The current pace of technology has caused something of a crisis in "hard" SF - you really can't make it up anymore before someone is already doing it. It was only about a decade between Gibson's Neuromancer and the Internet that made it seem dated. It's gotten worse since.
RAH invented the water bed, something like 20 years before it was commercialized.
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=23
Waldo: A telefactoring device; also known as the Waldo F. Jones Synchronous Reduplicating Pantograph