There are many things in this world that may have changed us. There are also few inventions or technologies which has changed the world. Only time will tell if these inventions will live up to the hype, but as history told, the truly revolutionary innovations are those that so fundamentally changed how we live, work and play that it’s hard to imagine a life without them these days.

Here are 7 inventions dating back to the 15th Century that sent transformative ripples throughout society and whose legacies still kicking today.

The Printing Press
The original game-changing gadget was too big to fit in your pocket, but it revolutionized literacy all the same. Around 1450, German goldsmith Johannes Gutenburg transformed printing with his press, a table-sized machine modeled after the wine presses of the day. The invention used thousands of movable metal letters to quickly and cheaply copy text. Gutenburg’s press took the spread of ideas out of the hands of elites and paved the way for the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment.

The point-and-shoot camera
Photography was introduced to the masses in 1888 by George Eastman with the Kodak camera. For the first time, the average person could freeze reality in images, which could tell a thousand words. With the arrival of digital cameras some 100 years later, photography became even more common. Now almost everybody carries camera in their pocket with the buil-in camera in the mobile phone. Some models even has a camcorder feature to record your own video.

Radio
The evolution of radio took place when Guglielmo Marconi patented his radiotelegraph system in 1901, originally intended as a way for sea vessels to wirelessly communicate with one another. But in 1920′s, the radio has become a source of information and entertainment when it starts broadcasting music and news and later became one of the most influencial mass media. Today radio applications are widely used from baby monitor to military radar. Mobile phones and WiFi technology are also derives from radio wave principle.

Television
Enough said, television (TV) has became one of the most dominant media worldwide, even until now. It hits the market 20 years after radio blasted the entertainment landscape. TV broadcast set another history between 1930′s and 1940′s, allowing audience to watch news and entertainment programs saparated with commercial breaks – the source of TV broadcaster’s income.

Personal Computer

Once upon a time, computers were room-sized machines and absolutely outside the price range of the average Joe or Jane. In 1970′s, home computers were available in the market, but it really took off in 1981 with IBM’s PC which cost less than $1,600.

Since then, Personal Computers or PCs has became so popular and physically got smaller and more powerful. It also paved the way for notebooks, UMPC, netbooks, tablets, smartphones and other mobile computing devices. The use of PCs were extended with the introduction of Internet. In 2007, there were more than 230 million PCs in Unite

Oh, and they made the Internet possible. By 2007, 75 percent of U.S. households had a broadband connection, and more than 230 million PCs were in use nationwide.

Internet

Internet has revolutionized how we communicate and interact with friends and relatives. Many years back when internet has not widely used, we still depends on telephones, faxes as well as physical meeting. Now, you can just IM your colleague to ask

him/her for lunch, email your scanned document and held an online meeting via video conference using the VOIP technology. The Internet also connects us with our long lost friends via social networking sites such as Facebook and Friendster. You can also observe your house or premise using internet connected webcam or web security camera.

Mobile Phones
Mobile phones allow users to do so many things, but normal users will only utilize about 50% of their phone’s capabilities. Smartphones, a mobile phone variant, enable users to make calls, surf internet, send email and run applications from their phones. In 21st century we saw Treos, Blackberries and iPhones becoming anchor consumer brands. Whether you’re Googling, sending SMS or updating your status in Facebook, smartphones allow constant connectivity with the outside world.