Portal:Technology
The Technology Portal
Technology is the application of knowledge for achieving practical goals in a reproducible way. The word technology can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software. Technology plays a critical role in science, engineering, and everyday life.
Technological advancements have led to significant changes in society. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used during prehistoric times, followed by the control of fire, which contributed to the growth of the human brain and the development of language during the Ice Age. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age allowed greater travel and the creation of more complex machines. More recent technological inventions, including the printing press, telephone, and the Internet, have lowered barriers to communication and ushered in the knowledge economy. (Full article...)
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Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
The analysis of communications between Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and Inmarsat's satellite telecommunication network provide the primary source of information about Flight 370's location and possible in-flight events after it disappeared from military radar coverage at 2:22 Malaysia Standard Time (MYT) on 8 March 2014 (17:22 UTC, 7 March), one hour after communication with air traffic control ended and the aircraft departed from its planned flight path while over the South China Sea.
Flight 370 was a scheduled commercial flight with 227 passengers and 12 crew which departed Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 0:41 and was scheduled to land in Beijing, China at 6:30 China Standard Time (6:30 MYT; 22:30 UTC, 7 March). Malaysia has worked in conjunction with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau to co-ordinate the analysis, which has also involved the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, Inmarsat, and US National Transportation Safety Board. Other groups have also made efforts to analyse the satellite communications, albeit challenged by a lack of publicly available information for several months after the disappearance. On 29 July 2015, debris was discovered on Réunion Island which was later confirmed to have come from Flight 370; it is the first physical evidence that Flight 370 ended in the Indian Ocean. (Full article...)- U.S. Route 50 or U.S. Highway 50 (US 50) is a major east–west route of the U.S. Highway system, stretching 3,019 miles (4,859 km) from Interstate 80 (I-80) in West Sacramento, California, to Maryland Route 528 (MD 528) in Ocean City, Maryland, on the Atlantic Ocean. Until 1972, when it was replaced by Interstate Highways west of the Sacramento area, it extended (by way of Stockton, the Altamont Pass, and the Bay Bridge) to San Francisco, near the Pacific Ocean. The Interstates were constructed later and are mostly separate from this route. It generally serves a corridor south of I-70 and I-80 and north of I-64 and I-40.
The route runs through mostly rural desert and mountains in the western United States, with the section through Nevada known as "The Loneliest Road in America". In the Midwest, US 50 heads through mostly rural areas of farms as well as a few large cities including Kansas City, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri; and Cincinnati, Ohio. (Full article...) - M-82 is a state trunkline in the Lower Peninsula in the US state of Michigan that travels between Fremont and Howard City. The section between Newaygo and Howard City travels through Fremont and along the southern edge of Manistee National Forest. The current version of M-82 is actually the second in the state; the first usage appeared in the Upper Peninsula by 1919. The Lower Peninsula routing has been in use since the 1920s. Various extensions and truncations have shifted the terminus as far west as New Era or Hesperia in the past. The current route was finalized in the late 1970s (Full article...)
Mohawk Fairchild Hiller FH-227 turboprop, similar to accident aircraft
Mohawk Airlines Flight 411, a Fairchild FH-227B twin-engine turboprop, registered N7811M, was a scheduled domestic passenger service operated by Mohawk Airlines, between Albany and Glens Falls, New York. On November 19, 1969, it crashed into Pilot Knob Mountain, killing all 14 passengers and crew on board.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that the crash was caused by the captain's improper execution of an instrument approach, combined with a severe downdraft at a low altitude, which resulted in the aircraft descending uncontrollably into terrain. (Full article...)
ROZA WDG4G 49032 roaming at Katihar Jn
The Indian locomotive class WDG-4G (GE ES43ACmi) is a class of dual-cabin freight-hauling diesel-electric locomotive used by the Indian Railways (IR). The locomotive is designed by GE Transportation and is based on its Evolution Series, which are used in North America. The class is meant for freight hauling and replaces the older American Locomotive Company (ALCO)-designed locomotives, which have been the mainstay diesels of Indian Railways since 1962. Equipped with a 12-cylinder fully turbocharged GEVO engine, it is claimed to be 50% more environmentally friendly than its predecessors and is the first in the country to be compliant with level one of the emission norms set by the International Union of Railways (UIC-1). The locomotive has two cabs for easy reversal, both of which are air conditioned.
The locomotive is part of a 13-year contract between Indian Railways and GE Transportation under which 700 such locomotives will be produced indigenously. Diesel Locomotive Factory, Marhowrah was set up by GE for the production and supply of these locomotives which is also seen as a boost to the Make in India initiative. The maintenance of the locomotive will be GE's responsibility which will also have to ensure that 95% of the fleet is ready at all times. For this, real time remote tracking and fault diagnostics has been implemented in the locomotive. (Full article...)
Two light rail vehicles at the station platforms in 2005
Hatfield Government Center is a light rail station on the in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon, United States, owned and operated by TriMet. The station is the western terminus of the MAX Blue Line. Opened in 1998, it is located in the same block as the Hillsboro Post Office and adjacent to the Washington County Courthouse and the Hillsboro Civic Center. The block is bounded by First and Adams streets on the east and west and Washington and Main streets on the south and north. The station is named in honor of Mark O. Hatfield, a former United States Senator from Oregon and light rail proponent. It is the furthest west light rail station in the Continental United States. (Full article...)- M-72 is a state trunkline highway in the US state of Michigan, running from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan across the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. The highway connects M-22 in Empire with US Highway 23 (US 23) in Harrisville. It is one of only three Michigan state trunklines that cross the Lower Peninsula, shore to shore. In between, M-72 runs across Northern Michigan woodland, agricultural areas of the Leelanau Peninsula near Traverse City, and the Au Sable River watershed. The trunkline also provides access to Camp Grayling, a National Guard training facility near the city of the same name. Traffic levels along the highway vary from approximately 800 vehicles a day on the east end to over 32,000 vehicles near Traverse City.
M-72 was first designated as a state highway by 1919 along a segment of its current route. It was extended southward in the mid-1920s and westward in the 1940s. One section of the modern highway added to M-72 in 1940 previously existed as M-208 in the 1930s east of Grayling. Another section of highway near Empire was disconnected from the rest of M-72 until the gap was eliminated later in the decade. All of M-72 was completely paved by the early 1960s. The highway was rerouted in a few places in the 1950s, and the last new segment shifted in 1973 near Kalkaska. (Full article...)
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Selected picture
The Trojan Room coffee pot was the inspiration for the world's first webcam. The coffee pot was located in the corridor just outside the so-called Trojan Room within the old Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. The webcam was created in 1991 to help people working in other parts of the building avoid pointless trips to the coffee pot by providing, on the user's desktop computer, a live 128×128 pixel greyscale picture of the state of the coffee pot. The webcam was shut down on 22 August 2001, following the Computer Laboratory's move to the William Gates Building.
Credit: Mike McGregorThe OLPC XO-1 is an inexpensive subnotebook laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries.
Photograph credit: Langley Research Center; restored by Adam CuerdenMary Jackson (1921–2005) was an African American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which was succeeded by NASA in 1958. For most of her career, she worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; starting as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division, she later took advanced engineering classes and, in 1958, became NASA's first black female engineer.
After 34 years at NASA, Jackson had earned the most senior engineering title available. Realizing that she could not earn further promotions without becoming a supervisor, she accepted a demotion to become a manager of the Federal Women's Program in the NASA Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, as well as of the Affirmative Action Program. In this role, she worked to influence both the hiring and promotion of women in NASA's science, engineering and mathematics careers. She was portrayed by Janelle Monáe as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. This picture, taken in 1980, shows Jackson working at NASA Langley.
Photograph: Peter TrimmingThe Mark IV tank was introduced by the British in May 1917 to fight in World War I. The "female" version, as pictured here, was armed with five machine guns. Production of the Mark IV ceased at the end of the War in 1918. A small number served briefly with other combatants afterwards.
This Mark IV tank, on display in Ashford, Kent, was presented to the town after the end of World War I. The engine was removed to install an electricity substation inside it, though this substation was subsequently removed; the tank's interior is now empty.
Photograph: Evan AmosThe Apple Bandai Pippin is a multimedia technology console designed by Apple Computer based on the Apple Pippin platform, and produced by Bandai. Only 100,000 of the consoles were produced between its 1996 release and 1997 discontinuation. The Bandai Pippin was intended to create an inexpensive computer aimed mostly at playing CD-based multimedia software, especially games, but also functioning as a thin client.- An overhead power line is a structure used in electric power transmission and distribution to transmit electrical energy along large distances. It consists of one or more conductors suspended by towers or utility poles.
Photograph: Diego DelsoThe Assut de l'Or Bridge is a white single-pylon cable-stayed bridge in the City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, Spain. Completed in 2008, it was designed by Valencian architect and civil engineer Santiago Calatrava as a variant of his cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge in Seville.
Photograph credit: Matt Steiner and Kees08A hybrid-propellant rocket is a rocket with an engine that uses propellants in two different phases, one solid and the other gaseous or liquid. The concept can be traced back to at least the 1930s.
This picture shows a transparent 3D-printed hybrid-rocket fuel grain with dual helical fuel ports, a post-combustion chamber, and a de Laval nozzle, photographed prior to the hot-fire test. The motor used nitrous oxide as the oxidizer and Pyrodex pellets for the igniter.- A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axial bearing. The wheel is one of the main components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines.
Photograph: Katsuhiko Tokunaga/SuperJet InternationalThe Sukhoi Superjet 100 is a modern fly-by-wire twin-engine regional jet with 8 to 108 passenger seats. Development began in 2000; the aircraft had its maiden flight on 19 May 2008 and entered commercial service on 21 April 2011. This aircraft is seen flying off the coast of Italy near Sanremo.
Photograph: David IliffAn interior view of Stockwell Garage, a large bus garage in Stockwell, London, designed by Adie, Button and Partners and opened in 1952. The 393-foot-long (120 m) roof structure, seen here, is supported by ten very shallow "two-hinged" arched ribs, between which are cantilevered barrel vaults topped by large skylights. The garage, which could originally hold 200 buses, has been a Grade II* Listed Building since 1988.
Photograph credit: Petar MiloševićA thermoplastic-sheathed cable consists of a toughened outer thermoplastic sheath of polyvinyl chloride, covering one or more individual annealed copper conductors. Each of the current-carrying conductors in the "core" is insulated by an individual thermoplastic sheath, coloured to indicate the purpose of the conductor concerned. The protective earth conductor may also be covered with insulation, although, in some countries, this conductor may be left as bare copper. The type of thermoplastic, the dimensions of the conductors and the colour of their individual insulation are specified by the regulatory bodies in the various countries concerned.
Credit: Berthold WernerA telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that converts sound, typically the human voice, into electronic signals suitable for transmission via cables or other transmission media over long distances through satellite.
Photo credit: Alfred T. Palmer"Big Pete" Ramagos, rigger at work on Douglas Dam, Tennessee, June 1942. A rigger is a person or company which specializes in the lifting and/or moving of extremely large and/or heavy objects. Riggers use equipment expressly designed for moving and lifting objects where ordinary material handling equipment cannot go.
Photograph: NASATwo Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers stand with three vehicles, providing a size comparison of three generations of Mars rovers. Front and center is the flight spare for the first Mars rover, Sojourner, which landed on Mars in 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder Project. On the left is a Mars Exploration Rover test vehicle, a working sibling to Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004. On the right is a test rover for the Mars Science Laboratory, which landed Curiosity on Mars in 2012.
Photograph credit: Stefan KrauseThe BMW S1000RR is a sport bike made by BMW Motorrad. It was introduced in 2008, initially for competition in the 2009 Superbike World Championship, and has been in commercial production since then. Powered by a 999 cc (61.0 cu in) four-cylinder engine, redlined at 14,200 rpm, it delivers 133.6 kW (179.2 hp; 181.6 PS) to the rear wheel, making it the most powerful motorcycle in the class. Rubén Xaus and Troy Corser rode the bike for its inaugural Superbike World Championship in 2009, gaining highest finishes of fifth and seventh respectively, but it achieved greater success in the 2010 FIM Superstock 1000 championship season, with rider Ayrton Badovini winning every single race but one on the S1000RR.
Image credit: Lewis HineA structural worker bolts beams on the framework during the construction of the Empire State Building in New York City. The 1,250-foot (380 m) building opened on May 1, 1931, at the time the tallest building in the world, overtaking the Chrysler Building (seen to the right), which had just been completed the year before. The addition of a pinnacle and antennas later increased its overall height to 1,472 feet (449 m).
Photograph: Donald Y TongBurj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and currently the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m (2,722 ft). It was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development known as Downtown Dubai. Construction took over five years, and the skyscraper was officially opened in January 2010.
Photograph: ULPower Aero EnginesThe ULPower UL260i, a flat-four engine produced by ULPower Aero Engines of Belgium. Flat-four engines are flat engines with four cylinders arranged horizontally in two banks of two cylinders on each side of a central crankcase; they can be used in cars, motorcycles, or aircraft. This type of engine tends to be well-balanced and have efficient cooling, but is expensive to manufacture and considerably wider than other engines.
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General images -
The following are images from various technology-related articles on Wikipedia.
Clock from Salisbury Cathedral, ca. 1386 (from History of technology)
A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore, ca. 1556 (from History of technology)
Pont du Gard in France, a Roman aqueduct (from History of technology)
The wheel, invented sometime before the 4th millennium BC, is one of the most ubiquitous and important technologies. This detail of the "Standard of Ur", c. 2500 BCE., displays a Sumerian chariot (from History of technology)
A variety of stone tools (from History of technology)
A late Bronze Age sword or dagger blade (from History of technology)
Top 30 AI patent applicants in 2016 (from Emerging technologies)
Design for a flying machine (c.1488) by da Vinci (from History of technology)
Edison electric light bulbs 1879–80 (from History of technology)
The compartmented water wheel, here its overshot version (from History of technology)
The preserved Rocket (from History of technology)
Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as an influential inventor. (from Invention)
Walls at Sacsayhuaman (from History of technology)
Newcomen steam engine for pumping mines (from History of technology)
Dome of Florence Cathedral (from History of technology)
Eric M. C. Tigerstedt (1887–1925) was known as a pioneer of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915. (from Invention)
Agriculture preceded writing in the history of technology. (from History of technology)
'BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION RECEIVER.' Science and Invention magazine cover, November 1928 (from Invention)
Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first. (from History of technology)
A rare 1884 photo showing the experimental recording of voice patterns by a photographic process at the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Many of their experimental designs panned out in failure. (from Invention)
3D printer (from Emerging technologies)
Artificial intelligence (from Emerging technologies)
NASA Fuel cell stack
Direct-methanol cell. (from Emerging technologies)
Self-replicating 3D printer (from Emerging technologies)
The Mars Exploration Rovers provided huge amounts of information by functioning well beyond NASA's original lifespan estimates. (from History of technology)
An axehead made of iron, dating from the Swedish Iron Age (from History of technology)
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that ice XVII (structure shown) potentially has a use in green technology as a medium for storing hydrogen?
- ... that the Society for the History of Technology gave Canadian historian Joy Parr a medal for lifetime achievement in technology history and awarded her book Sensing Changes the Edelstein Prize?
- ... that the melt-blowing technology used to create N95 respirators was previously used to produce ready-made ribbon bows and bra cups?
- ... that Suresh Jadhav led the development of the COVID-19 vaccine marketed as Covishield?
- ... that Guy Parmelin, now President of Switzerland, opened the study program of cyber security of the Lucerne School of Information Technology in 2018?
- ... that Carlisle & Finch used carbon-arc technology in both toy trains and military searchlights?
- ... that a researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation described Google's Federated Learning of Cohorts as "a technology that should not exist"?
- ... that Munster Technological University, scheduled to open in 2021, will be only the second university of its type in Ireland?
Top 10 WikiProject Technology popular articles of the month
ChatGPT on Google Chrome
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 families of large language models and has been fine-tuned (an approach to transfer learning) using both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. (Full article...)
Logo used since 2017
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google and is the second most visited website, after Google Search. YouTube has more than 2.5 billion monthly users, who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. , videos were being uploaded at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute. (Full article...)- Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of July 2022, Facebook claimed 2.93 billion monthly active users, and ranked third worldwide among the most visited websites. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s. (Full article...)
Musk in 2018
Elon Reeve Musk FRS (/ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the philanthropic Musk Foundation. With an estimated net worth of around $196 billion as of February 15, 2023, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, Musk is the second-wealthiest person in the world, according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes's real-time billionaires list. (Full article...)
The Google logo used since 2015
Google LLC (/ˈɡuːɡəl/ (
listen)) is an American multinational technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world" and one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the area of artificial intelligence. Its parent company Alphabet is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. (Full article...)
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for servers, and Windows IoT for embedded systems. Defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone. (Full article...)
WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by US tech conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. WhatsApp's client application runs on mobile devices, and can be accessed from computers. The service requires a cellular mobile telephone number to sign up. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. (Full article...)- YouTube Premium (formerly Music Key and YouTube Red) is a subscription service offered by the video platform YouTube. The service provides ad-free access to content across the service, as well as access to premium YouTube Originals programming produced in collaboration with the site's creators, downloading videos and background playback of videos on mobile devices, and access to the YouTube Music music streaming service. (Full article...)
Logo used since 2015
Netflix, Inc. is an American media company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it operates the over-the-top subscription video on-demand service Netflix brand, which includes original films and television series commissioned or acquired by the company, and third-party content licensed from other distributors. Netflix is a member of the Motion Picture Association—having become the first streaming company to become a member. (Full article...)
macOS (/ˌmækoʊˈɛs/; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and laptop computers it is the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of ChromeOS. (Full article...)
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- February 1, 2023 – Western Australian radioactive capsule incident
- A search team from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation and WA Fire and Emergency Services announces that they have found the missing caesium-137 capsule around 74 km (46 mi) south of Newman. (ABC News Australia)
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