Donkeys and Elephants and Delegates,oh my!
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Top 50 Tech Visionaries
pcworld.com — Without the imagination and hard work of these fifty innovators technologies you use every day might never have been invented.
warrior007- 682 diggs
- digg it
- ratazmataz, on 05/19/2008, -7/+0What about Federico Faggin, the main inventor of Z80?
- suzywang3000, on 05/19/2008, -9/+34I find it staggering that Al Gore was not on this list.
- oldhick, on 05/19/2008, -2/+6"I'm super cereal!!!!"
- Mootabolife, on 05/19/2008, -1/+5And where is Tony Stark?
Oh wait.. he's not real.- romeyinfc, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1..But Larry Ellison is - the next best thing
- ICSU, on 05/19/2008, -3/+3You meant it as a joke but Gore's contribution to Internet's popularity was substantial.
- bat-21, on 05/19/2008, -1/+2You forgot the sarcasm tag.
- mariachi, on 05/20/2008, -1/+1he is - he's #5
- ytsohptwhere, on 05/19/2008, -8/+33What about Woz? Come the ***** on PCWorld...
- goobit, on 05/19/2008, -0/+9This list is obviously going to be subjective but I do agree Woz should have been on the list. I also believe there are many others that should have been on the list and a few that shouldn't. For example certain people who created programming languages we know today such as php, or BitTorrent for that matter.
- Corvidae, on 05/19/2008, -0/+5The list should have been empty if the criteria was "might NEVER have existed". It might have taken longer or been in a different form, without those people on the list. The discoveries would have been made by someone else if not them. Their distinction is simply being able to claim 'First!'.
- goobit, on 05/19/2008, -0/+4The problem is some of those people don't deserve the claim to be first. I certainly would credit Woz over Jobs any day. Sure Jobs is good at marketing Apple, be he certainly didn't invest it.
- Corvidae, on 05/19/2008, -0/+5The list should have been empty if the criteria was "might NEVER have existed". It might have taken longer or been in a different form, without those people on the list. The discoveries would have been made by someone else if not them. Their distinction is simply being able to claim 'First!'.
- Pokez, on 05/19/2008, -1/+5No Woz, no digg!
- goobit, on 05/19/2008, -0/+9This list is obviously going to be subjective but I do agree Woz should have been on the list. I also believe there are many others that should have been on the list and a few that shouldn't. For example certain people who created programming languages we know today such as php, or BitTorrent for that matter.
- teh_spazz, on 05/19/2008, -5/+53Where the ***** is Wozniak?
- serif69, on 05/19/2008, -2/+16He's riding around on his Segway, texting Kathy Griffin from his iPhone, wearing a goofy bike helmet, and grinning.
Oh, you meant in the article.- timusca, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1You apparently don't keep up with the times! Woz and Griffin are over!
- serif69, on 05/19/2008, -0/+2Do you really think that's going to stop the Woz?
- timusca, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1You apparently don't keep up with the times! Woz and Griffin are over!
- OMGWTFROFLMAOx2, on 05/19/2008, -7/+2His numerous failures (and insistence for riding around on a segway while playing polo and texting Kathy Griffman..see what I did there) negate his successes?
- ytsohptwhere, on 05/19/2008, -1/+2He created the ***** PC you idiot.
- serif69, on 05/19/2008, -2/+16He's riding around on his Segway, texting Kathy Griffin from his iPhone, wearing a goofy bike helmet, and grinning.
- jaymulder, on 05/19/2008, -3/+66Someone needs to tell PCWorld that 50 things can go on one page.
- Shadowgamers, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1But then they'd have to have bigger columns. BIGGER COLUMNS. THAT WOULD BE TERRIBLE.
- litolist, on 05/19/2008, -2/+18Damn, I'm a genius.
http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,145290 ...- Briii, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1*clap**clap*
- OMGWTFROFLMAOx2, on 05/19/2008, -0/+8here's a trick for long multipage articles:
CLICK THE PRINTABLE BUTTON - charris1980, on 05/19/2008, -0/+3multiple pages = multiple views on ads.
- JerodSlay, on 05/19/2008, -4/+17None of the social networking people was on there... Out of 50, not one?
- Sk8SkaNJ, on 05/19/2008, -0/+3I'd hardly call Myspace a vision, or at least not a very great one.
- JerodSlay, on 05/19/2008, -0/+4Web 2.0 (social, user generated/inclusive Web) is the reason for the massive explosion in usage. It has connected people like never before possible. If they're going to throw Huffington a bone, they should throw social sites one, even if it's all grouped together like some of the others.
- rieuwa, on 05/19/2008, -2/+8An interesting article from PCWorld? No it can't be....
Actually learnt quite a lot ...... though maybe the article should have been '50 tech visionaries' and not necessarily 'top'... - jrtcs, on 05/19/2008, -2/+16One page: http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,145290 ...
- floppyparty, on 05/19/2008, -5/+10Wow, google at 2. Wow, how shortsighted, all the did was build a better search engine, and adsense. They are very successful, but #2 on the visionary list? I think not. I think Jon Postel should be much, much higher.
- levelred, on 05/19/2008, -5/+1Shigeru Miyamoto #9?
He should be in the top 3. - uziko, on 05/19/2008, -34/+5heres my list
1. Kevin Rose
2. Bill Gates
3. Steve Jobs
4. Linus Torvalds
5. that tom guy from myspace- Tyr7BE, on 05/19/2008, -2/+13Oh yeah. Kevin Rose, legendary visionary. What with his one site where you say whether you like or don't like a story. I mean, we're dealing with earth shattering ideas here.
I'll give you this - this being Digg and all, your top 5 weren't all "Steve Jobs" with little heart ASCIIs surrounding each entry of his name. Good job.- Niightwitch, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Fair enough - Kevin shouldn't be on the list, but Steve Jobs and Bill Gates definitely should be up there.
- roflbrothel, on 05/19/2008, -2/+9lol Kevin Rose @ #1?
kissass - mikesbaker, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1its ok uziko - i main line digg all the time too
- Tyr7BE, on 05/19/2008, -2/+13Oh yeah. Kevin Rose, legendary visionary. What with his one site where you say whether you like or don't like a story. I mean, we're dealing with earth shattering ideas here.
- UKsHaDoW, on 05/19/2008, -1/+10Maybe, I might of missed it.
But Alan Turing isn't on the list? The father of modern computer science - vexingmodstwo, on 05/19/2008, -5/+12Arianna Huffington is on this list... buried.... NEXT!
- mindlessknight, on 05/19/2008, -5/+9Linus Torvalds should be much higher on the list!!!
Not to worry though.....Torvalds will be higher on the list when Linux takes over...- stix213, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1And Richard Stallman should have been at least mentioned.
- Rotkiv, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1stallman was as much a part of the success of linux as Torvalds, he should have been on the list too.
- stix213, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1And Richard Stallman should have been at least mentioned.
- heliox, on 05/19/2008, -11/+2Dugg for leaving Gore off the list.
Dugg for having Grace Murray Hopper on the list.
Buried for having Jobs on the list.
Net 1 digg. - 4LeggedtriPod, on 05/19/2008, -3/+6Decent list but could have been much better.
#1. Woz, like many others noted.
#2. Postel should have been much higher, as noted above.
#3. Shouldn't there be @ least ONE person from this current era of tech visionaries? Masterminds behind sites such as YouTube, Digg, Myspace and Facebook and other sites of the sort.- illahtech, on 05/20/2008, -0/+2Google was up there, they're recent.
As for YouTube, Digg, etc, those aren't technological wonders, they're examples of wildly successful business models. Big difference.
Concepts such as personal computing and the web have changed society, things like social networks are just a new application of using a database to tie things together, Digg is a conceptually simple algorithm to allow voting on news, etc...fun, but not revolutionary by any means.
- illahtech, on 05/20/2008, -0/+2Google was up there, they're recent.
- goodhorsehymn, on 05/19/2008, -0/+9I think they need to look up the meaning of the word 'visionary'.
- kodybryson, on 05/20/2008, -0/+3Exactly what I was thinking. More blowing the richest guys in the room again (along with a few of the oldest) and calling them visionaries.
- cmdrNacho, on 05/19/2008, -0/+3For a list about technology , why wouldn't they put the people that were involved with coming up with concepts that lead to the computer, possibly Babbbage, Turing... Gates was nothing but a sly business man, but yes he was a visionary, at the time no one thought you make money off of software, except for Gates... and it was Woz's vision and hardwork that got personal pcs into everyone's hands, Jobs was only the marketer, the big mouth... that you put to front a company.
- Dayimproper, on 05/21/2008, -0/+0Might I add :
George Boole
Herman Hollerith
Ken Thompson
Dennis Ritchie
Bjarne Stroustrup (I guess you can see what languages I program in)
Richard Stallman
might be a stretch:
Al-Khwarizmi (the origin of the word algorithm)
and the list can go on and on...
- Dayimproper, on 05/21/2008, -0/+0Might I add :
- cypriss9, on 05/19/2008, -2/+2Elon Musk is missing from the list. He formed PayPal (revolutionized online payment), Tesla Motors (leader in electric cars), and SpaceX (cheap access to space).
- wubblie, on 05/19/2008, -0/+2Most of the people on this list have careers that are over and their contributions are established. He is the only person I could imagine moving up the list (if Tesla and SpaceX are successful). You're right, the list would have been better with him on it.
- Malacandra95, on 05/19/2008, -1/+3Steve Case? AOL was based on Q-Link which used software licensed from a company called PlayNet.
PlayNet actually developed the innovative software for a consumer telecommunications network, but desperately needed financing... so they licensed their system to a competitor... who became mega-rich off of it.
The real unsung innovators were named Dave Panzl and Howard Goldberg... but we largely only sing the praises of the commercial successes - not the actual technical innovators. So Steve Case it is. And Jobs makes the list, and Woz is nowhere to be found on it. - BananaGrabber, on 05/19/2008, -1/+4where's Tony Stark?
- homercles337, on 05/19/2008, -0/+3No mention of Claude Shannon?! Without him we wouldnt even HAVE computers. Also, why was Richard Stallman left off the list? He is far more important that Linus. Im burying this due to inaccuracy.
- okrelayer, on 05/19/2008, -4/+2not having waz on this list is like not having jorden mentioned in the top 50 basketball players
- 4LeggedtriPod, on 05/19/2008, -2/+2"waz"? "jorden"? And that's just the two amazingly simple spelling mistakes. My God, go back to second grade.
- PS3Camaro, on 05/19/2008, -1/+1Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim... how did they not make that list?
- SquidLips, on 05/19/2008, -0/+0
Ted Nelson needs to be on that list. A true visionary, if slighty mad. - trollick, on 05/19/2008, -0/+8Moore's Law is NOT a scientific law.
- SOS84, on 05/19/2008, -7/+1The Real Top Five
1. Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The guys (and girl) that created Google. What else is there really to say.
2. Bill Gates. Bill gave us Windows which is the single most influential aspect (driver) of home computing.
3. Linus Torvalds.
4. Shawn Fanning. He changed music forever.
5. Michael Dell. He changed the PC industry for the better by giving us options we never had.
Yeah, there are a lot of others out there who brought us the hardware we know and love, but I am not sure if they ever envisioned how much they would impact the future, and I really think these people did.
- dajuggernaut, on 05/19/2008, -1/+2with the exception of your #1 pick... that has got to be the absolute quintessential list of suck!
- SOS84, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Jealous? Thought so.
- dajuggernaut, on 05/19/2008, -1/+2with the exception of your #1 pick... that has got to be the absolute quintessential list of suck!
- eminiguy, on 05/19/2008, -0/+5No Woz?? I am going to sue these bastards.
Arianna Huffington? Is this some delayed April 1st joke? I don't get it...
BURIED!!- wubblie, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1I hate to be politically incorrect, but when I saw her I figured that some editor said the list needed more women (Jim, I feel it needs to be more 'gender inclusive').
- Raptor007, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Dugg for Bill Atkinson, among others. Good read.
- BufordT, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Marathon!
- BufordT, on 05/19/2008, -0/+2Great reading until I got the back page where they ran out of substance and added the throw-ins Arianna Huffington and Herbie Hancock.
- ultrasparc, on 05/19/2008, -0/+3Ummm where's the Woz?
- eminiguy, on 05/19/2008, -0/+3Steve Wozniak is in Inventor's Hall of Fame that includes Edison and Bell, among other notables. 40+ out of 50 on this lame list will never even come close to this.
And yet he is not on this lame list. Not even a joke!
Here is the list of people in Inventor's Hall of Fame
http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/1_1_2_listing_i ... - kendetroit, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1no dvorak.org/blog? lame.
- jawbreaker4fs, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Seriously? Maybe if this was a list of "Top 50 Bloggers Who Think They Can Predict the Future of Technology but Always Fail Miserably"... in which case John Dvorak would be all 50.
- Noncentz, on 05/19/2008, -0/+32 words.... Steve Wozniak.........
I just couldnt believe he wasnt on the top 5 of this list but the google guys, come on - evamcs, on 05/19/2008, -0/+2Out of those 50 people, two of them, Shawn Fanning and Bill Gates, were in my US History textbook (yes, I realize not all the top 50 were American), published in 2005.
- encrypter, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1No Bill Shockley and John Bardeen? They are the fathers of modern day electronics...
- stix213, on 05/19/2008, -0/+2Richard Stallman should have made the list. You can always tell when an article is written by someone unfamiliar with Linux, because Linus will be given all the credit. Yeah Linus did a lot for Linux (writing the kernel and all), but there is much more to the OS than the kernel itself, and Richard Stallman should at least be given a nod.
- PrestonM, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Random fact of the day. No. 39 Peter Norton, was a Buddhist Monk. I would have never guessed.
- 0nova, on 05/19/2008, -1/+1Can't believe they left out Sabeer Bhatia, the found of Hotmail.. the first ever free email on the web, even before Yahoo came out with their email service.
This list is incomplete. - badassninja, on 05/19/2008, -0/+3What the hell.... No Richard Stallmen? The man with 50 foot balls that said this locked up source code crap has got to end and then he spent the next ten years on the beginnings of Linux forcing the open source/free software market to open with his balls alone! In 15 years he will be number 3 on that list and Bill gates will be number 303 and his discription will be something like, remember bill gates, that guy that only really created a new OS twice ( windows 3 and 95, the rest all has the same gui's and no new ideas ) and just happened to be lucky.
- Jassman, on 05/19/2008, -0/+2Buried for lack of Ray Kurzweil.
- LiquidTension36, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1that is exactly who I was looking for... disappointing
- timusca, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1God Bless Shawn Fanning.
- BrendanSheehan, on 05/19/2008, -2/+2Bill is above Steve Jobs? Now that's funny!
- maryac, on 05/19/2008, -0/+2You can't leave out Steve Wozniak. There would be no Apple without Woz. He taught Jobs about simplicity.
- Qong, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1The list was pretty good, and the reading was interesting.
But seriously, Arianna Huffington?? One of the top 50 Tech Visionaries? Ok... - hellokishi, on 06/17/2008, -0/+0An interesting article from PCWorld? but how they have shortlisted? is there any time frame??
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