For each of the past 25 years, TIME editors have highlighted the most impactful new products and ideas in TIME’s Best Inventions issue. The first, published under a cover featuring the protracted Bush v. Gore presidential vote count in December 2000, covered about 35 inventions, including some that feel a world away: the Ricoh RDC-i700 (a digital camera that could post photos to the internet), the first 3D ultrasound imaging for pregnant parents, and a bike with two pontoons that intrepid cyclists could ride on a lake.
Others could just as easily be on the 2025 list. Medtronic’s Activa Tremor Control Therapy was featured in the 2000 issue as one of the first forays into deep brain stimulation as a treatment for Parkinson’s. This year’s issue includes the same company’s newly FDA-approved upgrade to the same technology, BrainSense, which continually adjusts to patients’ unique tremors.
Across a quarter century, the pace of innovation has only accelerated, and to accommodate that, this year’s list features 300 inventions—our biggest list ever. To compile it, we solicited nominations from TIME’s editors and correspondents around the world, and through an online application process, paying special attention to growing fields, such as health care and artificial intelligence. We then evaluated each contender on a number of key factors, including originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact.
The result is 300 groundbreaking inventions (and 100 special mention inventions)—including an AI detector for teachers, a home sprinkler system for wildfires, the world’s biggest rollercoaster, and a humanoid robot that loads the dishwasher—that are changing how we live, work, play, and think about what’s possible.
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