Sam left out the two innovations that have made the most difference to my life in the past 10 years: 1) the Google Library project, which scanned tens of milli

Sam left out the two innovations that have made the most difference to my life in the past 10 years: 1) the Google Library project, which scanned tens of millions of books and made them free online. 2) ebook readers (first the Kindle, and now AMOLED or super high res smartphones) I now have access to so much human knowledge, and can take this vast library anywhere. Much of the other great innovation in the last ten years were in expansions or second versions of existing ideas: 1) Stackoverflow is so much better than experts exchange and random forums. 2) Wikipedia is infinitely better than about.com 3) Between Crashplan, Dropbox, and OSX time machine, backups are in much better shape now. I never worry about losing my files. 4) Smart phones were not life changing, but they did save the annoyance of printing directions and then carrying a moleskin, crossword puzzle, paperback book, etc, everywhere I go. 5) Yelp and Amazon reviews are so much more extensive now, making accessing high quality products so much easier. 6) Goole maps now support transit directions. Finding the right city bus or set of stops to take when traveling is much easier. Some things have gotten worse. I think newsgroups+AIM+IRC+blogs&RSS were better than Twitter/Facebook/Reddit. Obviously, many will disagree. Right now, the biggest area we need innovation in is in food and energy. In most other spaces, we are reduced to solving the most minor of "first world problems". Major kudos to Sam and to YC for actually investing in energy startups in the recent rounds.