• Time, Tuesday, July 20, 2010 8:50 AM

Steve who? What is the iPod anyway but an "incredible talking machine" -- better known as the phonograph -- on steroids.

Although Thomas Edison created the technologies behind three enormous 21st century industries -- electrical power, recorded music, and movies, managing editor Richard Stengel tells us, "His greatest invention may have been the modern method of inventing." In short, Edison's Menlo Park, N.J., laboratory was the world's first R&D operation.

But as brilliant as he was, it turns out, Edison he didn't have Steve Jobs' -- or even Bill Gates' -- penchant for marketing. He may once have said, 'Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent,' but Stengel indicates he did not have his modern counterparts' feel for what the public actually wanted to buy.

"It took him years to understand that the phonograph was not a business tool but an entertainment breakthrough. He helped create movies but resisted the idea that people might want to go into a theater to watch one."

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