There are things you need: food, water, shelter. There are things you want: a nice car, a big TV, a trip to Hawaii. But there are some things that just change how you live your life. They are not necessities by any means, but once you get them you are hooked, and your life will never be the same. Here is my list of top five life changing toys:
5. Satellite Radio – When did regular radio stations decide I don’t like music? Talk in the morning, news at noon, news at six, 10 minutes of commercials, and the same five songs in between. For $12 a month, I get no commercials. None. Nonstop music in the car, at work, and at home. Commercials suck, or at least I think they did, thanks to Sirius/XM, I wouldn’t know.
4. The Ipod/Itunes – The 00′s walkman on steriods. A 1000 songs, in your pocket, with a 12 hour battery, the size of 1/4 deck of cards would have been science fiction just 10 years ago. The ability to download an album legally from your home, in less than five minutes: Incredible. Cheaper, faster, better. What technology often promises and rarely delivers. Kudos Apple, you added music to my walks, bus rides, and 8-5 in a cube. You have given my life a soundtrack.
3. Highspeed Internet/Google – Remember phone books, calling airlines to find the cheapest flights, using an Atlas, calling information, watching the news for tomorrow’s weather, searching the paper for a sport’s score, writing a letter, forgetting a song/actor’s name/the year the War of 1812 happened? Neither do I. In just over 10 years, the internet has become truly my answer to all questions. Between it, email (gmail is my favorite), and Google searches, the internet is the most powerful tool in the history of man. That is not an exageration, think about it.
2. The Cell Phone – Electronic leash, yes. Freedom from $200 long distance bills, landlines, and losing my wife at the mall, yes also. How far have we come from the days of cement brick sized phones that cost $3 a minute and had to be plugged into a car battery? Now you can get a phone with basically unlimited calling, with a music player, a camera, the internet, and IM, smaller than a wallet, for $30 a month. In the 60s they would have laughed at you if you said the communicators in Star Trek would ever happen. Welcome to the wireless world hippies.
1. TiVo – TV has been here to stay since it was black and white, had three channels, and was the size of a washing machine. Nothing, not color, cable, or HiDef made it as useful as TiVo. Watch any show you want, commercial free, whenever you want. Never miss a show, pause rewind live TV, start Monday Night Football, an hour and a half late and catch up to live TV by the end. It truly defines an innovation that will change your life. We all watch TV, with TiVo for the first time in 60 years watch it on your terms. Worth it’s weight in Ipods.
So what is next? You got me, but with most of these toys coming into their own in the last five to ten years, I would predict the next life changing toy will come soon and I can’t wait.
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