TIME Best Inventions Hall of Fame

In 2000 TIME's editors sat down to select three inventions of the year, one each in consumer technology, medical science, and basic industry. They found so many interesting ones along the way that they included dozens of others, from an unbreakable lightbulb to paper that was easier to recycle. It was the start of our annual hunt for the most exciting innovations changing our lives, and the future. Since then, TIME has covered hundreds of inventions, from the esoteric (clouds featured more than once) to essential, including life-changing medicines, technological breakthroughs, new foods, nearly every new Apple product category, and even a few great ideas that didn't quite catch on. As TIME publishes the 2025 list, we're also assembling the Best Inventions Hall of Fame: the 25 most iconic inventions we covered in the past quarter century. Almost all women in the U.S. use contraception at some point in their lives, and in 2001 a new option came on the market, the vaginal ring. As TIME wrote when including it among the year's best inventions, "Some women hate taking pills. In early October the FDA approved use of the NuvaRing, a thin flexible plastic ring that women can flatten like a rubber band and insert once a month into the vagina."