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Dec 12, 202415 min read

Time's Best Inventions 2024: Signals of Our Future

Updated: Dec 18, 2024

The Time magazine cover for its Best Inventions of 2024 is depicted, which shows a robot carrying a large plastic container of flowers.
Source: Jo Whaley for Time

We explore Time Magazine's annual Best Inventions list to uncover signals about our future. From Toi Labs' AI-powered toilet seat revolutionizing personal health monitoring, to Volvo's innovative driver safety system becoming EU law by 2026, to Light Bio's bioluminescent Firefly Petunia reimagining gardening -- we discuss how these innovations reveal emerging trends in health, safety, and everyday life. While examining both breakthrough technologies and surprisingly simple solutions, we discover how our future might require both cutting-edge digital solutions and intentional ways to disconnect.





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Episode Transcript:

Sue: Welcome to Signal Shift, by Horizon Shift Lab. We're your hosts, Lana Price, Raakhee Natha, and Sue Chi. Each episode, we explore the latest signals in technology, culture, and society, uncovering insights that will impact our daily lives in the future. Join us as we shift perspectives, explore possibilities, and delve into real changes in our world. Curious to learn more? Go to horizonshiftlab.com.


Sue: Hello and welcome to another episode of Signal Shift. It's Sue here and I've got Lana and Raakhee here as well.


And a few weeks ago, Time Magazine published its annual Best Inventions Issue. It features 200 of the best inventions of the year, plus 50 special mentions. And we thought we'd take this episode to actually go through it to see what kind of signals is it bringing for the future. 

So this list was originally created in 2001 and covers what editors consider groundbreaking innovations in a wide range of categories. It can include tech, health, education, outdoor adventure, things like that and more.


But I wanted to talk about the list because it is imperfect, so as many times as the list has hailed really important inventions that have really taken off, there are a couple that are also just duds, right? 


So for example, big hits: the iPhone in 2007, the Tesla Model S in 2012, right? So lots of things. And I was just looking at my desk and I have two things at least that have been on this list, the iPhone and an Ember mug, which I forget what year it was. But yeah, so very interesting. 

And at the same time, the Segway was on the list in 2001. It was hailed as a revolutionary invention for personal commuting. And we kind of know where it went. Google Glass made it in 2013, Theranos’ Edison Machine was in 2014, for example. So very interesting to see what makes this list. But either way, this conjures up images of what the future can bring.


So I'm curious, Lana and Raakhee, what inventions really stood out to you? Let's maybe start with talking a little bit about what it might be a sign of and what's to come.


[2:32]


Raakhee: This is Raakhee here. I'm happy to go first, but I have to put a warning label on this topic. It's a little gross. So yeah, if you don't want to go there, you might want to hit forward, but hopefully you do because it's very interesting. 


So I am somebody who does have to go to the doctor often and take a couple of blood tests in a year. Due to some challenges I have, and it's pretty frustrating. I was actually giving blood about two or three weeks ago, and I took what four or five, or I gave about four or five vials. And for whatever reason, it pulled at my vein and I was left with a really bad bruise. It was all blue and it was sore for at least 10 days. It was horrible. And I was like, "Oh, my God, I'm not looking forward to this next year again. I did not want to do this, like I'm so exhausted."


And I think at some point, if not on the podcast, at some point, we spoke about these menstrual pads that would collect your normal blood from your cycle and they would analyze that for your test. So you wouldn't have to give extra blood. And I see that, I think it's the same company, I think that was on the list. That was not my favorite one. 


My favorite one was something similar. And it was the AI powered toilet seat. So there is a company called Toi Labs. And yeah, basically Toi Labs has invented TrueLoo, which is an AI-powered toilet seat that basically scans your stool and your urine for any concerning changes. And basically it's monitoring your bodily waste, right, tracking, analyzing and gives you a very holistic look at your health.


And I loved it because I do always say this to friends and family, it is really important to actually know how these things look in your life and they are very, very important tool for telling you how healthy you actually are or you aren't and your gut health is right. 


So as gross as it is, it's really, really valuable. And yeah, I was excited that there's something like this available now. Right now it's being used in about 50 plus care facilities and the data goes directly to the care personnel. 


So again, in these cases, I think it's really smart because at a certain age and depending on the disease you have, you don't care about that, you're not focused and it's a very non-invasive. You just go about your life and yet you're getting all the medical data you need and people can help you and help you quickly because it will tell you what's happening immediately, right?


So it's a really good way both for prevention of health for younger people and I think like to give older people or when you have little children and they start using the bathroom, to give them voice because they typically won't say, oh, this hurts. Or they don't know what inflammation feels like, right? So it's giving them voice and using this thing that we do every day so you don't have to go and give blood tests and you don't have to worry about all of that. It's just how we live every day and that can be analyzed and can give us really good data. 


It also looked really affordable from the website. It looks like it's $349. It sits just on your toilet seat and then of course there's a monthly subscription fee but it seemed very reasonable. So depending on your health issues or how much you care about preventative health, this could be a worthy investment. 


I don't think it’s at the point of deep enough analysis, I think it's just a couple of things they're tracking right now, which is why it's so affordable. I think in time they'll be able to just add more and more and really analyze more and more.


So yeah, that was the one that really stuck out to me and it made me remember, I think there was a Black Mirror episode or an advert or something where somebody gets up, they walk into like this high-tech bathroom and they're brushing, but the mirror kind of, you have all this data flowing on the mirror and you can see like the bathroom basically did a health analysis while they just went about their morning. So it reminded me of that and I was like, wow, we are there. So that was my one.


Sue: I'm so curious, Raakhee, are you thinking you might actually get it?


Raakhee: Yes, totally. I think so. I'm going to wait and see what the reviews are and just understand a little bit more what they are analyzing, but if it looks really good, Sue, then I would happily invest in something like this. So yeah.


Sue: That's great. That's one of the intended impacts of the list as well, like what can rise to the surface for people to actually consider. Lana, what did you pick?


[7:07]


Lana: Well, it was really fun to go through the list and I went through it actually a couple of different times and each time I went through it, I found something else that I thought was really cool. But then I guess I picked one that I thought might do, like have a really big impact and so I wound up going with it's Volvo's, basically something that the Volvo is going to put in its new model which is like two camera based sensors that monitor the driver's gaze. 


And so the idea is that if your eyes are off the road, right, if you're looking at your phone, for example, it will like alert that, like do a sound that you're not looking at the road. And if you're not looking for a long time, it can shut down the car. And so this is for both drowsiness, right, like people who are tired and they start closing their eyes, but also if your eyes are not looking where they should be.


Apparently this driver management system is going to be law in the EU, they've mandated that by 2026 all cars must have these types of driver monitoring systems inside. And I think in the US we also have some pending legislation but it's to prevent people from looking at their phones, right, or you know to catch them from doing that, but also monitoring for leaving children in the car accidentally, so there's systems to see if you have like weight in the back seat and you're exiting the car and so there's, you know, good intentions behind all of these things. 



I don't know about you guys but when I'm out in the world and I see people driving, you can see that they're not looking at the road, it is so terrifying, and so I'm all for this and I'm all for autonomous self-driving cars like as soon as possible because cars are one of the biggest killers in our country and not cars that, you know, unsafe driving.


I'm for that but, as we learned from Raakhee from a previous episode is that the more monitoring we have in the car, the less privacy, right. And so if they're mandating in-vehicle video cameras, that's just taking that to a whole ‘nother level in terms of data that's being collected about what is happening not just in the car, around the car, not just audio, but also video as well. So that's the flip side of it, but as I said in terms of like potential impact, societal impact, that hopefully the benefits can outweigh some of the cost.


Sue: Thanks Lana. Did you say when this law is going to go into effect? Is it next year?

Lana: I think for the EU it's 2026.


Sue: Okay, that's good to know to see how this experiment will go in Europe, to see what lessons we could maybe drop for the US. Thanks, Lana.


[10:56]


Sue: So I agree, this list was really fun to go through. There were so many I wanted to choose, but ultimately as you both might suspect, I chose something from the outdoor section and it was called the Firefly Petunia. 


It is a bioluminescent petunia and it's made by a company called Light Bio. I guess a few years ago a couple of researchers wanted to see: can you actually make plants bioluminescent? It doesn't really happen. And so they took a tobacco plant and actually injected DNA from bioluminescent fungi and made it happen. They said, could you actually apply this kind of science to other types of plants including petunias, roses, you name it.


So here we are, you know, of course I love this invention because number one I love plants and I love gardening. But also it made me think to that episode we did on nighttime activities, you know, and thinking about like beach activities or going for a walk and instead of lighting up the path with more heat-emitting light, like you could have bioluminescence all the way around in a garden, for example, or a walkway. So I thought that could be really cool. And at night maybe, I don't know, maybe they can also have fragrance attract pests away from you, right? There's so many different advantages you could have to this thing.


But I also thought it's really interesting like how you can use this kind of bioluminescence. So I saw on a Reddit thread because they actually launched it for commercial sale last year. There was someone who said instead of planting them outdoors, they grew a bunch all over their bedroom. So it's kind of like sleeping in a greenhouse and you know the effect of plants is really beneficial for you. So yeah, I was just thinking, oh, sleeping in a greenhouse, that sounds so lovely.

Speaking of pop culture, it like brought back scenes from Avatar where, you know, you have all these like bioluminescent just garden and forest it looks amazing. So I thought that was really cool. 

The second thing I thought was like, oh, is this an indicator of a concept you can take in so many other ways for plants that will hopefully benefit us in the future, right? So yes, bioluminescence is, you know, an aesthetic thing that maybe a lot of gardeners want to try. But, you know, it could be helpful for night light. 


It could also be helpful, I was thinking like, could you also make something that might taste like coffee, like all these endangered foods? Is there a way to now think of ways we can create that same experience of coffee without having coffee pods? I don't know, is that possible? 


Or for people who are formerly omnivores that might have to all go plant-based in the future, are there plants now you can grow that, you know, can have herbs that taste like bacon toppings or something, you know? But it's like, why stop there? So there might be a lot of different ways to combine this type of concept together.


So I think Raakhee, like you, I'm definitely considering buying this for the next gardening season to see what it might look like. 


[14:04]


Sue: Yeah, so those are just three out of the 200 plus items that were on this list. But, you know, since we had to look through it, I thought might end the episode with just a couple of thoughts on, you know, when you were looking through the list, did you notice any themes of the future, maybe even issues that we've brought up in the past that really came up for you saying, oh, yeah, this is really happening. Or interestingly, are there things that we've talked about in the past that just like didn't make it onto the list?


Raakhee: Yeah, I mean, Sue, I think the list was definitely, it spoke to our year, and so many of the things we spoke about. So I think that definitely, you know, came across. 

I found this really interesting, but there was also this dichotomy of these really simple things which are like, oh my goodness, how are we discussing only that now? And then these amazing technological advancements. 


And so I know there were things like the Fact Checker, the tech software that kind of does the automatic sort of, you know, analysis and prep of your texts, who are having your financial data, hello. 


You know, fact checker, of course, we've needed that a long time ago, the credentialing around fake photos, you know, and having technology like that. And then there was even one called Niche Direct Admissions, which is everybody applying in one place instead of 50 schools, right? These are things that we could have technically had a long time ago in some form or another.


So it's really interesting. So this, you know, it was really interesting to see the dichotomy and then we have, on the other hand, we had like robot eyelashes and the robot massage now, which I could literally sign up for and get. So I'm playing with that idea as well, but it really scares me the idea that what if this robot crushes me, right? If it can massage me, it could probably break a bone. So I am not ready for that yet. 


So, but really, really interesting, right, that we kind of had that. And then something, so you had mentioned this in a couple of episodes, but women's health care and a focus on women's health care, right? From pregnancy monitoring to picking up UTIs to a DIY pap smear, just all kinds of gynecological testing. So it was really cool to see that and seeing women's health, having prominence in these inventions finally.


Another interesting one was, it's a product called Yondr where you put your phone and it completely shuts it off, right? And we spoke about these offline/online worlds with everything. And I think Australia just passed the ban now on social media for everyone under 16. So I think a product like that is going to work, is going to work in schools in all kinds of places like that. So again, fascinating because that completely shuts off technology in all senses. 


Yeah, so we see, I think like we've spoken about so often, you know, these sort of two worlds, right? Like living in this digitized data-high world. And on the other hand, just the simplicity of how we check out, how we be with nature more, how we shut down completely. Because I think we're going to need both to traverse this world that's ahead. 


And I know Lana, you spoke about this with the data privacy as well. And even with the smart toilet seat, right, the truth is that you can very easily become obsessed with analyzing, and your health and longevity. And that's not the way to be, you know, it should be so subtle, so in the background and only alert you when something's concerning. Like we have to find a balance.


Lana: You know, it's so funny. I had picked some of the same ones that you did, Raakhee, that I thought were super interesting. And the thing about the Yondr, which is like a pouch, right, that you put your phone in and it locks, that's the, that's the deal. That's why it's being really popular in schools because you can keep the phone in your backpack or whatever, but you can't unlock the pouch until you go to like a thing that can unlock it. But the founder of that invented it in 2014, you know, so like 10 years. So I think about this kind of a lot, like, well, you're really ahead of your time. You know, like it's coming, but you have to kind of persist. And so 10 years later, that invention is really proving out to be what they expected the demand to be. And so I thought that was very interesting. 


I also thought the Niche Application, what a great way to flip something on its head to say instead of students applying to schools, schools have to apply to students. And we have had the Common App, which is a similar idea that this is, I think, has a broader application potentially, though I did see in a study of that, even though students are getting offers from schools, it doesn't change the financial piece of their decision. You know, there's, that is still going to remain a hurdle. So maybe that's for next year, someone can start figuring that out. 


But yeah, I love the themes that you picked up on with the women's health. And I agree. It's like, I felt really inspired looking at the list, like, oh, there's still so much room to reimagine how we do things. I also loved the ones that were just purely fun. Like there's one that was a synthesizer for medieval sounds. And I was like, whoever thought of this, like, bless them. And I was happy that that made the list in addition to other things that are, you know, very practical and are going to make our lives better. And maybe the electronic medieval sounds will also make our lives better, but in a different way. I really enjoyed looking through this.


Sue: Oh, that's great to hear. And yeah, definitely picking up on some of those same threads. Yeah, I think Raakhee, to your point, there is that fine line. I saw so many different kinds of health solutions. I said, okay, to what point? Because at some point, if I used all of these, it would just freak me out to no end. So yeah, I think it's definitely in choosing very strategically what will help you in the end.


Yeah, I think for me, the only other things I would add to this were the call out to, I think a while ago, we imagined a holistic health center where it was kind of all different kinds of medical and healing practices together. And I noticed there is a specific health center. I think it was called the Ohana Health Center, something like that. That made the list where you have outdoor indoor spaces for healing, sounds like, yes, that's really cool. 


And I guess the one big takeaway for me is at the beginning of the episode, I talk about some of the big inventions like the iPhone or the Tesla or whatever. But you see over and over that inventions really run the gamut of things like you're saying like, duh, why didn't anyone do this, to just like incremental inventions that still make your life better or just more whimsical. And so I think that was a really good takeaway for me that it doesn't have to be this earth shattering innovation to be worthy of something. And so I like that, that's a testament to this list.


So for those of you listening, if you get a chance to look at the list, we'll be really curious to see what stood out to you and just, you know, do you have an invention in mind? You might be thinking about in the future, who knows? But as always, thank you so much for listening. If you have any requests of things you want us to cover, any comments, go to horizonshiftlab.com, leave us a message, and we hope to hear from you soon. That's it for now. Thanks so much. Bye.


[22:25]

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