Trek and Tech

Good article on the 50 greatest gadgets of the past 50 years. Quick top five:

1. Sony Walkman TPS-L2 (1979)Portable music players are so cheap and ubiquitous today that it's hard to remember when they were luxury items, widely coveted and often stolen. But, when the blue and silver Walkman debuted in 1979, no one had ever seen anything quite like it. The $200 player virtually invented the concept of "personal electronics".

2. If the Walkman is the aging king of portable media players, Apple's iPod is prince regent. It rules the realm of digital music like no other device: according to the NPD Group, more than eight out of ten portable players sold at retail by mid-2005 were iPods (As of September, 2006, it holds more than 70% of the market). Yet, when the iPod first appeared in October 2001, it was nothing special. It featured a 5GB hard drive and a mechanical scroll wheel, but worked only with Macs.

3. (Tie) ReplayTV RTV2001 and HDR110 (1999) The appearance of the first ReplayTV and TiVo models--the pioneering Gemini of digital video recording--in the number three spot on our list may be a measure of how much we all hate TV commercials.

4. PalmPilot 1000 (1996)The PalmPilot 1000 was everything the Apple Newton MessagePad (#28) wanted to be: a "personal data assistant" small enough to fit in your shirt pocket, with enough RAM (128KB) to hold a then-impressive 500 names and addresses.

5. Sony CDP-101 (1982) The first commercial compact disc player signalled a technological sea change that ultimately caused millions of music lovers to ditch their turntables. The boxy CDP-101 wasn't especially sleek and, at $900, it was priced for audiophiles, but it ushered in the age of digital sound--no more hisses, scratches, pops or skips.

Good call on making the Walkman the number one and not giving in and giving the top spot to the ipod.

Also, the laudable Mr. Lynn has posted a piece of brilliance that finally, finally, ranks the Star Trek movies in order. I thank him for settling this, as well as offer my sympathy to those academics who now have to choose another topic for the PhD dissertations.

The quick list: 1) Wrath of Khan

2) First Contact

3) Voyage Home

4) The Undiscovered Country

5) Search For Spock

6) Generations

7) The Motion Picture

8) Nemesis

9) Insurrection

10) Final Frontier

I would quibble with spots 8, 9 and 10. For me Nemesis takes the last spot (perhaps because of the fresh scars it has left on my mind) and I would move the Final Frontier to 8 and rank Insurrection at 9. Mere quibbles, really, akin to arguing about which sitcom is crappier, Everybody Loves Raymond or King of Queens.

Also, Matt Damon as the young Kirk? I'd prefer that guy from Two Guys, A Couple of Girls and Some Pizzas because he could do it justice. Or, screw it, just have Shatner play Kirk again and gloss over the fact that he's 70.