Sony Betamax (1975)

 Few gadgets have had a bigger impact than the first stand-alone video cassette recorder. Shortly after the Betamax appeared, Sony was sued by the movie studios; in 1984 the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Sony's favor, finding that beneficial uses of the new technology (time-shifting TV programs) outweighed potential harms (video piracy). (The version pictured here is the SL-6300 from 1975, in a high-end wooden case.) The Betamax changed our lives and helped spawn the $20 billion video rental industry, but it couldn't compete with JVC's cheaper VHS devices and eventually disappeared.