Top 10 Gadgets We Didn't Know We Needed

Posted by Deborah Read on Friday 3 February 2012 in Electronics

How the world has changed since I was a whipper snapper! There are some technologies that you can’t remember what you did without them. We’ve created a countdown of our favourite technologies we can’t live without.

10) Hands free

This device ensures that people can drive whilst talking on their mobile phones and walking down the street. Who knew that in the 21st century people would be walking around seemingly talking to themselves and this being a completely normal, socially acceptable thing to do.

9) Laptop-

t’s a computer, but it sits on my lap. Many people now prefer a laptop to a computer, it’s portable, easy to use and store and a lot lighter than a computer. Invented in 1969 by Bill Moggridge, it was initially used by NASA before being made commercially available.

8) iPod

It’s like a portable CD player, but you can listen to any of your songs without having to carry them around separately… Whilst there were many different MP3 players around, in the year 2000 Apple came up with their own MP3 player, the iPod. This revolutionised the way people listen to and bought music. Together with iTunes, people could buy and download their music and take it wherever they went. The iPod is the best selling portable media player in history whilst on iTunes, 2.5 million songs are bought a week.

7) 3D TVs

Five years ago if you said 3DTV people thought of badly fitting glasses and bad films at the cinema. Not anymore. Not only is 3D cinema more advanced, but 3DTV and High Definition TV are the new vogue. Advances in technology has meant that films are brought further into life as people look for even more new and exciting ways to enjoy their favourite programmes and films.

6) Gaming Consoles

Although games consoles were around in my day (my brother had a SNES), when I was young they were the cause of the obesity crisis. Playing the game console meant sitting with a handset pressing zeros, squares, exes and whatever else. Now, you’re part of the action, dancing, swinging and running just like your characters on screen. You can keep fit with your games console, something which was never dreamed of when I was a nipper!

5) Sat Navs

‘Turn right in five hundred yards.’ Not only does the sat nav mean that people are now driving into ditches and canals, but also that youngsters have no need to read a map. The sav nav has become the gadget to have, as it means you never get lost… or does it?

4) iPad

One step up from the laptop the iPad is the all inclusive device that lets you do anything. Surf the net? Not a problem! Read a book? Sure why not. Put together a presentation for work? Easy! Take my Dog for a walk? Not really. But literally everything else. When it was released, the iPad sold 3 million in eighty days, selling 14.8 million globally in 2010.

3) Mobile phone

In the 80s mobile phones were bricks which only bankers carried around for their really important meetings. Now, mobiles are everywhere and everyone has at least one. They have revolutionised the way people communicate, from sending quick texts to organise a get together to face calling a loved one.

2) Social Networking

Remember Friends Reunited? That was the first social networking site, but unfortunately Facebook just did it better. I was initially on Friends Reunited, MySpace and Bebo. 6 years later and Facebook is the only one I’m on, keeping in touch with friends and family but importantly not my parents, as that’s just uncool. There are 800 million active users on Facebook, with Britons spending on average 25 minutes and 33 seconds on the site a day- that’s enough time to watch an episode of Eastenders, take a quick jog, cook a meal or read a chapter or two of a good book. Over onto Twitter facts, Twitter has 100 million active users a month with 50 million active every day. Over five days one billion tweets are sent... and about 4 billion are about what you're having for your tea...

1) Internet

Without the internet, the above would be useless! The internet revolutionises the way we communicate, research, interact, work, shop, pretty much everything. Access to the internet is seen as a basic human right by many. It holds so much information that it would take a million human brains to store the same information, whilst 247 billion emails are sent globally every day. Every second, 28,258 people are watching porn. Enough said.