11 Geek Visionaries Who Created Technology We Can't Live Without

Can't imagine life without e-mail, your cell phone, and the Internet? Luckily, these technology visionaries couldn't either.

By Diann Daniel

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that people often don't know what they want until you show them. Today, it's impossible to imagine life without an iPod or a cell phone, but there was a time when the technologies we depend on so heavily didn't even exist. Except in the minds of visionaries.

Like much in life, new technology is often a team effort and it's difficult to point to just one person as "responsible." Still, we're calling out a few folks who were instrumental in creating technology that today, we can't imagine living without.

By the way, we'll feature Linus Torvalds and some more tech innovators in an upcoming slideshow. In the meantime, we'd like to hear from you: Which other visionaries have created or furthered the technology that made the greatest impact on our lives?

Dr. Bradford W. Parkinson and Dr. Ivan A. Getting: GPS

The old joke that guys won't ask for directions is falling by the wayside: Because of in-car GPS, they don't have to. Thank Dr. Bradford W. Parkinson (left photo) and the late Dr. Ivan A. Getting for making it look like you know where you're going. Lots of people had a hand in developing GPS, but Getting provided instrumental support leadership in its development and Parkinson was responsible from program start to space operation for both leading the final concept and bringing to practice the satellite based, worldwide navigation system known as NAVSTAR GPS.

Image credit: The Aerospace Corporation

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