Technology

 

These concerns are shared by other philosophers, scientists and public intellectuals who have written about similar issues (e.g. Francis Fukuyama, Jürgen Habermas, William Joy, and Michael Sandel). Estimates for the date of this Singularity vary, but prominent futurist Ray Kurzweil estimates the Singularity will occur in 2045. The discovery and use of fire, a simple energy source with many profound uses, was a turning point in the technological evolution of humankind. The exact date of its discovery is not known; evidence of burnt animal bones at the Cradle of Humankind suggests that the domestication of fire occurred before 1 Ma; scholarly consensus indicates that Homo erectus had controlled fire by between 500 and 400 ka. Fire, fueled with wood and charcoal, allowed early humans to cook their food to increase its digestibility, improving its nutrient value and broadening the number of foods that could be eaten.

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But more extensive use of wind and water power required another invention. Other technological advances made during the Paleolithic era were clothing and shelter; the adoption of both technologies cannot be dated exactly, but they were a key to humanity's progress. As the Paleolithic era progressed, dwellings became more sophisticated and more elaborate; as early as 380,000 B.C.E., humans were constructing temporary wood huts. Clothing, adapted from the fur and hides of hunted animals, helped humanity expand into colder regions; humans began to migrate out of Africa by 200,000 B.C.E. and into other continents, such as Eurasia. Genetics have also been explored, with humans understanding genetic engineering to a certain degree. However, gene editing is widely divisive, and usually involves some degree of eugenics.

Control

Tools and machines need not be material; virtual technology, such as computer software and business methods, fall under this definition of technology. So ‘technology’ entered the twentieth century as the science of the industrial arts, a term of art for the German cameralists and a brand-like placeholder term in the United States. Yet ultimately the German concept of Technik would have much greater influence. After 1850 German engineers embraced the term Technik in a broad sense, not restricted to a means-to-ends rationality but a coherent and culturally significant category covering the arts of material production. Such a concept, built into a professional identity, placed engineers within Kultur rather than Zivilisation, and therefore made them worthy of higher social status. This move in turn invited questions about the relationship between Technik and culture.

Kirin Sinha ’14 is founder and CEO of Illumix, an augmented reality technology and media company focused on developing immersive experiences. “We think it is going to be the next version of the internet,” she says of the technology. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. But there is one further important feature of all technologies that I would like to identify and emphasize. Since it is a feature of all technologies, it is not an addition, a narrowing or a broadening, of the definition, but it does say something significant about what technologies do. Evidence was found, however, to suggest that full adopters of the technology had more profitable farms than partial adopters.

Science, Engineering, And Technology

Over the last 10 years has created an entirely new world in which viruses can replicate. While in 1989, viruses were primarily spread by "sneakernet," as users walked diskettes from machine to machine, modern viruses … are capable of spreading around the world in the blink of a digital eye. Can we evaluate technologies as nation's core of strength or weakness?

A modern technology platform provides benefits beyond traditional application support. Today’s technology platform is critical indigital transformation, providing functionality that improves processes and drives business value for customers. Digital transformation may look different for every organization, but it will always affect all areas of a company – introducing critical changes to the way business units operate. The article also reviews the development and technology of robotics as a significant topic within automation.

Likewise, historians of technology have gravitated to descriptions of scale – think for example of accounts of global systems, or the Tensions of Europe project , or studies of nanotechnology – without explicitly and comparatively examining a key term. Technologies, especially scientific instruments, simultaneously invoke and substantiate scales. We can still research the richness of ‘technology’ as an actors’ category while sharpening and thinking with ‘technology’ as an analytical category. While I fully sympathize with the aim to oppose technological determinism – and who wouldn’t? First, the cultural approach’s definition of technology is so capacious as to be almost useless.