Square

Square
Shutterstock

With so many people being self-employed and taking on multiple side hustles, we needed a better way to pay for goods and services. Enter Square – a small device you can plug into a smartphone or tablet to turn it into a credit card reader. Launched in 2010 by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Square gives vendors of all sizes the ability to accept credit card payments – even without an actual cash register. This technology made it much more accessible to start your own business and actually earn money from it.

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Kickstarter

Kickstarter
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Crowdfunding itself isn’t new – people have long turned to their communities for financial assistance when they’ve needed it. But before Kickstarter, crowdfunding was a lot more difficult. Though technically launched in 2009, by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler, Kickstarter really started taking off in the 2010s and has since funded 172,890 projects through $4.6 billion. Now, there was a much easier way of fundraising – whether it was for a musician looking to put out a new album, emergency funds for disaster relief, or a family who needed financial assistance to pay for medical care. There have been other crowdfunding sites since, but Kickstarter well, kickstarted it all.

Smart speakers

Smart speakers
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Though different forms of voice recognition software and devices have been around since the 1970s, it wasn’t until the 2010s that the technology truly entered our homes. Well, first it came to our phones, when Apple introduced Siri, an electronic assistant, as a regular feature on iPhones in 2010. At that point, people got used to pressing a button on their phone and asking a faceless woman all sorts of questions. Though Siri felt (and was) futuristic, the trend really took off with the invention of smart speakers, which had the ability to answer the same kinds of questions as Siri but also control certain elements of your home, like lighting and heating. The most common smart speaker – Amazon’s Alexa – launched in 2014, and was soon followed by Google Assistant. Today, 66.4 million people — or 26.2 percent of the U.S. adult population—have a smart speaker in their home. Of course, with this technology came a new set of ethical issues regarding companies being able to listen in to your home and what happens to all the data this device collects. Find out more items that could be spying on you in your home.

Discover 13 world-changing ideas that literally came from dreams. 

OraQuick

OraQuick
VIA ORAQUICK.COM

Getting an HIV test is something we know we should do, but it’s not always that easy. With continuing stigma of the virus, many people find it intimidating to get tested at their regular doctor’s office. But ever since 2012, it has been possible to get tested in the comfort of your own home. That year, OraQuick launched the first FDA-approved at-home HIV test in the US, completely revolutioniSing the diagnostic space. Aside from convenience and privacy, another draw of this particular test is that it’s a simple mouth swab – no blood is drawn at all. Plus, the results are available in 20 minutes. Now with more people worldwide being able to access testing and become aware of their status, this technology could have some major public health implications when it comes to the spread of HIV.

Pillpack

Pillpack
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If you’ve even been prescribed multiple medications – or cared for someone who has – you know how challenging it can be to get the pills in order. Sure, there are the drugstore variety daily pillboxes, which allow you to plan out a week’s worth of medication, but even those can get confusing and are time-consuming. That’s why pharmacist T.J. Parker invented Pillpack in 2014: an online pharmacy that delivers perfectly portioned packs of pills every two weeks, broken down by different times of the day. Once you receive your two-week supply in the mail, you’re all set and just have to remember to take your medication – the rest is done for you.

Thinx

Thinx
VIA SHETHINX.COM

Roughly half the population menstruates, but there really hadn’t been innovation in this area in decades. Yes, pads became self-adhesive (bye-bye belts!) and menstrual cups are becoming more commonplace, but other than that, technology was at a standstill. That is, until 2015, when Miki and Radha Agrawal and Antonia Dunbar invented Thinx: underwear designed to be worn during your period. For some people, this means being able to forgo pads or tampons completely, while for others, it provides a comfortable back-up for leaks. Though other companies have started to manufacture period underwear since, Thinx was the first out of the gate.

Here are 16 things you never knew were invented by women.

Squatty Potty

Squatty Potty
VIA SQUATTYPOTTY.COM

Though we have become accustomed to sitting on a toilet when doing our business, many places around the world squat over a latrine on the ground. And when Bobby Edwards’ mother became chronically constipated, her doctor suggested that she try using a footstool to raise her knees while she sat on the toilet. She tried it and it worked wonders, and in 2011, the Squatty Potty was born. This seemingly simple plastic stool that is stored at the base of a toilet has made Edwards and her family multimillionaires. Though sales were initially slow – $17,000 in 2011 – they hit $19 million in 2016 and continued to rise from there. Not only has the Squatty Potty changed the way many people use the toilet, it has also helped spark a wider conversation about digestive health and bathroom habits.

Beds in boxes

Beds in boxes
VIA AMAZON.COM

Getting a new mattress used to mean going to a furniture store and trying out a bunch before selecting one and having it delivered to your home. Then in 2015, a company called Casper launched, which sold mattresses directly to the consumer. The mattresses arrive vacuum-packed in a cardboard box, and users get 100 days to try them out and get a refund if they’re not satisfied. Plenty of other companies now do the same thing, streamlining the whole mattress shopping process and cutting out the middleman in the process.

Learn these surprising ways to get more sleep.

The Snoo

The Snoo
VIA HAPPIESTBABY.COM

Though there are plenty of high-tech products for parents developed over the past decade, the Snoo Smart Sleeper has been one of the most influential since it entered the market in 2016. Designed to mimic the sounds and motions of a womb, this responsive bassinet helps to reduce crying and naturally sleep-trains a baby. It was invented by Harvey Karp, MD, a paediatrician and Co-Founder of Happiest Baby, in collaboration with industrial designer Yves Béhar and Deb Roy, PhD, director of the Laboratory for Social Machines at the MIT Media Lab. Not only is it the world’s smart bassinet, but it’s also the first bed to prevent infants from accidentally rolling over. And better sleep for a baby means more sleep for parents.

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Source: RD.com

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