# The Japanese inventions that changed the world

Momofuku Ando's instant noodles, Sony's Walkman, karaoke, the QR code, emoji, the blue LED and the Shinkansen: inventions from Japan that changed everyday life around the world. Which one do you use every day?

- 0 votes · 16 items
- Dec 1, 2024 · gg.wandering
- https://even.best/en/l/3758/the-japanese-inventions-that-changed-the-world

## Top 16

1. **Instant noodles (1958)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Invented by Nissin's Momofuku Ando; voted by the Japanese the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century.
2. **The Walkman (1979)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Sony's portable cassette player that let people listen to music on the go.
3. **Karaoke** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The sing-along machine built by Daisuke Inoue.
4. **The QR code (1994)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The two-dimensional barcode invented by Denso Wave.
5. **Emoji** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Designed by Shigetaka Kurita for NTT Docomo.
6. **The blue LED** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Shuji Nakamura, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for it.
7. **The Shinkansen (1964)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Opened for the Tokyo Olympics, linking Tokyo and Shin-Osaka at over 200 km/h.
8. **The electric rice cooker** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The cooker that makes rice by itself, transforming Asian kitchens.
9. **The Washlet (1980)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — TOTO's bidet toilet seat.
10. **Tactile paving** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The textured paving Seiichi Miyake designed for visually impaired people.
11. **The Roland TR-808 (1980)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Ikutaro Kakehashi's drum machine, which changed hip-hop and electronic music.
12. **iPS cells (2006)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Shinya Yamanaka's induced pluripotent stem cells.
13. **Statins (1973)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The cholesterol-lowering drugs discovered by Akira Endo.
14. **The Prius hybrid (1997)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Toyota's mass-produced hybrid car.
15. **Car navigation (1981)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The first car navigation system, developed by Honda.
16. **The camera phone (1999)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Kyocera's camera phone.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.