Technology
Humankind has long striven to improve its living conditions through the development of tools, instruments, and transportation and communications systems, all with the goal of making our lives easier, more productive and—why not?—more fun, too. Thanks to human curiosity and technological research, many significant inventions have been made throughout history that in turn made a difference in our daily lives.
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Featured content, October 11, 2023
6 Signs It’s Already the Future
If you thought future tech was just for sci-fi flicks, hold on to your non-rocket-powered seats.
What’s the Difference Between Emoji and Emoticons?
Learn about your favorite modern-day hieroglyphs.
7 Deadliest Weapons in History
From rocks to rockets.
nuclear reactor
Nuclear reactor, any of a class of devices that can initiate and control a self-sustaining series of nuclear fissions. Nuclear...
agricultural technology
Agricultural technology, application of techniques to control the growth and harvesting of animal and vegetable products....
automobile
Automobile, a usually four-wheeled vehicle designed primarily for passenger transportation and commonly propelled by an internal-combustion...
material culture
Material culture, tools, weapons, utensils, machines, ornaments, art, buildings, monuments, written records, religious images,...
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Technology Subcategories
Agriculture & Agricultural Technology
Agriculture, the active production of useful plants or animals in ecosystems that have been created by people. Agriculture has often been conceptualized narrowly, in terms of specific combinations of activities and organisms—wet-rice production in Asia, wheat farming in Europe, cattle ranching in the Americas, and the like—but a more holistic perspective holds that humans are environmental engineers who disrupt terrestrial habitats in specific ways.
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farm machinery
agriculture
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crop rotation
agriculture
- agricultural technology
Cars & Other Vehicles
Automobile, byname auto, also called motorcar or car, a usually four-wheeled vehicle designed primarily for passenger transportation and commonly propelled by an internal-combustion engine using a volatile fuel.
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Computers
Have computers replaced dogs as man's best friend? They've certainly become an indispensable part of daily life for most people in our modern society. The first modern computers used analog systems, which were especially useful for solving problems and simulating dynamic systems in real time. By the 1960s, digital computers had largely replaced their analog counterparts. Later there was a similar transition from mainframe computers to personal computers. The advent of personal computers brought computers into the individual consumer's home for the first time. Rapid developments in computer and Internet technology powered an ever-expanding selection of handheld digital devices such as the Palm Pilot, BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPod. Computer chips were increasingly embedded in consumer devices of all sorts, including cars, cameras, kitchen appliances, toys, watches, and much more, reinforcing the interconnected nature of the world in which we now live.
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Charles Babbage
British inventor and mathematician
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Apple Inc.
American company
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Alan Turing
British mathematician and logician
Engineering
Engineering, the application of science to the optimum conversion of the resources of nature to the uses of humankind. The field has been defined by the Engineers Council for Professional Development, in the United States, as the creative application of “scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behaviour under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.” The term engineering is sometimes more loosely defined, especially in Great Britain, as the manufacture or assembly of engines, machine tools, and machine parts.
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road
transportation
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surveying
civil engineering
- water supply system
Industry
Industry, a group of productive enterprises or organizations that produce or supply goods, services, or sources of income. In economics, industries are customarily classified as primary, secondary, and tertiary; secondary industries are further classified as heavy and light.
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Inventions
Without the efforts of famed inventors such as Thomas Edison, James Watt, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright brothers, our daily life today would look a lot different. Landmark inventions like the printing press, steam engine, telephone, incandescent light bulb, and airplane heralded new stages of progress in technology and spurred further innovation.
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Thomas Edison
American inventor
- research and development
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Leonardo da Vinci
Italian artist, engineer, and scientist
The Web & Communication
The development of the World Wide Web had a massive impact on the ways in which people interact and communicate, ultimately paving the way for the heavily interconnected world that we live in today. Although Internet communication dominates in many spheres of life, other means of communication remain no less important.
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X
microblogging service
- satellite communication
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Tim Berners-Lee
British scientist