Time magazine published a Top 50 of the most influential gadgets of all time. Of course, the Playstation and the Gameboy, the Palm Pilot and the iPad, the TiVo and the JVC camcorder, the Polaroid Instamatic camera and the Kodak Brownie, are on the list, as is the TomTom satnav/GPS, the Blackberry and the Sony Walkman.
It’s a veritable feast of electronics and pre-electronics spanning the twentieth century and into the 21st, although some of the gadgets have their roots in the electromagnetomechanical world of the 19th. The Apple Mac is at #3, the Sony Trinitron television at #2 and at #1, surprise, surprise, the iPhone.
But, what’s that at #10…? The Magic Wand? An electric “neck massager”, apparently…you may recall I sort of alluded to that kind of gadget and the world of cyber relationships in my Peter Gabriel pastiche, a song entitled “Push the Button“. Now available to stream or download for free from my BandCamp page…or on SoundCloud. Go on you know you want to…