What’s your favorite invention?

You may not know it, but today is national Inventor’s Day in the U.S. So take some time to think about and maybe even say thank you to all of the brilliant inventors who have given us all of the gadgets, gizmos and even simple things in life that we just couldn’t make it through the day without.

At Intel, we’re also celebrating the 50th anniversary of the integrated circuit. You can read more about it here. Needless to say, its one of those inventions that we couldn’t function the way we do today if it hadn’t been invented. Fifty years ago, inventor Robert Noyce, who later became one of the founders of Intel, created the first planar integrated circuit made from silicon. Noyce’s invention consisted of a complete electronic circuit inside a small silicon chip and helped revolutionize Silicon Valley’s semiconductor industry. Virtually all integrated circuits made today use some form of Noyce’s manufacturing technique.

But what will future inventions look like? How will they make life better or easier? How will innovation change our lives down the road? Our CTO Justin Rattner blogged about his top 5 predictions of how technology innovation will change the word. Check it out here. Do you agree? What are your own predictions?

You should also read this guest post on our Inside Scoop blog from Intel Fellow Kelin Kuhn. Kelin was a part of the Intel team that worked on our 45nm high-k metal gate technology — essentially changing the recipe for how transistors have been made for the last 40+ years. Kelin said she stopped reading science fiction when she joined the 45nm team at Intel because the team was making what was once believed to be impossible, possible! It’s a great story.

There’s a long list of inventions that I’m very thankful for, including my iPod with the Nike Running application that helps me track my runs, my laptop (of course, I work for Intel and I live on the thing), the cell phone (I feel “naked” without it), and my digital camera (dramatically reduced the number of awful pictures of nothing that I could have stored away in boxes at home).

So, what’s your favorite invention? What does innovation mean to you? What invention are you most looking forward to in the future?