back to article First Wi-Fi box ever is chosen as Australia's best contribution to global history

The National Museum of Australia (NMA) has chosen Wi-Fi hardware as Australia's greatest contribution to world history. The NMA will shortly host an exhibition titled A History of the World in 100 Objects featuring a variety of artefacts from the British Museum and other institutions, and chose to add an Australian object. …

  1. alexmcm

    Another invention

    First the Hills Hoist and now Wi-fi. Australians are full of great inventions.

  2. Oengus

    Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

    Fridge

    Electric Drill

    Notepad (the paper version)

    Pacemaker

    Black box flight recorder

    Ultrasound

    Winecask (a crime against wine)

    Powerboard

    Bionic ear

    Google Maps

    Spray Skin

    Aussies are a really inventive bunch...

    1. Dagg Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

      Fail, the Fridge is not australian, a yank in the UK built the first working unit in 1834, a pom build a large scale plant in australian in 1856.

      But the first "fridge" was in 1913 in the states.

      The electric drill was patented in australia but never built, the first one was built in germany.

      1. oceanhippie

        Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

        Ok someone else may have invented the fridge but we put the beer in it. They probably used it for food or some such.

    2. Simon Sharwood, Reg APAC Editor (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

      Pretty sure Google maps was invented in Australia, but Lars whathisname wot done it wasn't an Australian.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

        I'm not Australian but I would still award Google Maps to Oz, on the basis that the environment that Lars found himself in played a major contribution to the invention.

        If you get lost in Palo Alto, it's not too bad: keep driving until you hit the water (less than a day either way). But you really, really don't want to take a wrong turn in Australia. "Hoping you'll hit Alice Springs" is not a strategy.

    3. Faceless Man

      Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

      What about the Stump-Jump Plough?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

      Samba (the software, not the dance)

      rsync

      and that was one guy.

      Perhaps the saddest Australian invention is cultural cringe. When they have so much to be proud of.

    5. Alumoi Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

      Don't forget AC/DC. The band, of course :P

    6. StuartDavid

      Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

      What about all the inventions that are not permitted to become public because of the theft of the patent system by the patent attorney industry.

      I refer to 'absolute novelty' - the dictum that your own disclosures can be held against you and used to quash your rightful IP.

      Best CPU cooler

      Best 4WD system.

      Best many others -

      1. StuartDavid

        Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

        "Best CPU cooler"

        Google 'Inventors - do not trust intel'

    7. ForthIsNotDead

      Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

      Fosters

      Paul Hogan

      Men At Work

      Kylie Minogue

      Rolf Harris ^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M

  3. Magani
    Unhappy

    Personally, I would have gone for the Black Box (Flight Data) recorder.

  4. Winkypop Silver badge
    Joke

    Bravo!

    Although I'd like to think us Aussies invented WiFi because we couldn't be arsed to run any wires....

    1. Adam 1

      Re: Bravo!

      If the rest of the world knew the sorts of 8 legged things living in our roof cavities or under the house then they would understand why we don't want to run cables.

  5. Francis Boyle Silver badge

    I'd go for antibiotics

    Technically created in the UK, but Howard Florey was Australian born and bred.

  6. jake Silver badge

    Sorry, Oz.

    Look up "ALOHANet" and the ALOHA protocol from 1971. Pre-dates this by decades.

    Then there was SRI's "Packet Radio Van" from the mid 1970s. Was largish, but it was (and still is!) a WiFi router by any other name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_Radio_Van

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sorry, Oz.

      Motorola, Martin Marietta and Wilcox had the wifi encoding stuff beat by decades as well. But they were playing with military budgets which is why they didn't publish it.

  7. Scott 26

    Whatever, Australia.... us Kiwis invented the Pav and that's all that matters

    1. StuartDavid

      Yair, but we invented the kiwi.

  8. Kernel

    RE:Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

    Under arm bowling.

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: RE:Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

      Under arm bowling.

      Roundarm style bowling was introduced in the first half of the 19th century by a woman IIRC. Until that time, bowling was performed in the same way as in bowls (hence the term "bowling"), the ball being delivered with the hand below the waist.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: RE:Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

        "Until that time, bowling was performed in the same way as in bowls"

        The case in question would have made lawn bowls seem energetic.

  9. Harry the Bastard
    Pint

    wireless LAN, but not wifi

    predates it considerably...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WaveLAN

    but have an amber nectar anyway

    1. Christian Berger

      Re: wireless LAN, but not wifi

      Yes and I think there were lots of competitors. I think there even were people trying to use infrared for LAN and proprietary printer connections.

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. StuartDavid

      No, she invented spread spectrum, aka signal hopping.

      1. John Doe 12

        She also invented husband hopping - I just saw on Wikipedia she was divorced no less than SIX TIMES!!!

  11. Sgt_Oddball

    And not...

    A single mention of truly greatest invention they gave the world...The rotary washing line.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    By no means the first

    Motorola actually product-launched a wireless network called Altair (compatible with that new Ethernet thing) for office use in early 1990 and tested it in what was then the Sears tower in Chicago. It was a huge commercial failure because the business plan was for a $300 per node device but the engineered product was ten times more expensive.

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