. Microfinance
  18. Photovoltaic solar energy
  19. Large-scale wind turbines
  20. Internet social networking

Visual Voicemail Invention: Google settles with inventor

Inventor: Judah Klausner

Invention: Visual Voicemail related

Judah Klausner is the person who invented the technoloy which allows voicemail work more like email by sending visual alerts of voice messages to computers or phones, allowing users to selectively retrieve the messages. Those who use iPhone or any similar device, know how easy it is to retrieve voice mails.

Klausner is the inventor behind this technology. He holds several patents related to the technology in the United States, Europe and Asia. Google settled his patent claims after he used them, and now, Google is free to use the technology. Google owns two types of services that could have been broadly affected by Klausner’s patents. It offers Web-based phone services through a start-up it acquired, Grand Central, and it has also built the Android open software platform for smartphones, which it has licensed to companies including T-Mobile and Vodafone.
Klausner has already successfully settled with many companies before.  In late 2007 his company, privately held Klausner Technologies Inc, sued Apple and six other companies for $360 million for violating patents on visual voicemail technology. Klausner said T-Mobile had agreed to license his European visual voicemail patents in 17 European countries. The agreement covers a new visual voicemail service that T-Mobile’s German unit announced at the CeBIT IT trade fair last week.

So, what is Klausner doing now? He is currently working on patents for turning cellphones into movie or video projectors.