Special Report: Top 11 Technologies of the Decade


Smartphones: The Pocketable PC Is your phone smarter than a fifth grader?	Social Networking: Friended Bandwidth, digital cameras, and a hunger for connectedness have created a virtual dinner party	Voice Over IP: Setting Phone Service Free How Ma Bell's cash cow became a free software app

LED Lighting: Blue + Yellow = White Giving LEDs the blues was the key to replacing the incandescent bulb	Multicore CPUs: Processor Proliferation From multicore to many-core to hard-to-describe-in-a-single-word cores	Cloud Computing: It's Always Sunny in the Cloud Cloud computing puts your desktop wherever you want it

Drone Aircraft: How the Drones Got Their Stingers Unmanned aerial vehicles come of age	Planetary Rovers: Are We Alone? Planetary rovers attempt to answer the most profound question in science	Flexible AC Transmission: The FACTS Machine Flexible power electronics will make the smart grid smart

Digital Photography: The Power of Pixels Digital photography changed not only how we take pictures but also how we communicate	Class-D Audio: The Power and the Glory A quiet revolution is transforming audio electronics	Next-to-the-Best Technologies of 2000-2010 These innovations just barely missed the cut for our Top 11 list