The speed with which technology is used by a majority of the population is just as important as break-thru advances - in some ways it is actually more important to the coming Singularity.
If you'd like to see how the rate of not just innovation, but the use of innovations by the public is increasing in speed, check out this cool chart! It covers some major items of near-magical technology (at least they were considered that at their time of invention) that we now take completely for granted as normal and mundane.
Early inventions like the telephone took 50 years to reach 60% of the population (at around 1948). Things like electricity took 20 years to reach a majority (at around 1920). But the Internet has only taken about 12 years to reach this same level of market penetration - and at a much higher per-capita capacity. In other words, many people have multiple ways of accessing the Internet - not just a single point as was the case with things like television and radio when they hit the 60% mark.
Rates of innovation usage vary, of course, but the trend is quite clear: not only are more things being invented, they are getting into more folks hands faster, too. This is all in complete accordance with current Technological Singularity Event models. Are you acceleration aware?
